Tweeting in Worship
For years, church growth teams/committees (also known as evangelism, marketing/public relations, and outreach) have struggled with how to invest limited dollars to market the church to the larger community. Interestingly, research continues to show that word of mouth produces far greater results than direct mail, television/radio/newspaper ads, or other traditional marketing. Of course, this means motivating those already active in the community to share their experiences with others, which is exactly what tweeting is all about.
Twitter debuted in 2006 and didn’t have mass appeal until a few years later. 
Twitter’s continued growth has led many church leaders to begin considering how best to leverage tweets for ministry. Recent research suggests that there are around 75 million registered accounts on Twitter and that around 15 million are active users posting in excess of 1 billion tweets a month.
I am among those who have been asking questions. I tweet and welcome you to follow me. For the last three years, I served a large mainline congregation comprised of mostly mature adults. In that role, I never got around to removing my blackberry from my robe to tweet during worship, but did start to connect with the younger folks via social media. Since leaving that congregation, I have had the opportunity to visit and worship with multiple congregations. In this new role, I am free to tweet and have found myself looking forward to capturing insightful thoughts and passing them along to others. I intend to visit other churches and wonder when I will have my first experience of being encouraged in this endeavor through a written or verbal announcement or simply by seeing others tweet.
So What?
Whether you are for or against tweeting in worship, recognize that people in your midst are and increasingly will be moved to do so.
Scott Williams, Campus Pastor for the Northwest Oklahoma City Campus of LifeChurch.tv, recently wrote an atricle on why parishioners should be encouraged to tweet in church. The article first appeared on Church Marketing Sucks and is reprinted on his blog. Williams gives five reasons tweeting belongs in the sanctuary:
- You have the opportunity to be a real-time extension of your pastor’s voice while he/she is communicating God’s word.
- If the pastor shares something that moves you, inspires you or changes your life, there is a good chance it will have the same impact on the lives of some of your Twitter followers as well.
- When Jesus said: Go into all the world and preach the Gospel… “All The World” applies to the Internet world, as well as the Twitter World. Do your part by going into all the Twitter World, tweeting the Good News.
- You will have a stored database of your compelling thoughts and notes, from your favorite sermons. Use a #hashtag to keep up with the information that you share.
- Many times people suffer from (SADD) Sermon Attention Deficit Disorder. So instead of just wandering off into space, simply wander off into the space of the World Wide Web. It’s better use of your time Twittering great thoughts, instead of drawing on the back of offering envelopes.
If you believe in word of mouth advertising and consider social media, including Twitter, to be an emerging type of word of mouth, then what are you doing to encourage those in your congregation to tweet during worship and in response to what God is doing in their lives? Are you providing instruction to help those who tweet during worship do so in a way that adds to rather than detracts from the overall worship experience? Does your church have a Twitter account? Do your pastors or ministry directors/leaders?