[DrFrank]

The latest tech rage is the Twitter service.Most are using it for absurd purposes but some churches have found a valuable way to make use of it.Below are excerpts from an article I found which contains some creative ideas.

"The sight of church goers typing messages into mobile phones during a service is becoming an increasingly common sight as clergy seek new ways of reversing declining attendance figures.

Pastors in Westwinds Community Church in Michigan spent two weeks teaching their congregation about Twitter, which allows users to send messages to each other which are no longer than 140 characters. Of the church's 900 adult members, 150 are now tweeting.

At the Mars Hill Church in Seattle, the congregation is encouraged to type Twitter messages throughout services, with the tweets appearing on the church's official Twitter page.

Kyle Firstenberg, the church's administrator, said worshippers were tweeting about issues such as how the service affected them and what worship felt like to them.

"It's a good way for them to tell their friends what church is about without their friends even coming in the building," he said.

Cardinal Sean Brady, the leader of Ireland's Roman Catholics, last week urged social network users to start sending prayers each day by text message, Twitter or email."

I would just like to add that members of a congregation can be asked to send tweets to their friends and family members not in attendance telling them what is occurring during the service and how much they are enjoying it for the purpose of interesting them enough to come the following week or even later to the evening service.

HEY DON'T KNOCK IT,IT WORKS!

In the days of the Roman Empire, their roads were pretty high tech for their time, and I'm sure those roads were used to deliver the epistles to various churches.

I say, if a technology exists, use it for good.