Slashdot Mirror
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."
The moment I find one church where its members love one another, do not judge for any reason especially reasons based on appearance (i.e. the clothing you wear, etc.), do not form little exclusive cliques as though this were high school, do not gossip about one another and refuse to entertain gossip about anyone else, understand the folly of anger and frustration, and show genuine loving-kindness instead of merely being nice because they are weak for the approval of others and worry about what other people think of them ... then, and only then, would I consider joining that congregation. Extra points if at least some of the sessions include material that is difficult and challenging and represents an understanding higher than your own so that you can strive to reach for it, rather than the easily understood (and easily heard) platitudes which are designed to appeal to (i.e. pander to) the masses.
Good luck with that.
BTW, the bible is one of the worst pieces of hate literature extant. It condoned slavery, commanded genocide, looked the other way over killing for lust (King David and Basheba - "David was a man after God's heart" even after he had her husband killed), mysogeny, hatred towards gays and lesbians, and a long slew of other crap. Truly, it is "nothing new under the sun", fit more for the toilet (just in case you run out of TP) than for moral instruction.