Twitter and Church (Part 2)

In recent weeks both John Piper and Josh Harris have written about their disagreement with Tweeting during a church service. As I shortly discussed in my last post on this subject, the primary argument that stands with the most validity is that of distraction. This is the general argument made by Josh Harris in his recent post. Here are the six points that Harris presents for not encouraging Twitter in church…

1. Playing with my iPhone(or cell phone or Blackberry) during the sermon will likely distract me. I’ll be tempted to check my email or read my Twitter feed that has nothing to do with the sermon.

2. Even if I didn’t look at anything else, the mere act of “tweeting” some quote or question or thought from the sermon would be several minutes in which I wasn’t actively listening to the sermon. Brain space would be taken up with typing and getting my word count under 140. God’s word preached is so important, so precious, I don’t want anything to distract me from hearing it. What if those two minutes in which I’m distracted are the two minutes my soul needs the most?

3. The most important thing I can do while I’m sitting under the preaching of God’s word is to listen to what God is saying to me. I need to actively engage my heart and mind to receive (Isaiah 66:2). Twitter, can take 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?”

4. I think we all need to ask what our example says to other people we’re worshiping alongside. Can a person look at me during the worship and see from the way I sit, listen and engage that the Bible is “breathed out by God” (2 Tim. 3:16), and worthy of honor, that preaching is valuable? Of course this applies to a lot more than the issue of Twitter. If I’m nodding off to sleep, reading the bulletin, staring off into space or filing my finger nails it can send the wrong message, too. So what does someone think if they see me playing with my cell-phone during the sermon? “Oh, he must be so enamored with the truth of God’s word that he’s using Twitter to share the truth he’s just heard with the world! God, your word is glorious!” Uh, I really don’t think so. They’ll probably think, “I should pull out my phone…wonder if I’ve gotten any email.”

5. Just because something is incredibly popular in culture doesn’t mean we have to accommodate it in our worship. Who cares if the whole world is talking about Twitter? Lost people in this world don’t need to see that we’re current with the latest trend, they need to hear God’s unchanging truth (see 1 Peter 1:24-25). They need to understand that God’s word makes a demand on their life. And they should see from us a reverence and holy awe in the presence of God and his word that points them to the fact that what happens in a Christian church is completely different than anything happening in the world.

6. My final reason for why Twitter should be left at the door when we come to church is very simple: you can tweet about the Sunday service after church. I’m not a Twitter hater. In fact I love the idea of members of my church reviewing their notes and tweeting about what God spoke to them during the message. But they can do that later on Sunday afternoon and nothing will be lost.

I would say that Harris presents a pretty good argument, and as you can see, most of it rests on the argument of distraction, i.e. starting with Twitter and moving to email, texting, etc., or missing some of the sermon during tweeting, or being a distraction to others around you. I think that this is a valid argument.

The 5th point made might be what I liked best. I think that it can be very beneficial to be up to speed with technology and social trends, but sometimes churches can be too quick to jump on every bandwagon that comes down the road. If you do use Twitter, Facebook, etc. and endorse the usage of these things during a service, then do it wisely and strategically, not just because you read about another church doing it. Weigh out the positive and negative aspects of using Twitter in church and don’t lose sight of your priorities of worship and preaching.