I have recently joined Twitter and begun ‘tweeting’ while posting Irish Calvinist through my profile. I have many reasons, hopefully thoughtful, for joining this social network.
I should say that my profile really won’t be a catalog of daily events (took dog for a walk, drank 2 pots of french press, changed our baby’s diaper, etc…). I am frankly, not that interesting. People like Mark Cuban, Mark Driscoll, John Henry, etc.. they are intriguing, me on the other hand, I’ll stick to trying to bang the gospel drum as frequently as I can.
So let me highlight these reasons quickly.
- The opportunity to make the gospel sing in 140 characters: I really like John Piper’s thoughts on this as he sees it as a challenge to believers to show God’s supremacy and value in such a short amount of space. This forces me to do articulate my meditations. I love doing this on the blog but often times do not have the time to sit and write out a full post (45 minutes) whereas a tweet can summarize and be done quickly and arguably just as effectively.
- The opportunity to encourage other people to think higher thoughts about God, the gospel, and the Scriptures. The ease and vastness of communication makes this opportunity a type of ‘irresistible grace’.
- The opportunity for me to communicate with blog readers. This has been a challenge from the beginning. I had to decide if this was going to be something where I commented a lot or wrote a lot. The shift was to writing. What was lost was dialog with readers. Now as I work in a church planting environment time is even more scarce. In Twitter this makes things easier. I will still try to respond to comments as time allows, but Twitter just makes it easier.
- The opportunity to easily build Christ exalting relationships with folks outside of my local area.
- The opportunity to post links and references real quickly. This is a great feature of Twitter that I will regularly use. (my friend Nathan Bingham has written a helpful post that captures much of what I am saying here while adding some helpful counsel)
Here are some examples recent tweets that display what types of things I am talking about:
@erikraymond: Jesus told Satan ‘BE GONE’! (Mat 4.10) Apart from the grace of Christ, I would serving & chasing the wrong prince while smiling (Eph. 2.1-3)
@erikraymond: Great reminder for preachers: “let him who has my word speak my word faithfully”(Jer 23.28) it is the FIRE that melts & HAMMER that smashes!
@erikraymond: “The whole word of God is a ring of gold and Christ is the diamond in that ring! (John 5.39)” Thomas Brooks
@erikraymond: The Father gave his one, beloved Son so that grace thirsty rebels like me might cry: “This is my beloved Savior with whom I am well pleased!
@erikraymond: am GRACE: Recalling that my high priest Jesus has fervently & successfully interceded for me while pleading his blood & righteousness for me
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