A Congregational Twitter Stream?

If you look in the right-hand sidebar, you’ll see a new section called “Quick Thoughts.” Let me quickly tell you the main points of how I’m doing this and then strategize for a moment about how something similar might be useful for churches.

I’m a member of a few different social websites (I’ve linked to my profiles in case you’re interested):

LinkedIn (I use it 3-4 times a week)
Facebook (I use it every day, usually multiple times)
Plaxo Pulse (I don’t use it very much - someone invited me, so I signed up)
Plurk (I just signed up a couple of days ago - I’ve heard good things about it)

Of course, there are many other social networks. I also have a Twitter account (until recently, I hardly ever used it).

Most of these social networks have a way you can update your status frequently throughout a day. Some use this feature, some don’t. The people who use it most effectively are not talking about what they ate for breakfast, but are sharing quick links, thoughts, etc. At the moment, I’m probably a little bit too much on the side of “what I ate for breakfast!”

The problem I’ve had in the past with using these status updates is that if I’m a member of five different services (and could be a member of many, many more), how am I going to update my status on all of them? I could end up doing nothing but updating my status!

Enter ping.fm — it’s a service in beta which allows you to create one status update that then gets pushed out to all of your social networks. Plus, they have a feature which allows me to use GoogleTalk to send their automatic service an update and that update then gets pushed out to all of my networks. Since I do all of my email in gmail now, it’s very convenient for me to just click on the pingdotfm chat partner (as I said, it’s actually an automated service) and write out a quick couple of lines for my status, hit the enter button, and know that all of my social networks will soon (some in a matter of seconds) have my updated status.

The final piece of the puzzle is that Expression Engine (the content management system I use) has a plugin that allows me to display my Twitter status updates in the sidebar — that’s what you’re seeing in the “Quick Thoughts” section (since I was experimenting initially, you’ll see a duplicate entry or two — the duplicate entries should go away in the next few days as I add more updates).

As I was telling a friend about what I had set up, I started thinking about how a church could use this. If the majority of a church’s members had Twitter accounts, their updates could be combined into a “congregational Twitter theme” which would allow everyone to stay on top of what other members were up to. I have a feeling this would provide an enhancement to face-to-face community and bring people in a congregation closer together.

Does anyone know of any churches doing something similar to this? Just curious.

Posted by on 08/24 at 10:50 PM

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You may be interested in reading these articles which enumerate core principles of the strategy we advocate:

Effective Church Websites For Emerging Generations
Investigating the various ways in which a church's website can be targeted toward unbelievers in a church's local community.

A Strategy For Local Internet Outreach
How can the internet be used for evangelism and outreach while maintaining an environment of authentic Christian community?

Flawed Follow Up Or A Flawed Philosophy of Evangelism?
The ease with which we can “share the gospel” online can actually short-circuit the God-ordained process by which unbelievers are brought to faith.

Should We Include A Gospel Presentation On Our Websites?
Should conversion be our immediate goal in our internet evangelism efforts?

A Strategic Opportunity For The Church
A proposed strategy in which a church would use short video profiles of members of their congregation to entice unbelievers in their local area to consider the value of a local congregation’s ministry in their own lives.

2 John 12
Is there something incomplete about digital communication?

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Frank : reviewing SEO recommendations from our partner.

Wed, August 27, 2008 at 09:53 pm
Frank : Going to try and do some work on that major website relaunch/redesign to which I've been referring.

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Frank is gathering data to evaluate potential internal search partners for ecommerce sites.

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Frank is going through the drudgery of adding products to ecommerce sites. While boring, operational precision is vital to ecommerce.

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We work with several different organizations in exploring ways in which digital means can be used to reach an increasingly digital world. Some of these organizations are more traditional clients. Some are friends. All are our partners in the gospel (1 Corinthians 3:9). Invariably, we learn as much from them as they do from us. Here is a sampling:

David & Linda Arzouni
Assemblies of God missionaries to West Africa, based in Mali (the land of Timbuktu).

Assemblies of God
The Northern California and Nevada District, based in Sacramento, California.

India Prayer Drive
A 21-day prayer drive through the nation of India.

IreneDias.com
Although the suffering they face is severe, this is not a story of despair, but of an incredible faith and even more of an incredible God who sustains His followers with lavish grace, extravagant kindness, and unrelenting love.

Luis Palau Evangelistic Association
Proclaiming the Lord's Good News to the millions of people who have yet to respond to the Gospel.

Sacred Ink
Joyfully declaring the gospel to the tattoo subculture.

Santa Cruz Bible Church
Their evangelism department focuses on marketplace ministries.

ShareFest Santa Cruz County
Churches in Santa Cruz County, California join together to become a bridge from the church to the community through work projects designed to bless the community.

TimeOut Conference
Enabling a deeper relationship with God and more effective relationships with people.

Wake Up! Santa Cruz
Presenting the claims of Christ to the business community in Santa Cruz, California.

These are projects which we have initiated (either individually or as members of a team) in our efforts to use digital means to spread the gospel:

MissionEquip
MissionEquip.com was established to provide resources to missionaries and short-term missions teams traveling worldwide.

ChristianCruz
ChristianCruz.com is a localized portal for believers living in Santa Cruz County, California.

Prodigal God
ProdigalGod.com, a work in progress, is designed to provide biblical instruction to the wider body of Christ through the use of video teaching segments and written articles.

Christian Screen Savers
ChristianScreenSavers.com offers a selection of high-quality, inexpensive Christian screen savers which reflect biblical themes. Proceeds from the sale of these screen savers are used to support the work of Strategic Digital Outreach.

Blogs I Read

Adventures Of A Web Evangelist
The Appian Way
BetaChurch.org
BlogMinistry
BlogRodent
Boyink Interactive
Carpe' Digital
Christian Web Trends
Church Beauty
Church Communications Pro
Church Marketing Sucks
ChurchTechToday
Church Website & Blog Ideas
digital.leadnet.org
Digital Ministry
The Digital Sanctuary
e-vangelism.com
Effective Church Web Sites
Effective Web Ministry Notes
Equip Blog
Evotional
GodBit
Goodmanson
Gospelcon
Heal Your Church Website
If Jesus Had A Website
Leave It Behind
MicroExplosion
Outside The Box Ministry
Sacred Digital
So You Want A Church Website?
The Ultimate Issue
Web Evangelism Issues

A Congregational Twitter Stream?

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