Twitter Evangelism

My associate pastor recently started following me on Twitter.  This chick is cool.  I've always thought so.  I remember when she was called to our church as a new seminary graduate about twelve years ago.  I looked at her that first day and thought, "We're going to be friends."  We weren't, but I still thought she was awesome.

We have spent a little more time together since I've started seminary, and she treats me more like a colleague now than a congregant.  I like it because, once again, I always thought she was cool.  Only now she has more than a decade of experience at an inner city, social justice church, which makes her that much cooler, and really wise.  So I lean on her and she has yet to lead me astray.  Which is why, when she leaned on me, I felt honored.  Actually, I felt a lot of things.  I'm almost ashamed to admit that the thing I felt the most...don't laugh...was cool.  Yes, she's fifteen years older than me and the fact that she leaned on me made me feel cool.  This is how awesome this woman is.

So I got a notification the other day that she started following me on Twitter.  "Uh oh, I have to tone it down now."  But I realized I've never been too outrageous, and therefore am probably safe.  Plus, she's cool.  Are you sensing a theme?  So, naturally, I followed her back.  Then I got an email from her.  "I don't know how to tweet.  If you were a pastor at Central, how would you use Twitter?"

OMG!!!!!!  MY.  PASTOR.  JUST.  ASKED.  ME.  FOR.  ADVICE.

Stuff like that never gets old.  It's actually really freaking awesome.  And she didn't just admit to not knowing what she's doing, she actually asked me to imagine myself as the pastor at our church and think of what I might do in her shoes.  BIG SHOES.  My extroverted self had such a fit when I told her we weren't answering right away. It would be so easy to just spout off a million different ways to use the Twitter (yup, I said it), but I wanted to give quality advice.  So I took a few days and finally responded this morning with a (fairly) succinct email on the way I use it, the way I know other pastors use it, and how my sister uses it (which I think is actually a great model for pastors).

So follow me @bethanyebenz, follow her @ckelly_kelly, and follow my sister @thejulieeffect (you won't regret it).  We're going to evangelize the interwebs (well, my sister won't, but she's funny).