Tweeting during church a help or a hinderance?

Yesterday, you spent time getting ready for church, going over you messages one more time, praying, greeting, and encouraging your congregation to tweet during the church message.

That’s right one church is doing exactly that - encouraging people to use the Twitter service and tweet (i.e. post) their thoughts as the sermon is preached. I’m not seeing the positive effect here as a youth pastor the last thing I wanted was my young people texting or surfing the web when I preached. Why would you want your whole congregation to do this?

I think Twitter is a fun online tool and networking site, but to encourage it during the church service is outrageous. How can one use an internet social network site during church and expect to have a growing relationship with God? Does a pastor really believe that his congregation will only tweet about the message?

For all you pastors, missionaries, deacons, evangelists, etc. don’t let anything take the place of the preaching of God’s Word or distract from it. It is the worship of God that we come together at church, not the worship of some online service. Let’s bring ‘em in, but preaching the Word of God and worshipping Him is second place, if that!

My question is why do we have to bring so much of the world into our churches? Is the preaching of God’s Word not enough? In all things He is to have preeminence, but tweeting in church is ok?

There are couple things you can do to help set the example for others:

1.Open your Bible not your PDA, laptop, etc. Don’t bring a mobile device as your Bible.
2.Use paper notes and not notes from a mobile device or laptop.

Here is the article that has set me on fire! Be sure to leave your comments below whether you agree or disagree with my thoughts. Feel free to tweet me if you like, too! :)

“SEATTLE - The Mars Hill Church in Seattle's Ballard neighborhood is not your grandma's church. On Sunday, the pastor's sermon was being broadcast on large video screens to accommodate his laryngitis and the congregants in church were broadcasting on their iPhones.

They weren’t talking, but “Twittering,” typing in brief thoughts or messages for their friends to read in real time.

"How does the service impact them, what does worship feel like to them and its a good way for them to kind of tell their friends what church is about without their friends even coming in the building,” aid Kyle Firstenberg, Mars Hill Campus Administrator.”