We are the Churchianity fringe, the hip, the connected. Twitter was ours first. And Facebook before that. And MySpace before that. In the golden era of Twitter we shared an underground connection – out there living the day together, posting and retweeting to our hearts’ content the irreverent, the inappropriately comedic, and the “I can’t believe you just said that” stuff that made our lives sparkle. It was a safe haven away from the mothballs and bleach smell of conservative Evangelicalism. There was nobody around to offend. Now there are.
Yep, everybody and my mom (love you Mom) showed up to the party and we’re a little hesitant to swap the sangria for fruit punch and tone down the jams. But hey, we made Twitter sound like the answer to global loneliness and social disease and told everyone to get an account. There goes the Twitterhood.
Wait. It gets better. Or worse. Some employers care deeply about your tweets and watch carefully. People have been fired (rightly so) for tweets that shed a negative light on the company. And make no mistake, if you are in ministry (volunteer or staff at a church or religious organization) your pastors and ministry leaders care too. If your tweets are not protected in your privacy settings then what you say is public.
By the way, posts on Twitter are written material owned and published by you and are subject to law. You may be sued for slander or libel if you cross those lines.
Friends of Bill W (Google it if you don’t know who they are) talk a lot about “living life on life’s terms.” Well tweeps, life came to Twitter and brought its terms with it. Another thing they say a lot is “I can only speak for myself” so along those lines…
I’ve thought about this a lot lately and as a result my tweets have been sparse. I am in anguish 17 times a day because I can’t in good conscience blurt/tweet what I’m thinking. I am all kinds of funny in here but that’s not always funny out there. I can’t tell you how I want to retweet everything @sh*tmydadsays (whom I cherish) posts but I have followers I know would feel uncomfortable or straight up offended. I also can’t tell you how much this bugs me because people who are easily offended annoy me all to [Hades].
My pastor follows me and I know he’s not easily offended. Heck, he has a hard enough time keeping his internal monologue internal on Sunday morning. Most of the pastors I know are damn cool when you get them alone. When they polish up for teaching the congregation are they being unauthentic? Not in the slightest. They are being loving. If I tweet or retweet something off-color (no matter how funny) do I think he’d be concerned? Considering my level of involvement and a quick peek at my followers list, I’d be concerned if he wasn’t.
Watching what I say on Twitter has been good for my Spiritual growth. It’s easy to forget that what I post enters the eyes of people I am to love – and Christ taught us not to be picky and choosy about whom we love. Those close to me know that in my comfortable, natural state my language is fairly colorful. (As passionately as I feel about this topic, this is probably the most I’ve had to edit a blog post.) I don’t talk that way around my mother, in restaurants, and within earshot of small children. Nope, I want to be remembered as encouraging, positive and maybe even inspiring at my memorial service. You don’t get that by spewing verbal diarrhea everywhere. (Nice visual huh?)
Here’s my advice fellow fringe tweeps. Decide what you use Twitter for. If you just want to joke around with a few friends then use those privacy settings and protect your account. No harm, no foul. Then, like a vertibrate, be exclusive with your social circle. A good friend of mine said “there are some Christian bros you can punch in the p*nis… and others you can’t.” Pick the ones you can. (Sorry ladies, boy talk.)
Me? I’m staying on the radar and learning to be clever. I need a personality I can wear in public.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this.
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