Jesus said it first: "Tweet Others...."

[Lord forgive me... but surely you knew it was coming....]

"Tweet others... as you would have them tweet you."

Ok, I've been following some of my innovative friends who are major advocates for Twitter. It's not merely my 'monkey-see-monkey-do' mentality -- sometimes I just don't understand things right off, but I greatly respect the person strongly recommending it. [You ever do that?]

So I signed up at Twitter.com (as 'indychristian' -- what else?). And I've toyed with it from time to time, not really catching on just yet. And frankly, I'm STILL not positive I know how the Lord would want me to use it in my own personal information strategy. But again, it's because I so highly respect these guys ahead of me. So sometimes I somewhat blindly stand on their shoulders. 'Faith', huh? But not BLIND FAITH... they have a reputation of coming-through for me. [Got any friends like that?]

And btw, in the past, that's usually worked out really really well. Choose your friends wisely, my parents always told me. When I've done that, it's worked well. When I haven't, it hasn't.

Ok, so Twitter is incredibly simple. Too simple even, for me to catch onto very quickly as to why it could POSSIBLY be so valuable. If you go there and sign up, you'll see it pretty much allows you to make a one-line message available to anyone who 'follows' you... ie, your group of friends. Think of it perhaps as a status-update. "I'm headed to http://UBcafe.com", for instance. Or... "We just went live at http://AskAnythingSaturday.TV." These 'tweets' can even go through to my friends' cell-phones, if they've set it up to do so.

Seems innocuous enough. Nobody has to 'follow' you if they don't want to. So really, it's only for those who really MIGHT, for who knows what reason, WANT to 'follow' me. Funny thing though -- innovators LIKE to follow others, to see what's fresh, new and should be tried. After all, the speed of life has accelerated -- and the only good way to stay up on important matters is to collaborate with others who prioritize similarly... and share their lives with you.

Hmmm. There's bound to be a Bible lesson here somewhere.

Anyway... today perhaps I understand a little more about the value of Twitter as a quick communication tool among social-connected innovative types. I realized that it MIGHT be a great tool for quickly spreading an important message, and helping it to then spread virally further. I'll tweet a short message and cite a particular site to go to. And whoever believes it's important enough to pass it on, does so.... and adds their link at the bottom of the page being tweeted.

Example: Today I tweeted... "Tweet Others... http://cityreaching.pbwiki.com/Community+TV"... alerting them to the Community TV concept that just went LIVE... [and it's using national collaborative wiki so we could work TOGETHER on it.] If anyone cares, they can likewise pass it on, and add their link at the bottom, effectively endorsing the concept. AND... it's an indication of who are our most 'collaborative' types who like working together to reach our cities for Christ.

In fact... visit "TweetOthers.com" to follow the crowd to whatever site might be spreading virally at the moment. [You'd like to help?]

Oh, oh oh oh oh.... here's a Bible lesson...

"Jesus, thank you for taking the weight of my sins and letting me stand on your shoulders as the only way I could ever hope to reach heaven. May I someday learn and be able to emulate your self-sacrificial nature. Amen.