Of all the social media sites, perhaps Twitter is the most frustrating. It is the one with the most arguments, anger, and political tribalism. It’s the one that tends to put me in a bad mood whenever I open it. In fact, on a few different occasions recently I’ve logged out of Twitter for several days and considered deleting my account. There is just so much negativity that I sometimes don’t want to deal with it.
But there is also so much potential. I was reminded of that when reading through an email from the How to Talk About God email series offered by StartingwithGod.com. In the email, Marilyn Adamson, director of StartingwithGod, referenced Jesus’ parable of the sower in Matthew 13.
“A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seeds fell along the path, and the birds came and devoured them. Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, but when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root, they withered away. Other seeds fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked them. Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
“He just threw it out there,” Marilyn writes. “He didn’t make sure it landed only on the good soil. It was OK with him if some landed on rocks. Or dry ground. Or in a pile of thorns. His job was to sow the seed.”
Twitter gives us the opportunity to do that, to sow seed broadly. Just throw the information out there and let God use it as He will. Some people will ignore your tweets, some will like them, some will give a positive comment, some may mock you or try to start an argument, while others may want to have an actual spiritual conversation around the topic you started. You never know what God will do, but your job initially is just to put it out there and see.
An atheist found this evidence for God, greater than the evidence against God. She shares her journey here.
https://www.everystudent.com/wires/atheist.html
In an unstable, threatening world, is peace of mind even possible? Yes, if you know this.
https://www.everystudent.com/features/finding.html
The EveryStudent website has a page offering more than 50 sample tweets — two examples are shown above — that you can copy and send out, each including a link to a relevant article. You can copy these directly or just use them as a guide as you think of what you want to share on Twitter. In any case, don’t be afraid to sow broadly. While outreach will often be highly targeted and specific to whom you are speaking, there are other times when sowing broadly is helpful. Twitter is a good way of doing exactly that.
If you want more information about using Twitter to talk about God, check out our Indigitous PULSE video “How to Use Social Media For God.“