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Seattle Church Encourages Twittering During Service

by Warren Riddle on March 12, 2009 at 06:03 PM


Churches often encourage their parishioners to discuss sermons with friends, and to bring guests to take part in the services. It's just that the Ballard neighborhood "campus" of Seattle's Mars Hill Church doesn't make them wait until they get home to spread the word.

No stranger to technology (the pastor's sermons are broadcast on video screens), the church allows, and promotes, Twittering throughout the service. At any one time, dozens of churchgoers may be typing brief messages, of 140 characters or less, for the church's own Twitter page. In so doing, the Mars Hill Campus Administrator Kyle Firstenburg hopes church members will convey their feelings about the sermon as it's taking place. "How does the service impact them, what does worship feel like to them and it's a good way for them to kind of tell their friends what church is about without their friends even coming in the building [sic]," he explained to Seattle's King 5 News.


Lichlin Payne, an Australian traveling the U.S to witness different church services, welcomes technological adaptation and the use of new media by churches to communicate worshipers' feelings. "I remember 10, 15 years ago you couldn't wear a hat in church, and now you can get out your mobile phones and your iPhones and you can Twitter so these things change and you've got to move with the times [sic]," Payne said.

Perhaps other churches, mosques, and synagogues will follow Mars Hill's lead, so that the rest of us won't have to worry about being "text-communicated." [From: KING5.com]

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Tags: church, microblogging, religion, social networking, SocialNetworking, top, twitter, twittering

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