Intersection

Yesterday, I talked about the problem with pastors on twitter, and I greatly appreciate the conversation that developed. Thanks to those that shared I plan to dive into the comments in the next few days. Today I want to propose some alternatives to pastors that are on twitter but never connect with people. There is much potential on twitter for pastors to use it for radical work. So here are four radical ideas for you to consider as a pastor on twitter (or really anybody). Please consider these before you tweet the fourth tweet (in one day) linking to your blog post or information about what you did this morning.

Invest in relationships: This is a given, but is truly the most radical thing a pastor can do on twitter amidst all the noise and self-promotion. We spoke about this yesterday with passion. No need to elaborate just wanted to recognize it yet again.

Confess Your Sin: Why not? Are you afraid to do it? Why are you afraid? Let me tell you, it would be a breath of fresh air to look at a pastor’s twitter stream and see it filled with confessions instead of Bible quotes or statements that they think will be received as profound quotes. As a minister myself I confessed three sins on twitter about a week ago. I only had a few responses but the people that did respond shared how much it meant to them to hear me be so “real” (I hope I am real all the time). If this makes you uncomfortable as a pastor in a “highly visible position” you need to seriously consider if you are holding to tightly to that very position instead of your God. If you are in a “highly visibility position” then this is your opportunity to share your wounds and struggles with people longing to hear that you struggle too. Get over your fear. Share.

#CreateHashtagMovements: The hashtag is the most misused aspect of twitter. People use it for lame jokes and to emphasize worthless statements. How about using it to gather people around a movement or a cause? For example, if you preach a sermon on the rich young ruler in Luke 18 and challenge your people to allow Christ to reign over their possessions create a hashtag movement to accompany the message. Throughout the week invite people to share in that hashtag conversation about how God has called them to respond to the Word. Who knows?… you might get a whole hashtag movement of people selling their possessions, giving to the poor, encouraging each other online, and inviting others to participate. Sounds a lot better than a lame joke with the hashtag #thingsmymomsaid

Follow Non-Christians and Share Their Work: How many people do you follow on twitter that are not Christian? How often do you share a blog post from someone that is not a Christian?… and not share it in disagreement or judgment? There is something to be said about a pastor that invests in online community with non-Christians, learns from them, and shares their work. I would rather you share their posts than continue to tweet yours four or five times a day.

Those are just four. What do you think pastors can do online?

@mhandy1 and I had a interesting conversation yesterday that started with his observation. “Christians seem to only follow people they know in real life.. just an observation..missing out on relationships though.”

From my experience I have met numerous Christians on twitter that seek to develop authentic relationships with people online. Still, the majority of Christians (I don’t follow on twitter) seem to keep to themselves enjoying their 25 relationships online. So this begs the question: why are Christians avoiding this opportunity to develop new relationships? I think it has something to do with their leaders.

Have you noticed how many pastors on twitter follow almost nobody and barely connect with anybody?

Here is the count from one pastor (I don’t follow) on twitter. Following 36 Followers 1,951… I scrolled through his tweet stream this morning…  number times this pastor sent out an @ reply in the past month: 0. ZERO in a month! This is a huge issue when guys like @garyvee (following: 13,462 followers: 872,521) are out there connecting with thousands of people, responding to @ messages, returning every email when on a flight, and hustling to develop relationships like his life depended on it. These pastors, on the other hand, tweet links to their blog (exclusively their own posts) or what their family is up to that day. They become mere icons connected to nobody (at least online).

The scary thing is that social media is usually a reflection of what goes on in the real world. So are these pastors too busy to connect online because their day is packed with one on one coffee meetings with people? I am not sure but I can take a guess.

Christians look to there leaders only to see their disinterest in relationships and new connections. Props to Christians that say, “wow that is a messed up approach” and work hard to develop relationships online. Still, everyone is looking at the twitter stream and see guys that get it like @garyvee hustling to get into the lives of others and not Christian leaders. You do the math.

Pastors we do not need more links to your blog posts. We do not need information on what you and your family did today. We need you to be in our lives and in the lives of others. If you are not willing to do that through twitter then please just delete your profile.

What do you think: How should pastors use twitter? If you are a pastor how do you use twitter? Be honest.

There is no space for selfish people or hoarding in the new culture that has been created by the Internet and social media.

In this new culture self-promoters lose. You see it every day. People that tweet their own work constantly… nobody listens. Need some evidence? Take a look at their profile. Most often you will see a following count of 1,000 or more people. And their follower count?… somewhere around 100 to 300. These people are clearly losing.

In this new culture hoarders also lose. There is no room for your idea to remain intrinsically “yours.” Ideas are no longer possessed by one person but shared and passed along by many people. We may associate the idea with you as we pass it but now great ideas belong to all of us. If you are hoarding great ideas instead of developing them in this community… you are losing.

Connectors and collaborators win. Their capital: generosity. Self-promoters and hoarders talk about “social capital” and forget that they are speaking about people. The people in your follower count are not “capital” to be leveraged for a cause. Instead, they are opportunities to connect and collaborate if you are generous enough. Connectors build relationships generously and widely. Also, winners online will collaborate with their new friends in the development of great ideas. Again, winners are not developing “their” idea because the idea will be shared as it is being developed and once it is finished.

I thought it fitting to recognize three people I see as great connectors and collaborators and give one quick sentence as to why.

@MichaelDPerkins: Michael shares at least three or four posts that are not his own with his twitter followers… everyday.

@Gritandglory: Alece lives this in her work with @DeeperStory, a community of writers. Together, they have given a voice and a face to the value of collaboration.

@Kylereed: Kyle values guest posts on his blog and in doing so highlights the development of  great ideas.

Kyle, Michael, and Alece are winning. Are you? More importantly, who do you know that is winning? Recognize them today. Share there name here in a comment so we can all meet them.

Have a platform Be a recognized voice.

Those are two pressures that seem to stress most bloggers. I have talked with people online that wrestle at night with how to stand out among the other 900,000 posts that emerge every 24-hours. We lay awake thinking, “how do I increase my blog traffic?” I need more comments. How do I build my platform? In the Christian blog world we wonder, “how do I become the next Jon Acuff?” Or if you hate comparisons and are competitive like me you wonder how can I be better than him?

These pressures seem to shape many people towards self-obsession. We hide it when we say that we write because the conversation matters. Or we launched a blog because we want to push for “change.” But really when push comes to shove it is about “my” platform again. My blog stats and my subscription count. Here’s how I know that. I asked this question in my social channels earlier this week, “Do you have a close relationship with the people that write the blogs you read?”  A few said yes. But many DM’d me saying that they do not. Others sent me messages saying that they appreciate how I take the time to connect with them. This is NOT a “look at me” post but rather an observation. Why was “connection” something rare amidst all these social connection channels? Maybe it is because to most of us “bloggers” people seem to have become the bricks that build our “platforms.”

Frankly, I ignore people online that seem to live under these pressures. I shun their platforms and their voice. Because I know to them… I don’t matter. News Flash! You don’t matter either.  You never did. It was never about you and I or anybody for that matter but it was always about them and their stage.

I choose to place a different pressure on myself. This one says, “Be invested.” In two ways.

First, invest in people. Not readers. Not an audience. People. More specifically… invest in relationships with these people. This takes time, patience, and an actual desire for it to be more about them than you. Second, invest in excellent writing and ideas. Not how writing can give you a voice or how remarkable ideas can develop your platform. This takes reading, connecting with other bloggers, getting feedback about your work, and having the courage to actually listen to criticism.

If you do the first investment you cannot help but do the second because you want to give your new friends remarkable work. Twitter and blogs are channels that give us an opportunity to connect. They don’t work for so many of us because we don’t seem to actually care about connection anymore.

So here is the challenging question: why do you have a blog?

excuse anymore. Excuses for not leading especially. 

Right now I am on a boat. I am riding to LA from Catalina island. I am typing on my iPhone with a broken screen and I just cut my finger on a piece of the shattered glass. The trip is an hour and before we dock I will post this to my blog and it will be sent to all of your email accounts, readers, and twitter streams.

In the seat to my left some guy is snoring. 

In an hour you can use this iPhone with a broken screen to connect with people online, gather them around a cause, and mobilize a movement.

Behind me a young 20-something is playing video games.

In an hour you can buy a domain name, host a blog, and give voice to marginalized people. Then within that same hour you can share that voice with hundreds of people. Still, using the Internet, and a phone with a shattered screen. 

To my right a young man just ordered his 5th beer from the boat bar. 

In one simple hour you can do all these things or you can sleep, play video games, and get drunk. The question is what did you do in the last hour? And what will you do in the next?
 
Here’s a better one if you’re like me. Can we do more than just write a blog post about this in an hour? The answer is yes. Get to it.

There is really no excuse anymore. 

Yesterday, I spoke with a few friends online about “bows” and how they are simply not helpful to us. Life is complex. In fact, there is very little that is tied up in nice little bows for us to understand. As leaders it is easy to mistake simplistic statements for hope. People need clarity in the midst of the confusion. Clarity that affirms their humanity and messy life experience. It is easier and more simplistic to tie a knot with two loops, two loose ends, call it hope, and make things look pretty.

We need people of influence to call hope what it really is. Clarity in the midst of  the mess that says clearly… the mess is okay. No it is more than okay. The mess is beautiful. And the breakdown is what makes us all human.

Every time a team wins a championship game without fail “we are the champions” will play over the speakers as the players celebrate. Interestingly, anyone that has ever won anything significant will tell you that the team started singing, believing, and living that song long before the championship game.

How do you win? Believe it or not it “winning” has nothing to do with winning games or even wanting to win games. Instead, your team wins the moment they believe they are champions. Once this belief defines your team then the team members will not work as employees striving for the win but as champions working to achieve excellence. To a champion it is not about winning and losing a game. It is about excellence. Champions know that in competition the more excellent team will win.

To put it simply, if the team believes they are champions then a culture of excellence will grow within that team. Over time winning and losing will take care of itself.

This is true not just of an athletic team but also of any organization. Leaders make a grave mistake when they define their win and then seek out to achieve it with a team that does not yet believe they are champions. This is like running into war with a bunch of ten year old boys. I don’t want to go into a game with a bunch of losers. Define the win. But don’t hustle to achieve it too quickly. First, help your people believe they are champions. How do you do this?  It varies from team to team, but three principles always ring true.

Narrative: Consistently tell stories of excellence from within the organization. Highlight people on your team that are clearly pursuing excellence. Reward them. Hold other people not to their standard, but to the narrative that eventually will define your team.

Vision: Develop an image of excellence. What does excellent work look like in your organization? Does your team understand this image? Is everyone on the team chasing after it? If your image is clear enough it will eventually become reality.

Superiority Complex: Yes I said it. Develop a superiority complex on your team. You want your team to believe they are the best at what they do. You want them to have swag, confidence, poise, and composure because they know they are the best. How do you develop this complex? In two steps

1. Create a culture of competition within your organization. You want your people competing for their spot on the team because it demands excellent work from them.
2. Then reward the ones that emerge as most excellence not seniority, status, education, age, or work experience. This will raise the level of commitment to excellence and also develop the complex of dominance that your team needs to win.

Winning has nothing to do with games and everything to do with living as a champion.

is that you “check in” to a place. Yesterday, I became the mayor  on foursquare of the church in which I minister. I have hesitated to jump into this craze in regards to churches. I see great potential for churches to use these social  tools to share and connect with more people. @kylereed has some great thoughts on this (check it out here and here). While I see great potential I also see danger hidden in this one subtle assumption. Specifically, that church is another place.

It is easy to want to dismiss this concern as mere “semantics” when compared to all of the potential that services like foursquare, gowalla and others bring churches. However, we must listen to our language and assumptions as they shape the course of how the church lives within culture.

For example, for years people referred to the Sunday morning worship gathering as “going to church.” This language, though subtly different from “going to the worship gathering,” has helped give brith to a mentality that understands church as a place that you go to and receive a service. Naturally, people began church hopping for better songs or asking what a church can do for them instead of how they can serve. The language was not the only factor but it did frame church as a place that provides a service.

Now do you “check in” and receive a service from this place called church? The language seems to have changed but is the assumption the same? As church leaders we must find ways to use these social geolocation tools based on the assumption that the church is a group of forgiven sinners on mission.

How do we do that? What are your thoughts?

much more valuable than noise. A few days ago I did an experiment with how much noise there is in my twitter stream. I asked people this question

There are so many blogs out there why should I read yours?

Only one person responded. Interestingly, this person already had many readers. She didn’t need one more. However, she thought I would enjoy her work and so she made the connection. Meanwhile, many other people in my stream continued to tweet links to the post they had written that day. These tweets usually follow some catchy statement or word to try and grab people’s attention. I do this on twitter as well. The funny thing is when you and I do this we are trying to answer the question “why should you read my blog?” without any real connection with people. And so we just add to the noise.

Connection is the more valuable alternative. If people matter to you and you believe your voice matters as well then look for how those two intersect. Real connection happens when we send that DM to a friend saying, “I wrote this today and thought of you” or “This post is really important to me and I value your thoughts so I ask: what do you think?” How about emailing the post to a few coworkers saying, “I think this post matters to __________ situation what do you think?”

Why are we so afraid to actually connect with people when sharing our work?