Twitter. 140 characters to communicate a message, an idea, or  a thought.

I don’t know about you but I’m addicted.

Twitter provides a great way to stay connected with people you know, people you want to stalk (that was sarcastic) and provides a great way to network and connect with people you might not normally have the chance to interact with.

Using Twitter for yourself is one thing – but using it for your church is something completely different.

Church Marketing Sucks gave Park a nod in an article they posted about churches that use Twitter, so I thought I’d take a minute to tell you why and how we decided to use it, and how we hope to expand our use of it in the future.

Before I go further I’ll say this… we have absolutely no shortage of ways to communicate. Facebook, texting, Twitter, email, websites… you name it. Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. We should only use technology that fits the context and the everyday life of the people in our churches and in the communities where we find ourselves.

Before you decide to invest time, energy and resources in any new media, you need to stop and ask yourself why. Are you engaging in a conversation on a medium people in your community are using? Or, are you just trying to up your “cool” factor?

So Twitter…

I set up an account for Park on Twitter about 6 months ago and connected it to the email address where a majority of our churchwide emails generate from (mine).

I didn’t do anything with it but let it sit there. I sat and watched. And I saw more and more people who were in our church were finding us (through the Search feature on Twitter) and saw that it was indeed something people in our church were using.

After we crossed 50 followers (who actually attend Park) I decided enough of our people were using it to go public with it and start using it… which we did a little over a month ago.

Since that time, we’ve accumulated quite a few followers and have seen it take off and are excited to see where it goes from there.

How we plan to use it…

• communicate churchwide news and announcements
• notify people about upcoming events
• give people a sneak peek into the life of our church office(we have fun ideas planned!)
• advance previews of videos and print
• as a means to communicate prayer needs for our church family

Who we will Follow…

• People who attend Park, or people who follow that live in Chicago
• Chicago-based media and news outlets

Other benefits of using it…

• Transparency – not that we’ll share all of the nitty gritty of church life, but it’s a great way to be transparent, to share and to lower the barrier between people who attend Park and our staff. It creates space for us to interact.
• Research – it will serve as a great window into the lives of some of the people who attend Park – we’ll be able to see and observe what they care about, what’s on their mind, etc.
• Presence – I think it’s great to be present where people are talking… and if a conversation our people are having is happening on Twitter, then we should be there too.
• Connection – You never know who you might be able to connect with via Twitter. Some people would never come up to you in person, but will interact with you online. Obviously, you don’t want to sacrifice personal contact, but this could serve as a bridge to creating personal contact.

Who Owns it…

• For the interim, I do but we are exploring ways of having multiple staff members to have access to it and to update our status and to reply and interact with Park people who use Twitter.

Final Thought…

I want to re-iterate what I said earlier… just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. I think  we often tend to look at what other people (or in this instance, other churches) are doing and be quick to jump on the bandwagon.

Before you do, just make sure it’s the right direction for your church. If it’s not going to put you into closer relational proximity to the people in your church, don’t do it.

I’m no expert on how to use Twitter for a church… I’m still learning!, but Anthony Coppedge recently released a $5 e-book entitled The Reason Your Church Must Twitter. I encourage you check it out!

Down the road we’re going to see how it goes and possibly expand Twitter to other audiences in our church… singles, 30s, small group leaders, etc. In the meatime, feel free to follow us @ParkChurch