Sunday Tweeting

One of my most recent additions to my "daily routines" is refreshing my twitter account and reading the various 140-character nuggets left behind by people much more important than myself. As I build up and establish my "following" list, most of whom are in someway the leading voices of our society, I am in some ways more interested in who they are following as opposed to what they are saying.

I don't know how many times I've sat in a room of teachers or administrators over the last two years and have been astonished at the lack of knowledge, advocating, and daily integration of technology; it's just astonishing. While an overwhelming majority of these cases come from honest confession in my graduate coursework, it is still amazing to think that there is still so much hesitancy and resistance in becoming technologically savvy. One of the common excuses and concerns raised point to the necessity for students, and people of all ages really, to remain reliant on interpersonal communication, an age-old skill that's being bullied out of our culture. I don't necessarily agree with it, but I clearly understand that point of view.

Anyway, what got me to that train of thought was reading Rick Warren's Twitter profile and noticing his 11, 000+ "following" list. Am I really to believe that when Rick sits down on the toilet or at Starbucks, sipping on a hot chocolate in a cup that has a Warrenism pasted on the side, that he reads and scrolls through 11k people's thoughts and random photos? No, of course not. But he's got to at least know a huge chunk of those people and probably relies on his smartphone and tweeting abilities to keep in touch with them, yeah? For whatever reason, this image of Rick sitting behind his phone for an hour-plus everyday is somewhat disturbing.

Am I bothered that a man in that vocation is connecting with people through a keyboard, as opposed to a phone call, letter, or personal visit? Granted, I'm sure very few are in his inner circle, and I understand the social benefits these services and technologies provide. But it leads me to think of the future pastors and mentors and wonder if what was once a very personal, intimate experience will also succumb to brevity, instantaneous gratification, and disconnected isolationism?

Will pastors (in mass quantities) begin posting sermons and teaching lessons online and church congregations meet virtually from their living room (again, this is already happening...I'm referring to the cultural norm)?

Do those qualities, those effects of technology take away from an experience with God?

Or are we, as we're operating behind the shield of technology and it's ease, truly becoming more open and vulnerable to who we are on the inside while spending less time and concentration on who we are on the outside?