Can you Tweet the Gospel?

How Twitter Changed- Ruined Our Lives

Though I am loathe to tweet or text, I find it interesting that one could theoretically tweet the gospel- at least the plan of salvation via John 3:16, as it just makes it under the 140 character limit, though the gospel as presented by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:2-3 does not. Though God can and uses all mediums of communication to gather His elect and bring glory to Himself including Twitter I'm sure, short, limited electronic burts of words are not my preferred means of sharing life-transforming truth. How about you?

I agree with the introduction of this week's TIME cover story about this latest techno fad, which begins by saying, "The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send 140-character updates to your "followers," and you think, Why does the world need this, exactly? It's not as if we were all sitting around four years ago scratching our heads and saying, 'If only there were a technology that would allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my choice of breakfast cereal." Indeed. Our President, the leader of the free world as we know it, took time from his busy schedule to alert his "followers" (disciples) last year, "Hosting a 4th of July family picnic in Butte, MT and celebrating Malia's 10th Birthday! Watch it live: http://my.barackobama.com/l...11:05 AM Jul 4th, 2008 from web." Did we need to know that? Was that TMI (too much information)? Do Tweeting followers have a life?

Better yet, what happened to interpersonal communication? Can anyone pick up a phone and make a call today? At this rate my beloved email habit will become archaic by next month. Tweeting may have its place somewhere under the sun, but nothing can replace personal, loving, discipleship- discipleship that is about exhortation, encouragement, yes reproof and as we learned last Sunday, "instruction in righteousness." This Sunday, we'll take at least 40 minutes to answer the question, "Why the Gospel?" Be sure that no tweeter can fit that message in nor should, as it happens to be the most important news in the history of the universe. I pity the fool who tries to tweet that truth in our church!