I love Twitter, and because of Twitter I have been led to some incredible information I would of probably never seen or heard about.
But, I have found there are a lot of Pastors and Christians in general who are using Twitter in their ministry that are just so incredibly boring.
I know that every one has the right to use Twitter or any other social media how they like, and I may be completely off the mark with this post, but when I look at following a Pastor in particular, I kinda expect to receive a few scriptures now and then, maybe some guidance or spiritual insight, some breaking news that may affect the Church and Christianity or even the odd Prayer request.
But sadly, the majority of the time, all I get from Church leaders are tweets about, who they are having dinner with, what movie they are watching with their wife or what cafe’ they are at, and so on.
It is such a shame that this is the best we are getting from our Church leaders when it comes to using this incredibly powerful social networking tool.
Tweets about sipping lattes in beach front cafes at 10 o’clock in the morning, when everyone else is slogging it out at work isn’t very uplifting or inspiring in my opinion, and being constantly told how Awesome church is going to be looses it’s Awesomeness after a while.
Now please don’t get me wrong, I love church, I think church IS Awesome and just like every one else, Pastors need time out to recharge, relax and fellowship, but if your going to be using Twitter in your ministry, there needs to be a balance.
If it’s constantly all about YOU, your tweets will seem irrelevant to the people following you.
People will still follow you, but it may end up being out of a sense of loyalty or obligation, but in all likelihood, you definitely run the risk of fewer and fewer people reading your tweets, every time your avatar shows up, automatically people will assume your talking about your self again and they just won’t bother reading what you have to say.
Please don’t take what I am saying as an attempt to beat up on pastors, I am not, I eagerly follow a handful of Pastors and I love what they send out through twitter, I am just trying to explain that…
There is a better way to use Twitter to engage the people in your ministry.
I guess getting started on Twitter can be fun and exciting, you open a new account and it’s like you want to tell the world, “Hey, Look at me I’m on Twitter“, and every single Tweet is all about you, I mean Twitter does ask What Are You Doing? doesn’t it?
But as an avid student of social media and a Twitter user myself, I have found that the people who are most successfully using Twitter are the people who are…
- Constantly engaging with their followers.
- Sharing useful and relevant resources to their list of followers.
- Re-tweeting the Tweets from the people they follow.
- and
- Think more about providing quality content to their list rather than just sending out a Tweet for the sake of Tweeting.
If you want to use Twitter effectively, then there has to be a balance, a balance between what your doing, what the people you follow are doing and what information you can share that will help the people who are following you.
When you actually stop and think about the concept of real people, living real lives, who have to deal with real life issues, who are following you on twitter, how many of these people do you honestly think want to know that your Driving to Church? or Having Coffee with Friends?
Some things to consider for using Twitter in ministry.
- If you read a good news story, blog post or see a great video online and you think other people would find it useful then tweet it. (even if it is a post from a Pastor that doesn’t belong to your Church)
- Tweet out prayer requests.
- Share Scriptures and spiritual revelations.
- Testimonies of healing and Salvation.
- News on missionary work.
- and so on,
Remember, Twitter in ministry is not all about YOU, Remember the words of Christ when he talked about the greatest among us will be a servant of all; Matthew 20:26-28
Be the servant on Twitter, your followers will thank you for it.
