I’ve spent a lot of time involved with social media and ministry, and I feel like it’s been a bit overblown in the past. In my opinion, social media such as twitter, facebook and youtube is going to level out a bit this year. I’m hopeful that ministries will embrace social media as it is a great tool for building community, but too much of a good thing can be a distraction and serve to disconnect people. I’m also hopeful that people will strive more for face-to-face connections rather than being trapped by exclusive online communication.

Just as aol and myspace have gone through culture shifts, I sense twitter and facebook will go through similar phases when it comes to its use in ministry. I truly believe this to be a good thing.

What are your thoughts? How do you see your use of social media ministry changing in 2011?

Yes, it is possible to unfollow everyone on your twitter account all at once. I chose to re-start my account from zero and after some experimentation, learned how this can be done:

1. Set up a new email account using a free service such as gmail or yahoo.
2. Change your twitter account name to something else…anything else.
3. Change your email address associated with your twitter account to your new email address.
4. Confirm the account change using the automated email sent by twitter.
5. Once all is confirmed, cancel your twitter account.
6. Go back and re-register your old account name on twitter.

Act fast through the process to make sure no one snatches up your twitter account name after you let it go. This lets you completely batch unfollow everyone and lose all of your followers at the same time so you can start from scratch and reset your follow/follower lists. This is especially useful if you’ve been loaded up with spam bots following you, or if you follow thousands of people and want to go back to just following a few that you want to stay connected with. Happy tweeting!

It seems that when I re-started my twitter account a few weeks ago--taking it from 1800+ followers down to 0--it caused a lot of confusion. Therefore, I figured an explanation was in order.

It had nothing to do with spammers or bots following me. I have been pretty good about keeping up with those. It was just a personal decision I made based on the way I use twitter. You see, I use twitter to develop and facilitate conversation and relationships. It’s a great networking tool that has kept me in constant contact with the friends I cherish from the first The Idea Camp in Irvine, CA in February 2009. To have connected with most of them on twitter and then having a chance to meet them in-person was great. Some people I had met in-person at The Idea Camp were then connected afterwards via twitter. I value my friendships and appreciate having a tool to stay connected with them in-between times when I can make it out to meetups with them. Along the way I have connected with over 1,700 other people on twitter. What I’ve found is this: my twitter connections seem to have seasons. Some people will connect heavily for awhile, then disappear. Others will connect once or twice and then stop. Then some, like my The Idea Camp tribe of friends, will stay connected forever. Using lists and tweetdeck columns just wasn’t working for me. In fairness, what’s the point of following someone on twitter if I never engage (or in many cases, even see) their tweets? To me, twitter is like community. Community is engagement. Community is sharing and living life together. Therefore, rather than try to scan through 1,800+ followers and decipher who was really engaged with my tweets and who really could care less, I figured the best thing to do was to just start over. I’m sure many people that followed me previously put me in some column that they never looked at anymore and were still following out of courtesy. Well, now they have been released and given the option to intentionally follow me back if they want. If not, no worries!

For me, if I can have less than 200 people I follow on twitter and have them follow me in return because we share in community, then that would be ideal. I don’t need to broadcast to the masses and my worth and influence aren’t measured by the number of my twitter followers. As seasons change, my follow/followers change as well. It’s just the nature of life and community.

Twitter is now manageable for me once again and I feel much better connected to my friends now vs 6 months ago. If you followed me in the past and thought you were still following me, chances are you are not. If you haven’t realized that you have not seen a tweet from me in about 3 weeks and haven’t wondered what happened, then you are probably one of those people that stopped caring anyways. Maybe it just slipped your mind.

My best wishes to you all as you transition through your changing seasons as well.

One of the issues I have with the attractional model of church is that the church is always doing what it can to draw people to itself. It can come across as asking people to come into the church and see how Christians act for an hour on Sunday, rather than going into the world and sharing Christ with them where they are at. Many instances of giving or acts of service for the attractional church come at a price. That price is fame and notoriety and glorification of the church. Ever notice how a group of church members all agree how cool it would be if they went out onto the streets downtown and gave water to homeless people on a hot day? The notion is a good one and it meets a need, but then why does the water bottle need to have a label with the church logo on it? Seriously, are they expecting the homeless people to travel from their downtown shelter to the suburban outpost where you conduct Sunday services? Why do you need the church-branded water bottle? Who does that message connect with? It’s just an outward sign to show that XYZ Church of The Suburbs came into an area where homeless people congregate and gave them some water. Does anyone else find anything wrong with that?

I don’t know if you heard the news about Drew Carey giving $1 million to help fight cancer if he gets 1 million followers on twitter by the end of the year (Read about the story titled, “Make Drew Carey Give Away $1 million” by clicking here). So, Drew Carey makes the announcement, which gets picked up by the news agencies, and then he writes a blog post about his thoughts post-announcement. In essence, he makes a point that our giving should be done in secret. We shouldn’t broadcast our giving for the world to know about it, if it is the notoriety that motivates our gift more than compassion for our fellow human beings. Funny thing is that Drew uses Matthew 6:1-4 as an example of how we should not make our giving a public enterprise, but then goes into a sort of exegesis to breakdown the intent and content of the passage in Matthew:

This is from the New Testament, Matthew 6:1-4 (NIV) “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

I’ve always used that as the general rule for my charity giving. It’s tough to do when you’re famous though. I get invited to a lot of things involving a charity auction of some kind where I have to announce to everyone how much I’m giving just to be able to give money and get the auction item. But I still think it’s better to just give the money and shut up about it whenever you can. Don’t take out an ad. Which is why I’ve been feeling the way I’ve been feeling.

But I’ve also been thinking a lot about the meaning of that passage lately, and maybe I got it wrong.

Jesus is talking about intent here as well as action, no? If the intent of your charitable contribution is to let everyone know what a big man you are, then verily I say unto you that the good karma stops there. But if you would just do all your giving in secret, well then… problem solved without even thinking about it. Theology students and bible scholars, feel free to chime in via the comments section.

My guess is I fall somewhere in the middle on this. My intent is totally pure, but I did it publicly AND asked for something in return (a million followers), so see you in hell. (Ha ha. Just kidding. The idea of a bunch of people suffering for all eternity in a big cavern of fire being poked in the butt with pitchforks by demons and whatnot was made up by Dante. It’s not really in the Bible. The concept of hell is, but not the pitchfork in the butt stuff.)

If one is a celebrity like Drew Carey, I can see how giving in secret every time could be difficult or maybe even impossible. Being the host of The Price is Right and on our tv screens every weekday, it’s obvious he doesn’t need to do anything to gain more attention to himself. Therefore, I believe that his intent was to be gracious and to give to others. I also believe that even Drew makes millions of dollars per year as a celebrity, that writing a check for $1 million to help find a cure for cancer is not pocket change for him. However, what about us as the church? How do we give? What do we expect in return?

Mr. Carey declares in his blog post:

And though I’m now miles from what you would call a practicing evangelical, a lot of the teaching I received from that time in my life still sticks with me. After all, good advice is good advice. Doesn’t matter where it comes from. Nowadays I’ll take a spiritual lesson from wherever I get it: Jesus, Buddha or the guy who cuts me off on the 101.

Knowing that there are some instances of profanity in Carey’s blog post and an admission that he spent his youth as part of a Pentecostal church, I think we in the church would tend to disregard Carey as not being relevant to us. For me, I argue that Drew is absolutely relevant to us and that we can learn from him. If someone can take the Scripture and not try to take it out of context, and even go the extent of using it to sort of convict himself of doing something that may have went outside of his personal beliefs as to what is right, that speaks volumes to me! In a world where so many people try to take examples from the Bible and extract them out of context as proof of how God does not operate under grace and love, I am encouraged to see someone in the public spotlight like Carey studying a Bible passage and relating it to his own life in a positive way. If only more Christians would do the same thing, we could then show the world that we aren’t just blindly following some ancient book that has no merit or relevance to our lives today. May we examine how we give…why we give…what expectations or demands we place on our gift, and shed our nature of seeking recognition for our acts of kindness. Instead, may we give from a clean and pure heart and bless others rather than seeking to be blessed ourselves.

Thank you Drew Carey for making this Evangelical Christian analyze how I give to others and how we as the church can learn from people outside of the church, Buddha, or the guy that cuts us off on the freeway. Thank you for your compassion for others and for your openness in sharing your thoughts on your blog.

PS. For those of you on twitter, won’t you help Drew Carey (@drewfromtv) raise money for the fight against cancer by simply becoming a follower? Who knows, you may get some wisdom along the way as well :)

Rick Warren (@rickwarren) is new to twitter, but man did he hit the ground running! I remember when I first came to know the Lord, The Purpose Driven Life was *the* first book I read after the Bible. Pastor Rick has been an influence in my Christian life from the beginning.

I have since felt like I needed to follow a different, somewhat unconventional path in my journey as a church planter, but Rick has been a welcome addition to my twitter stream and I get wisdom and encouragement from his tweets. In fact, I often find myself re-tweeting him for those that don’t follow him on twitter yet.

Being that Pastor Warren is so prominent in the media and travels the world in his ministry *and* pastors one of the largest churches in America, it is humbling to know that he still takes time to share wisdom and encourage us church planters through his daily tweets. If you haven’t followed @rickwarren yet, do so now! Here is a bit of what you have missed so far:

• If u follow the crowd you’ll be lost in it. Your choice:Cool or Christlike?”They loved praise of men more than God”Jn12:43
• In the presence of a psychiatrist, I can only be a sick man; In the presence of a Christian brother, I can dare to be a sinner.” -Bonhoeffer
• Warren’s Law: A celebrity’s insecurity is measured by the length of their limo. Service,not status,creates self-worth.
• What u LOVE MOST is seen in your schedule& bank statement. How u use your time & money shows what matters most to u.Mt.6:24
• Never let ego slights,petty jealousy,or prideful bickering,keep u from the great work God gives u.Its not about u.Ph3:13-15
• Marriage doesn’t create problems;it reveals them Nothing exposes our inate self-centeredness faster. Pr.18:10, James4:1
• God loves ALL styles as long as worship is “in spirit & truth”(Jn 4:24) It must be Authentic&Accurate.Devotional&Doctrinal.
• Humility isnt thinking less of yourself. It’s thinking of yourself less.If you focus on others, you forget you.1Cor10:24
• I know God allows vicious attacks in my ministry so I can encourage the rest of u when u face it. 2 Cor1:4 It’s a honor.
• The reason I tweet often about criticism is our 2yr survey of pastors showed it’s ur #1 frustration.#2conflict #3loneliness
• To insist on being “original or nothing” insures youll be both.Refusing to learn from models is pure & simple ego.Pr.14:6
• When I hear”I didnt get anything out of worship today” I say”Sorry but our worship wasnt done 4 u.It was 4 God.”1Chr.16:29
• Doubts r meant to be doubted &beliefs meant to be believed.Dont get it backwards.Doubt ur doubts! Believe ur beliefs!Mk9:24

Pastor Rick, thank you for sharing your insight & wisdom for me as a new Christian in The Purpose Driven Life, and know that I appreciate your encouraging words and Scripture reminders via your ministry on twitter. Your heart and service for church planters is unprecedented on twitter and you have--and will continue to--bless us through your tweets. Thank you for paving the way!

@jasonmitchener is someone that doesn’t fit neatly into my list of twitterers that I follow. He’s not a lead pastor or church planter, but he is one of the most encouraging people I have met on twitter. I don’t exactly remember how I came across Jason Mitchener‘s tweets, but so thankful that I did. You see, Jason is someone living the life many of us wish we could, only he’s confined to a wheelchair and breathes through the aid of a ventilator. While I find it very, very difficult to keep up with a little over 340 twitterers, Jason follows over 23,000 tweeple with about 24,000+ following his tweets. The crazy thing in all of this is that whenever I @reply Jason, he responds almost immediately…he’s never missed a beat!

Jason is a wonderful human being with a heart for all people. He is a living testimony to ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ, coming to know Christ in his freshman year of college. If Jesus were walking the earth today gathering together disciples, Jason would probably be the first person he called to drop his net and become a fisher of men.

To me, twitter is about relationships and connectedness. Jason is the epitome of a great twitterer--he knows me and has a positive word for me even though he has over 24,000 other people following him daily. It just amazes me and leaves me in awe of his memory and awesome personality.

Rather than list some of the thousands of tweets he has posted as encouragement to others, just know that he is one of the few people on twitter where when you go to his profile page, 99% of his tweets are @replies of encouragement or communication with other tweeple. He doesn’t boast of his own work, nor does he have an agenda. Mr. Mitchener is definitely someone you should be following! He’s just a great guy sharing the love of Christ with others in a loving and non-threatening way. God is using what some may see his disability as a magnificent ability to testify to the love, grace, and wonder of God. As Jason quotes on his profile page, “I can’t walk, but I can soar.” Yes my friend, you can definitely soar! Thanks for making twitter (and the world) a better place :)

PS. Not only is Jason sharing light on twitter, but he is a gifted artist, musician, author and inspiration speaker. You can learn about Jason’s work and his testimony at his website: www.jasonmitchener.com.

Dave Anderson is the lead pastor of Crosspoint Community Church in Decatur, Alabama. He is better-known on twitter as @moviepastor. I first found Dave through a search on twitter of church planters almost a year ago. I knew of him through his blog beforehand. The thing that I appreciated immediately about his tweets was that he was sharp with his humor and approached ministry and being a pastor in a very different way. Also, until recently, Dave Anderson was a bi-vocational pastor which is another thing that we had in common.

As things have been blowing up (in a good way!) at Crosspoint lately, his tweets have taken on more of a leadership perspective, which has been great. I’ve also been blessed to have the chance to speak to him a couple of times by phone when we were doing preview services for Revolution Church Sacramento back in June. Through all he was doing he still took time to pick up the phone and call me and pray for our new work here in Sacramento. It was very humbling that he would share time with me knowing that people are now standing in line to pay him for his church plant coaching services.

Dave is an amazing guy, has a great perspective on life and ministry, sees the church as something of beauty and compassion, and injects some witty humor into many things. I learn a lot from Dave and enjoy many laughs from his tweets. He is a proponent of people not sucking when they twitter and a great example of how to get people to follow because of their interest in what one says through twitter. Be warned in advance though: he’s passionate about his college football!

Here’s a few of the things @moviepastor has tweeted recently:

• Gods workin. Devils kickin. We win. nuff said!
• no, really Thursday! I love you because of your personality. not because you have a nice college football game!
• dang @pwilson = #bromance #thenines -- and no I dont envy his hair at all
• why am I not excited about the beatles rock band or possible iTunes debut? oh. b/c I don’t like their music at all!
• once again my genius and my inability to follow thru on it amazes me! maybe I will learn something at #thenines that will help
• 14 year old kid shot dead breaking and entering in decatur today. people r dying and need Jesus! we have to go full throttle to tell em!
• surely my blog was just overlooked -- or maybe I was the 101st top church blogs- http://bit.ly/QeQJU
• my wife said making her wear a team jersey and goin to chik-fil-a for free sandwiches does not count as date night.
• the world needs Jesus. what are we doing about that people?
• @joshtalks awesome!! more ppl to party with in heaven!!!
• Its about to be on like Donkey Kong @moviechurch! Cant wait! We are wrapping up FAQ today and this is the hardest one yet!
• A fat lady may be warming up in Oklahoma
• yes I am listening to China Grove at Full Volume -- and so should you!
• at the risk of splitting my church in half I just need to get this out -- ROLL TIDE ROLL!
• God just turned the firehose on for my sermon sunday. uh…..mazing. Love it when he shows me stuff like this! Hope I dont screw this up!
• I didnt tweet or facebook for 2 days -- making up lost time. The internet may lag a bit.
• watching Pale Rider. only Clint Eastwood can wear a scarf and maintain his manliness! I want a hat like that though.
• having this thought -- what do i need to do to have a profound impact on this world? am I willing to do it?

Pastor Dave, thanks for your awesome support and encouragement during preview services for our church plant. It’s an honor to know you and take a peek into your life and experiences through twitter. May we have the chance to meet one day over some BBQ and a swim in your pool in Decatur. Thanks for not sucking on twitter!

I am not sure I can say this and have people quite get it, but I fell in love with a man named Steve Harrison (@steveharrison) last year. We met as a result of the first One Prayer campaign sponsored by LifeChurch.tv. Steve was a incredibly encouraging and uplifting guy. One of those people that not only said they would pray for me & my church plant, but he actually prayed and followed up. He helped keep me focused and pursuing a dream that God had put in my heart and I am forever indebted to him for his love and service. All of this leads me to Michael Harrison (@michaelharrison), who I connected with on twitter as a result of his being Steve’s brother.

Michael is the lead pastor of  The Community Fellowship in Collinsville, VA and a tremendous servant of God. While initially started following Pastor Harrison on twitter because he was Steve’s brother, I quickly learned that Michael would be a huge source of encouragement in my life. Just like Steve, Michael has prayed for me countless times and checks in on me to see how I’m doing. I am always inspired by seeing how much he is able to accomplish and how genuine he in his love for his fellow human being. He is truly a blessing to God’s kingdom!

Through following @michaelharrison I get a great reminder of God’s encouragement through his word and that I need to remember it’s never about me and that I am to be in service to others. Michael is out there doing battle for the sake of social justice every day & still finds time to make real connections on twitter and pastor a church and be a husband and dad. Where he finds the energy can only be from on high. I look up to Michael a lot and look forward to meeting him (and Steve) in person some day.

Here are a few tweets from @michaelharrison that spoke to me:

• you’ve got to meet my wife. Go read “Our Anniversary” http://e-devotion.blogspot.com (today is our 16th anniversary) She doesn’t twitter yet
• paying bills is NOT one of my favorite things. Yet I love @jsangl for leading us into @IWasBroke so we can win with our money. Glory to GOD
• Proverbs 4:23 (GWT) -- Guard your heart more than anything else, because the source of your life flows from it. // HUGE verse. Do it Pray it
• Proverbs 4:10 (GWT) — My son, listen and accept my words, and they will multiply the years of your life.
• @steveharrison that is awesome about Jermaine. Praying that this will move heaven toward lots of kids & their families, Steve. Proud of u!
• Love stories of #lifechange . Going to meet with a grandma who accepted Jesus in Feb. Her grand daughter is now asking. Sweet. #GIGATT
• gonna spend the rest of the day being quiet, listening & resting. I’ve not been feeling great. But have seen God do great things. C U later

Thank you Pastor Harrison for encouraging me through your heart for others. You unshakable faith and love for others amazes and inspires me. Thanks for your friendship and prayers and for your service to the Kingdom of God

Kem Meyer and I go way, way back. However, she doesn’t realize it. The very first person I followed on twitter was a seminary friend @yorichie. Who was the second person you ask? Why, it was @kemmeyer! I have never met Kem and I think we exchanged a couple of tweets in the past year, but something about her oozes personality, style and spunk on twitter. I like that! I doubt I could work alongside her at her job as communications director at Granger Community Church because she would just say something and I’d probably just start cracking up. Even the most mundane things she tweets cause me to laugh. She brightens my day!

Here are some examples of some recent tweets that represent what I am describing:

• Me & @DanKimball are PC users (the new punk rock rebels). Represent.
• Black circles under my eyes & skin breaking out for today’s video shoot. #itsallgood
• Mellow mushroom. You have elluded me until now. Finally, we meet. :)
• Out of respect for the south, I wore a skirt to church today. @jamiruth wore jeans. Just sayin.
• @robinstorch you need an intervention. Way too early for chex mix.
• I slept great until the Chinese gymnsts & their pet elephant woke up & started moving around in the room above me. Geez Louise.
• What’s a girl like me gonna get herself on her birthday? IN FLIGHT INTERNET! Holla from 35,000 feet! Yee haw!
• While listening to a podcast about lobotomies my therapist calls. Coincidence? I think not.
• This dinner is so Twitpic worthy I can’t stand it. But there is no way I would do something as controversial as take a picture of food.
• Just drove thru speed trap on Fir Rd & didn’t get pulled over. Take THAT!
• Making jalapeño popper dip & buffalo chicken dip 4 team party 2night. I know you want some.
• When I successfully troubleshoot my own IT issues at home, I feel like King of the World. Printer glitches SPANKED!!
• Sometimes when I fly the skys…I feel like flight attendants R prison guards & passengers R inmates. This is 1 of those times.

Just wait until she tweets again about her cat…hilarious! Thank you @kemmeyer for bringing me joy through sharing your life 140 characters at a time!