by Corey Rose, Youth Pastor
Twitter.com has certainly created a new genre of web users. Some users post valuable status updates revolving around a particular theme like "Iran" or "Pizza in New York." But others seem to have been given the impression that the world is waiting for their every move to be posted so we, the voyeuristic masses, can peer through their virtual "glass house." That the world is saying "I love you, and I can't wait to invest my day in keeping up with you because I have absolutely nothing more important to do--the job can wait, I don't have any important phone calls to make or people to connect with in the outside world, the kids don't need me as much as I need you, PLEASE, update update update..." Perhaps this narcissistic trend is the result of poor parenting that created the so-called "me" generation. Or maybe it's the desire of the "entertainment" generation, that true entertainment is rooted in reality, to the point of micro-blogging details no matter how mundane or useless to the reader. -I know this sounds like rhetoric you may have heard, but it needs to be said.
In any case, when I decided to start a tweeting a few months back, I wasn't sure which aspect of my life I would write about. Should I tweet about teaching? Pastoring? Business? Web design? Family? The thought of the hour? I find all of these segments of my life very interesting, but do you? Probably not. If you're a pastor and I share a nugget of God's truth that has to do with pastoring, you might be interested in following. But you wouldn't care about the web design aspect. If you're a web designer and I share the link to some script that you might find useful, you might follow me. But you probably wouldn't care too much about my 1 year old daughter saying "I love you" last night.
With this reasoning, I feel like I can justify using Twitter's technology if it's in a way that brings substance to someone's online experience. Not a self-centered update on my daily activities, but valuable, timely updates on the bigger picture of which I'm a part of at Hilltop Community Church. I'll tweet updates and encouragement for the uplifting of my readers. I invite you to follow and I'll even follow your updates if you promise not to fill me in on what you ate for lunch, when you go to the bathroom etc... I think you get it-
You may part with my opinion and disagree on my philosophy of adding value to someone's online experience. But that's the beauty of tweeting or blogging or vlogging, you can voice your opinion, no matter how useful or useless it may be and you just may get heard.
Follow my tweets on Hilltop Community Church's Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/hilltopchurch
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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