Twitter Sermon Series Getting National Media Attention

The current sermon series at Len’s church, Trietsch Memorial UMC in Flower Mound, TX, is “The Theology of Twitter.” Regular readers of this blog may remember it previously discussed here. Two weeks into the series, it is getting national attention.

Here’s the story, produced via a local Dallas-Fort Worth news crew, running in the Dayton market:

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It has run in many television markets and is garnering attention in the blogosphere. The Chicago Tribune ran the story, one of many outlets nationwide; the Dallas News blog did a follow up; and here is one of many personal blog entries surfacing on the series.

For the curious, the sermon series is a three week arc that began May 17th and ends this Sunday, May 31st, which for those who follow the Christian year is Pentecost, or the day we celebrate the beginning of the Church as recorded in Acts 2. Here is a brief overview:

The first week used 1 Corinthians 12 to focus on the true calling and ideal of the church. People increasingly look to online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter for connection and community. While it often fails, Christ’s church is called to be the ultimate social network, the place for connection and community.

The second week answered the question, isn’t Twitter just narcissism, a platform for self-focused people to broadcast the minutiae of their lives? As 1 Corinthians 13 teaches us, without love, our actions are just noise. The church is nothing with love. It is one thing to be part of a social network, but quote another to experience the presence of the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ.

The final week will focus on the nature of being community the church. As the digital language of our culture rapidly evolves, and social networks emerge, ironically some people can feel even more lonely and isolated. Churches today can have an anonymous feel, but the early church took community seriously. Part of what makes Christianity unique from other religions is its emphasis on the communal nature of faith in Jesus.

As Len told the news crew in a sound bite that was left on the cutting room floor, “If people walk out of church and just think of Twitter, then we failed. But if they sit in front of their computers, log on, and start to think about what it means to be the Church, then we did our job.”

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