To Tweet or Not?

Skye Jethani:

Last November I wrote a blog post titled “Why I Don’t Tweet…Not That There’s Anything Wrong With It.” The spark for the post came from a brief interaction with Ed Stetzer about Twitter. A prolific tweeterer (is that a word?), he was shocked to learn I didn’t tweet and wanted to know why. So I put fingers to keyboard and articulated 10 reasons–some were rooted in my understanding of faithand discipleship and others were clearly tongue in cheek (like #8: “Ashton Kutcher”).

I got a lot of traffic out of that post. Some applauded my reasons for not tweeting, others pointed out holes in my logic. Some incorrectly interpreted my post as condemning those who tweet despite my title clearly stating the opposite. One response came from my friend, Chris Grant (@ChrisJGrant). He gave a presentation to a group of authors about the challenges facing writers in the rapidly shifting world of publishing. The first point of Chris’ talk was “Skye Jethani is right about Twitter. Now he should start tweeting.”

I listened to Chris’ argument in which he challenged me to try tweeting without slipping into the soul-eroding, egomaniacal self-obsessive tendencies I wrote about in my post. I was intrigued by our conversation. Could I engage a medium like Twitter and not succumb to its pitfalls? Had I written off tweeting too soon? Does it at least deserve a try? 

I decided to accept Chris’ challenge. I would try tweeting for one month to determine if I could engage Twitter in a redemptive way that would not erode my soul, and then write a follow-up post about my experience. (Ironically, Chris is a marketer so by accepting his advice I violated of my 7th reason for not tweeting: “I’m tired of obeying marketers.” The intersection of marketing and ministry still makes me dizzy and occasionally nauseous, but I respect Chris because he shares my distaste for unreflective Christian promotional efforts.) 

Launching my 30 day Twitter experiment wasn’t as simple as registering and tweeting about my morning tea. I wanted to begin with certain safeguards in place and some clear guidelines for my use of Twitter. I needed boundaries to avoid slipping into the Twitter tendencies I wrote about in my “Why I Don’t Tweet” post. Here’s what I came up with...

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