Christian Social Networking - Linked in Jesus

So I’ve been using Twitter and Facebook Status Updates (e.g., “What are you doing now?”) for awhile now. If you are not familiar with them, these “mini-blogs” or as they are official called “tweets” are a way to use the web and your mobile phone to update others on what you are doing. This is fairly new and, as with most new technology, tend to be adopted by Christians and non-Christians alike without any questions regarding their implications.

What I have noticed is that some people use tweets to try to impress others. They only tweet when they are doing something “important”. Perhaps tweets reflect real life, and so it could be argued that the same people who go to great extent to impress others in real life are the people that use tweets to try to impress on-line. But in my limited observations, I have been surprised that some people I think are “real” in person seem to be the ones using tweets to impress on-line.

Some might argue that you should not read into tweets at all, and perhaps I am wrong in attempting to determine intent and motivation for tweets, when perhaps all someone is doing is just sharing what they are doing. But I think tweets do give an indication as to personality, motivation, etc., and as we start to connect and communicate in this way, it becomes the way we get to know people and the way they get to know us. None of us ever took at class on “proper tweet ettiquette” or were told when to or when not to tweet, so it is a very interesting social phenomenon to observe.

I recently heard a sermon by on of our church staff, Libba Tullos, about the importance of getting real with others, taking off our masks, and forming real relationships. The sermon was about letting people in, and letting people get to know you. So my point with my recent “Lee is going to the bathroom” tweet is that as we Twitter and tweet, we should not be out to impress. We need to “take off the mask” and be real with one another. And as we read the tweets of others, we should never feel inferior or that we don’t measure up, because Jesus died for each of us and we are all special in God’s eyes. And we all go to the bathroom.

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