Twitterable wisdom

This gem from a Downing comment:

There is nothing MORE churchy than having a Jesus sticker on your car and thinking that makes a difference.

Anyone want to RT that?

There is a serious point here, actually. Think about the two men on the road to Emmaus. They were looking right at Jesus and didn’t see him until he opened their eyes. (Luke 24:13-32)

They weren’t even looking at a bumper sticker; they were looking at the real, actual man with visible, recent scars on his hands.

Fame doesn’t bring people into God’s kingdom. Only Jesus does.

Impressive flexibility

A Sunday Noble tweet:

For far too long the church gathering on Sunday has been a pathetic farce.

Nine hours later:

When our “ministry” is to tear others down we make hell so proud.

Admirable intellectual flexibility.

Dangerous flirtations with heresy

This retweet from Brad Cooper is giving me heartburn tonight:

Acknowledging the historical fact of His resurrection doesn’t save u (James2:9). Being changed by His resurrection does (Rom6)

I think more highly of BCoop than some of you might suppose, so seeing him entertain this kind of idea stuns me. The cancer in the modern church movement is the tolerance for the denial of the historicity of Scripture (c.f. Rob Bell et al.) With this tweet, Cooper seems to be endorsing the idea that believing that the resurrection is a historical fact is optional to our faith.

No. No. No. No. No.

If we don’t believe that the resurrection is a historical fact, we are not going to be changed by it because we have no faith. The resurrection as historical fact is everything; without it, the foundation of our faith crumbles.

Yes, I was disappointed in the whole BAMF stuff, but this is much more serious. Perhaps he’ll retract and explain in an upcoming tweet. I really hope he does.

(BTW, I don’t get the James 2:9 reference. Is it a typo, or am I missing something? UPDATE: It was a typo. The proper reference is James 2:19.)

What happened to Tommy’s tweets?

You may have noticed that Tommy abruptly gave up his Twitter treatment this week.

He’s not the only one. According to this article, cool cyberkids are giving up social networking because there are too many grownups using the sites. Then there’s the Marines, who have banned Twittering for at least the next 12 months, effective immediately.

Who knew that Tommy was a too-cool-for-you Marine?

UPDATE: Tommy can live without Twitter, but apparently Twitter can’t live without Tommy. Tommy says goodbye, and Twitter falls apart.

Coincidence?

I think not.

Twitter confusion

Perry Noble tweeted this today:

Someone doesn’t like you…is it those who didn’t like Jesus OR those who loved Him but were rejected by the religious system of the day?

Honestly, I have no idea what that means.

Can someone with a secret decoder ring help us out in the comments section? I’ve lost mine.

A study in contrasts

Piper tweets this:

If someone offers you pleasure for 10,000 years, say, “No thanks…at HIS right hand are pleasures for EVERMORE” (Ps 16:11)

Perry tweets this:

Got a new T-shirt in support of breast cancer research that says, “Save a life, grope your wife.” Thinking about wearing it…should I?

(BTW, PN, the answer is no.)

Upon this rock

Noble’s Twitter:

WHAT IF this past 2,000 years of the church was merely the foundation to set up what God REALLY wants to do? That thought pumps me up!

Matthew Perry 16:18:

And I tell you that you are Perry, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

(Yes, Twit, that is an example of adding to the Bible.)

Sorry, Reformer Perry, but that ship sailed two thousand years ago.

Watch those line breaks

That 140-character limit on Twitter can come at bad moments. Like the one that caused this:

…Jesus will become less effective!!! Who are you focusing on?

Oops.

(Yes, it’s out of context. That’s the point.)

It’s all about me, except when it’s all about you

In comments to another post, Sophie passes along a useful set of insights from Josh Harris, via JPiper, on why sermons aren’t always best Twittered.

It got me thinking about a listen/speaking tension that sermon Twittering creates.

1. It’s all about me. The act of Tweeting assumes that there are people who care about what you are doing or thinking at that moment. Aren’t there times when we should be be quiet and just listen? He who has ears, and all that.
2. Except when it’s all about you. We all have a self-serving tendency when we hear a message that convicts us or challenges us to greater sanctification to think, “It’s too bad Joe isn’t here today; he really needed to hear this.” Twitter engages this deflecting response by turning us from listeners to messengers. As Harris said,
   

   Twitter, takes the focus off of hearing and receiving and and makes it broadcasting and sharing. So instead of my mind being engaged with thoughts of “What is the Word of God saying to me?” when I start “tweeting” my focus becomes, “What do I want to say? What do I want to express? What am I thinking?”

Sometimes when God speaks to us, the proper response is silence. From Job 40:3-5:

Then Job answered the LORD :

“I am unworthy—how can I reply to you?
I put my hand over my mouth.

I spoke once, but I have no answer—
twice, but I will say no more.”

Hey world, I need to go to the bathroom!

My family and I regularly enjoy watching America’s Funniest Home Videos, and over time we’ve come to recognize certain genres of clips that routinely make it into the show. One such genre is the toddler or young school kid who, often in the middle of some public performance, stops everything and announces in a loud voice, “Mommy, I need to go to the bathroom.”

It’s funny because it’s embarrassing for the parents, though I can’t say I’ve ever seen a clip of an adult shouting out the same thing. Sure, it would be embarrassing, but for very different reasons. It also probably wouldn’t be funny, except in a Jerry Lewis movie.

With that in mind, after a long flight last week from Atlanta to Honolulu, Perry Noble checked back in with his followers with this little observation:

Gotta tee tee SO bad…taking forever to get off of this plane!!!

One can just imagine the poor man standing trapped in the aisle, legs crossed and eyes bulging. Can I push past that lady? No. Can I climb over the seats? No. What can I do??? Got it. I’ll Twitter!

We’ve all been there, and I do empathize with his plight. I do. But isn’t there a kill switch on Twitter? (In radio, announcers use the kill switch to temporarily turn off the mic if they have to cough or do anything else of an embarrassing nature on the air.) Does Noble have no mental filter that asks, Should I really be saying this?

Perhaps I don’t understand this newfangled media world, but what would drive a man to report the state of his bladder to 8,000 people?

Gregg Doyel, a sports columnist for CBS, addressed a similar phenomenon with how sports stars and their fans use Twitter.

Twitter … is the new narcissism. For the sender, I mean. To wake up before 6 a.m. on a typical day, as [Lance] Armstrong did last week, and send a faceless, voiceless good morning to your “audience” … that’s the height of narcissism. You really must be self-centered to believe thousands of people are waiting to know you’re awake. But then, if you’re Lance Armstrong, you’re right. Thousands of people really are waiting….

For the receiver, Twitter is something even worse than narcissism. It’s voyeurism. And it’s pathetic. You can’t be Lance Armstrong, you can’t be his friend, but you can receive his tweets. So you do. Congratulations…

Am I sounding negative? Even petty? Sue me. Everybody has a limit, and I’ve reached mine with Twitter, which isn’t just the world’s fastest-growing social networking tool. It’s a religion, filling the hole in regular people’s regular lives. Twitter is society’s new church. It’s a personal savior. Twitter Christ….

For celebrities, Twitter is a gigantic ego stroke. It’s a game of narcissist strip poker, and you’re the thong.

Doyel started his rant after a simple “Good Morning.” Imagine what he might have said after receiving the reverend’s Tee Tee post.

Technology does not change truth

A modern preacher:

Last year, Voelz, a pastor, was tweeting at a conference outside Nashville about ways to make the church experience more creative — ways to “make it not suck” — when suddenly it hit him: Twitter.

Voelz and David McDonald, the other senior pastor at Westwinds Community Church in Jackson, Mich., spent two weeks educating their congregation about Twitter.

As expected, banter flourished. Tweets like “Nice shirt JVo” and “So glad they are doing Lenny Kravitz” flashed across three large video screens.

The ancient Preacher:

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. Go near to listen rather than to offer the sacrifice of fools, who do not know that they do wrong.

Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few.

As a dream comes when there are many cares, so the speech of a fool when there are many words.

A glittering example of Twitter wisdom

(Yes, Albert, that’s sarcasm.)

I must say that I have no idea what this means:

The church should be full of people who have been brought OUT of the womb rather than seeking to live in a tomb!!!

Life, if done right, always ends in a tomb.

All you ever needed to know about Twitter

Tommy just hit 500 followers.

It was impossible to concentrate

…when I read this post over breakfast:

The word “impossible” isn’t in God’s dictionary…we should remove it from ours!!!

I couldn’t be sure whether I was reading Noble’s or TFred’s Twitter feed. It was Noble’s.

Let’s think about this.

1. God uses the word (according to King James) no fewer than nine times, which is pretty impressive for a word that’s not in his dictionary.
2. Some things are impossible for God. Lying, for example.
3. God said that many things are impossible for us. So it really should stay in our dictionary.

However, if dictionary is not in your dictionary, you can ignore everything I’ve said.

Unfair and Unbalanced

Look who just got a Twitter account.