CBC Worship Ministries: Devotional Blog

There are some things I just don't understand. Now I realize that I'm going to really show my age here, but here goes. I just don't get the"twitter" thing. I'm assuming here that most of you, being much more in tune with the culture, already know about this twitter phenomena, but I just found out about it, and frankly, it seems like the most useless activity that one can possible conceive of to participate in. However, just to be sure we're all on the same page, twittering is a social networking activity where a person sends short messages to friends via text messages or posts on the twitter website. It's a micro-blogging type activity. Even the name is irritating to me. Twitter. Sounds like something a socially inept nerd does around a beautiful, sophisticated woman.

But then I discovered that our leading democratic contenders for president are using twitter as a publicity mechanism. And even CNN, that bastion of objective news reporting, has begun using it as a way to spread breaking news. Whoa. Maybe there is something to this after all. I may have to admit that perhaps, PERHAPS, there is something of worth here. Perhaps it's the ability to communicate succinctly. Perhaps it's the transparency of having others track your actions and activities.

So now after thinking about this a little more, I've come to this conclusion. . . people want to stay connected. People need to share, to express themselves,to feel that they are part of something greater than the individual. People do not want to have to write a book, they just want to scratch out a note;and then another, and another and so on. I can't help but think that these same people that use twitter are showing us believers the right way to stay in touch with our God. I'm not great at praying for hours at a time, for example. I get restless and my A.D.D. starts kicking in after a few minutes. But if I used the "twitter" approach, and make my communication style reflect the "twitterer", I'd actually be following a more biblical model of prayer: to pray without ceasing. This is what Paul said in Ephesians 6:18 - pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. Perhaps we need to think about our prayer style. . . instead of one "entry" in our prayer blog every day, we make a dozen "twitter" entries. . . Now I'm not suggesting that you abandon a time of quiet reflective prayer over an extend period of time. Not at all. Rather, I'm suggesting that we need more than just that one "megadose" each day.

Let me challenge you this week in this. . . sneak a prayer in during worship. Ask God, in just a few words, to help you lead people into an encounter with God. Ask Him to open the hearts of the congregation. Ask Him to convict, to exhort, to inspire the congregation to greater acts of worship. And then watch and see what God will do!