During our recent Fire-Up Sr. High Conference – the hashtag began trending nationally. 166 users and 486 tweets (116 RTs) in 24 hours made #FireUpRest a Trending Topic in United States. @troyilfireup @goharvest @troyumc. Lots of students were using twitter at Fire-Up that weekend.
I don’t have the exact statisticis here, but I have been hearing that Facebook has peaked and is now dropping among the high school crowd. But Twitter, for whatever reason, is growing in popularity with that age group and other age groups too.
If you are student (or an adult) here are some ways that you can use Twitter as you are living out your faith:
1) Follow some scripture tweeters – There are hundreds of people out there posting scriptures on twitter each day. Pick a few and read some each day.
2) Retweet Scripture – One great witness is to retweet Scripture.
3) Help your youth pastor set up twitter for the church or your student ministry – Does your church or students ministry have a twitter account? Talk with your pastor or youth pastor and offer to help set it up.
4) Retweet things from your church or youth ministry – After setting it up, you can retweet from your church.
5) Build up, don’t tear down – Like any social media, as well as everyday conversation, don’t tear people down, encourage them. Sarcasm isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Say what you mean. Only use good words.
6) Tweet quotes from sermons or messages – If you hear a great quote or line in a sermon or message, put it out on twitter. Share it with your followers.
7) Follow worthy causes – Follow worthy causes and great people. Be careful, as with any social media, what you share and who you are sharing it with.
8) Give micro testimonies – There are many ways to give God praise and lift up the name of the Lord on twitter! Say, “Praise God, it’s a beautiful day!” Or, “I’m praying for a great day today!” Or maybe if you’re not comfortable with that say something like, “What an awesome concert we had at church tonight.” Any insight into your life as a follower of Christ will make an impact on your followers.
9) Choose your words wisely – Remember, everything you say on Twitter is immediate and permanent. Our words should reflect our desire to live out a Godly life (Col 3:17). As Christians, we are called to live holy lives and that means keeping our Twitter feeds a blessing. Should we ever have the privilege of connecting on Twitter, I really don’t want to see Christian students using the wrong words, the wrong attitudes and expressing worldly views when it comes to life, love and the opposite sex.
10) Stay in touch – I once heard someone quip that Jesus was the first to do Twitter when he said, “Follow me!” I’d love to have you join me on Twitter:
Harvest: www.twitter.com/goharvest
Tim Price: www.twitter.com/hmtresouces
Our Church: www.twitter.com/troyumc
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