Tech Geek

I have discovered that I am not very good at writing articles in a series. Something else grabs my attention and I get distracted onto thinking about that! So, this week's article isn't about another internet browser. It's another post about Twitter, specifically geared towards using it to keep the "folks back home" updated about the Gathering. (If you only want to read this paragraph and you know about Twitter, please use #JJJ09 to tag your Gathering related tweets.)

Twitter is the social networking service that allows you to post 140-character updates which are then read by your followers or tweeps. Folks post everything from what they're eating to lunch to interesting articles they've read to ideas they have for debate. I suppose that in some ways Twitter is the modern equivalent of the church door that Martin Luther posted his ideas on!

Many people tag their tweets with hashtags. These enable others to quickly search for all the tweets about a particular topic. Go to search.twitter.com and enter a tag to find all the posts that have had that tag applied to them. You can try #elca, #upstatesynod, #mplssynod, or lots of other things, like #beer. There were hashtags that were used to track all of the tweets around the presidential election last fall.

Erik Ullestad (@erikullestad for Twitter users), Michael Sladek (@mwsladek) and I (@adnyla and occasionally @elcaymnet) have been batting around the idea of a hashtag for the ELCA Youth Gathering this summer in New Orleans. We, along with the help of others like @thelutheran, have arrived at #JJJ09 as the hashtag for this summer's Gathering: Jesus, Justice, Jazz. The Communications Technology Team at the Gathering is exploring the possibility of a screen in the convention center that will scroll tweets that have the #JJJ09 hashtag attached to them.

To use a hashtag, just add it to your tweet. They're most often added at the end of a tweet. I might tweet: adnyla is leading the youth group in a Getting Ready Bible Study this evening. #JJJ09.

Hashtags work best when people use them consistently on all their tweets, so I invite you to tweet about the Gathering and use #JJJ09 on all your tweets.

And if you're still wondering about what Twitter is and how it might be useful in your ministry, look at this video. Paul Judson, Associate Pastor of Youth and Household Ministry at First Evangelical Lutheran Church in Longmont, CO, has put together a great video explaining Twittering to the parents of his youth. He is sharing protected updates with those who follow his youth group Twitter account. His video, done in the style of the Common Craft Twitter video, is available on You Tube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmmuBob5-Lw . I have the script and he's given me permission to share it. Send me a direct message on Twitter or an e-mail (techgeek@elcaymnet.org). The visuals were done by Cody Kuehl, a former youthworker himself. You can e-mail Cody at uncchino@yahoo.com or find his fine art images on MySpace at http://myspace.com/ckuehlpopsurreal.

Glad to be with you on this journey of ministry,
Pastor Andy