Twitter in Church? What??????

Read this article yesterday and it seems to be passing around Twitter pretty well (Twittering in Church, With the Pastor’s Encouragement-Time.com). Reactions seem to be varied: from Bad Idea/Nuts… to Isn’t that just distracting? or irreverent… to Isn’t Mass already awesome?… to “Cool!” Here are my thoughts on this topic (in several characters OVER 140):

Overall I think the whole idea of tweeting in church is a GREAT idea. I think it is the natural extension of the way an entire generation (and some people on both sides of that generation) have learned to communicate and process information. The whole idea of “status updates” or “micro-blogging” is to share what one is doing, or thinking, or seeing, or hearing; To share in concise bits of info what is happening or engaging your attention right at the moment. For those that use social media to tell others about the significant and quirky things of their lives, why WOULDN’T they tweet in church?

Twitter is widely used by Christians and non-Christians alike. And many of the Christians who do, tweet and share regularly about what God is doing in their lives, prayer requests and answers, blog posts and articles that deepen and enrich and challenge their faith. Why not in a church “service”?

Expressions of worship. Tweets about what people are seeing and experiencing as God speaks and moves among the people. Sharing about the scriptures and the message of the teacher/preacher. And then kick it up another level when the leader/pastor/priest/speaker encourages or asks for twitter discussion to happen. Wow!

And the other amazing thing about all this? Whatever is tweeted goes PUBLIC. Believers, non-believers, the curious and the skeptic, the atheist and the agnostic, all get to follow along and get a taste of what God is doing among his people. The Spirit moves. The Word is proclaimed. Peoples spirits are touched with truth.  Now THAT is cool!!

Now it is very true that one could misuse this amazing tool called Twitter. That one could focus more on tweeting than on listening to God. That one could focus on the social networking “noise” instead of being quiet. That one could have wrong motives. That one could play with one’s phone rather than worship.

And then it would be just like every other tool and instrument and gift and form of communication ever used in a church.

Conclusion: Let’s think outside the box and avoid being stuck in a religious, traditional way of doing church.  Let’s ride the wave, and pastor it with wisdom and grace, and discernment. And let’s enjoy what God is doing with Twitter.

What do YOU think about Twitter in church?

Easter Monday and The Church Year

Today is Easter Monday, and not just in Canada. I’ve been reflecting again on how under-recognized and under-utilized the church calendar is. There seems to be 5 big approaches to the Church Year (IMHO), though of course I am generalizing to a point for ease of discussion:

1. High Church types that recognize the calendar and celebrate it fully.
2. High-churchers that recognize but disregard most of it because t has become empty, ritualized, or forced for them.
3. Low-chuchers who intentionally ignore or avoid the Calendar in the name of avoiding religiosity. Many evangelicals here.
4. Low-churchers who a basically unaware that there is anything other than Christmas and Easter in the Church year.
5. Then there are Gen Y’s that have been raised in the non-liturgical chuch who are looking for history, rootedness, deeper meaning and tradition. They have increasingly found liturgy, contemplative prayer, and the church calendar as amazing sources of life.  Not to mention the Gen Xers (and older) in the church who were raised to reject form, tradion, and all things “liturgical” who have found that same lack of rootedness and gone looking for something more.

Not sure where you might fit in my little continuum; I’d be somewhere in the middle of #5. My point for today is this:

Easter is not a day. Easter is a season (some say “Eastertide”).  ”Easter” is actually 50 days long, has Seven Sudays, and ends with Ascension Day and then Pentecost. Whyyy? Ok, glad you asked : )…

Becasue Jesus hung around with his disciples (not just the Twelve, mind you) for 40 days in his resurrected body before he ascended to heaven. Then, 10 days later was Pentecost. Why spend all that time lingering on the Resurrection. Because the original followers did.  Sweet!!!

Here’s a couple cool things to read on the subject, at Bosco Peter’s blog and at CRI Voice.  More thoughts to come throughout the season!

Countdown to Advent

Five days and counting….

Readers– some of you are saying:  “Awesome!”  Some of you are saying, “Huh?”  And some of you are saying, “Who flippin’ cares?”

Advent starts on November 30th this year.  The church has historically set aside four weeks to prepare for the celebration of the Lord’s first coming, His incarnation, His coming as a man.  Y’know.  That baby in a manger stuff.  I love it.

I’m not going to over-explain it here.  Check out some of these links here and here for a good run-down on the whole deal.  In brief, I think Advent is the time to meditate on the fact that there was a time in the world when Jesus, the Light of the World, had not yet come.  When the prophecies had not yet been fulfilled.  When the waiting, and the hoping, and the wondering if Messiah would actually come… was still very real.  And tuning in to that can prepare our hearts for a fresh revelation and embracing of that Messiah who was born.  Cool.

Meanwhile, what are you, or your small group, or your church doing to do Advent?  To prepare for Christmas?  Anything?  Let’s talk about it.  And, Lord willing, I want to talk about some things too.

Pre-Election Angst

Hey there.  I’m tired.  I’m tired of being tired.  Of the election.  Of the hype.  Of the rhetoric… and the ads… and the junk mail (from Elephants and Donkeys), not to mention the myriad of emails clogging up my inbox exhorting me to “Please read before you vote!”  As if I haven’t already heard that this candidate– or was it the other one… oh, no wait… it’s the other other one– is going to bring America (or the State, or the City) down into horrible, immoral, defeated, and impoverished times.  Sigh…..

Please pray.  And vote as your conscience and your sense of God’s leading dictates.  But if you’re all jumbled up, and concerned, and thinking that the nation, our way off life, and the Church is going down the crapper if a “certain candidate(s)” is elected, then STOP.

My wife just pointed me to this post below.  Please read it.  Seriously.

Help the Church. Vote For A Madman.

Kingdom Communion (part 1)

As promised, here are the guts of what I shared with the church on Sunday (more to come):

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

23For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

 

What is Kingdom Communion?

PASSOVER.  So often in the church “communion” can be a cracker and juice experience, kind of on the side of things.  But the bread and wine were originally part of a much bigger story.  The first “communion” meal, the “Last Supper” that Jesus shared with his disciples, was in fact a celebration of the Jewish Passover.  Jesus was a Jew, and so were His first followers. And they were doing Passover.

What they were celebrating was God’s rescue of His people from slavery in Egypt.  (Many of us know the story, but it is often not emphasized in our churches, at least in my expereince.  See Exodus 12.)  God told Pharaoh to let His people go, and Pharaoh said NO.  The final plague was coming: death to all the first born of Egypt.  But Moses told the people to slay a lamb and smear the blood on the doorposts of their houses… and when the plague came, that judgment would “pass over” them.  The end result was that the Israelites got freed from their slavery; and the rest (as they say) is history.

In the same way, what we celebrate in Communion is our rescue from the bondage of sin, and those that have the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, over them will be spared the judgment of God.  What Jesus was doing and saying in this meal was radical… provocative… and even dangerous.  He took the unleavened bread (already a part of the Feast) and broke it and said, “Hey, this is Me… and do it in remembrance of Me.  No, not in remembrance of Exodus 12 and the Passover… but in remembrance of Me.”  Seriously, Jesus?!?!

And then after supper, Jesus took the so-called “cup of redemption” (one of several cups of wine used in the feast) and said, “Hey, this is Me.  This is the new agreement (covenant) between God and humanity in MY blood… and do it in remembrance of (yep, you guessed it) ME.  Not in remembrance of that passover lamb who was killed and whose blood was poured out to smear on the door frame.  No, do it in remembrance of ME and MY blood that I am pouring out for you, and your rescue, and your forgivness.”  Seriously?!?!  This is the kind of truly off the freakin’ chain stuff that made the religious leaders of the day want to kill Jesus.  (And so they did.)

So when we take communion, remember that it’s really the Passover that you’re celebrating– drawing on all the weight and import and significance of that event– but not the old covenant Passover.  We celebate the new covenant Passover through Messiah Jesus, the Lamb of God.