Churches Use Twitter To Reach a Wider Audience

In an attempt to reverse declining attendance figures, many American churches are starting to ask WWJD in 140 or fewer characters. Pastors at Westwinds Community Church in Michigan spent two weeks teaching their 900-member congregation how to use Twitter. 150 of them are now tweeting. Seattle's Mars Hill Church encourages its members to Twitter messages during services. The tweets appear on the church's official Twitter page. Kyle Firstenberg, the church's administrator, said,"It's a good way for them to tell their friends what church is about without their friends even coming in the building."

Comments

this is idiotic.

[nimbius]

its neither news for nerds or stuff that matters... car dealers, the president, software companies and buddhists use twitter.

if twitter had collaborated with jesus to produce an api through which church members could send prayers, that might be. or, if jesus intended to announce the rapture through tweet as stated in his microblog, i might care.

On the fence on this

[Taimat]

I'm a Christian, and I'm a tech. (I don't use twitter - I don't see a point to it). I do however, understand that this is another way to let people know what your particular church is about - on the other hand, I think this can be really distracting for those in the congregation that are trying to listen to the message for the day. I heard about this last week on K-Love (National Christian radio station) and will be interesting to see how it works out. (I don't see this lasting long)

Re:On the fence on this

[LWATCDR]

I love how you say they can not be judgmental and must be understanding of others faults and they say that you will not go to a church unless all the members meet your requirements.

The failings of the other people in the church shouldn't matter to you. People will tend to cluster a bit around people they get along well with. They will tend to be make mistakes. Church isn't a home for the perfect it is a halfway house for the imperfect.
It doesn't matter if it is a Christian church or a Buddhist temple.
Heck you will even see the same failings you mentioned at a Linux Users Group or Slashdot.

Re:On the fence on this

[LWATCDR]

"When someone can go to the same church for years without making progress towards losing those negative tendencies and replacing them with an overcoming love for humanity, then there is something wrong with that church. Something critical is missing. Note, I said making progress; I did not say "perfect absolute mastery". I would compare it to someone who attends a programming class for four years and after those four years, is still incapable of writing a "Hello World" program in the language of their choice. It indicates something is very wrong with the class. "
In a school you would be kicked out of the class long before that time. A church will keep let you trying well most of them.
If you don't want to go to a church and or don't believe in what they teach that is one thing. But again you are making a judgment as to that persons progress. Do you really know where that person started? Do you really know where that person is? How do you know what progress they made unless you are that person.
I find the obsession with all these other people to be the part I don't get. You even speak about what a Taoist would say but yet you still judge the value of a churches teaching from the most superficial and external signs possible.
If you have no desire to go to a church that is fine and dandy. Each person has to find their own way to the truth. I personally believe that almost nobody every figures out even the majority of the truth in their life time.
But I would say that you should do a little check on that judging other people thing.

Re:*not* Mars Hill again...

[Marxist Hacker 42]

Isn't that the basic description of 6th generation American Protestantism in general? After all, you can't fill the megachurch with actual *SUBSTANCE* or *ORTHODOXY*- or even suggesting maybe being poor *might* be the fault of certain other groups taking more than they need.

Re:Its a shame

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And what is left, when you take away the godless heathens, are orthodox people who can actually think and whose religion isn't opposed to rationality and science at every turn.

Atheism & Consistency

[geoffrobinson]

I believe the scientific process and theism go hand in hand. On the other hand, atheists have to be inconsistent with the outworking of their atheism. To use your language, the atheist not only has to make concessions but has to capitulate.

If you believe God orders and sustains the universe, what would be inconsistent with theism and science? Now inconsistent with science-ism? Yes.

Now an atheist who assumes that we weren't put here for any particular reason should assume that we weren't designed for any particular reason. We weren't designed to apprehend truth. The thoughts in our heads are just atoms bouncing around in our heads in accordance with the laws of physics & chemistry. The best you could say is that our mind is designed to pick up chicks.

So if we have no basis for assuming the truth of our thoughts, how is atheism consistent with science?

And it doesn't stop there. You have laws of physics hanging in mid-air not supported by anything. No reason to assume they will stay the same (see David Hume atheist philosopher if you disagree). You have immaterial laws of logic that a materialist tries to use.

And even worse you have people like Dennett who try to be consistent with their atheism and then go on to say that the concept of self is an illusion. But go the whole way and ask who is arguing what.

Frankly, I've never run into an atheist who operates completely consistently with his own atheism. It's an impossible task.

Re:simple messages

[MightyMartian]

The best religions seem to have the simplest messages, messages that simple people can grasp and easily understand.

Like "DO EXACTLY WHAT I TELL YOU, OR YOU'LL BURN!!!!!!"

Beyond that, could you define "best". Hinduism and Catholicism have a rather large number of adherents, for instance, and I'd hardly call them simple.