When Social Media Means Having a Voice at the Table

According to Twitter, today marks 10 years since I signed up for the platform. That’s not nearly as long as many whom I follow, but longer than others. They provided a tweet with a graphic image that I could use to mark the occasion, but it was rather dumb so I passed.

I see Twitter more as an opportunity than anything else. An opportunity to engage with people I really respect. Given the choice between Facebook and Twitter, and told I can only keep one, Facebook would be gone in a heartbeat.

But to fully express my appreciation, we have to go back and talk about email.

Do you ever read the names of other people who are recipients of emails you receive? Today people are more cautious about what is visible, but years ago there was a work-related email that had been forwarded multiple times. I recognized one of the names as the president of a large publishing corporation. I held on to that contact information like I was stewarding something rare and valuable.

About a year later, I took advantage of having his info on file and responded to something that was taking place at the time, something in which I felt that my unique perspective would prove to be helpful. I remember more about that aspect of the communication than the final outcome, but I do recall the feeling of getting past the executive secretary in the outer office, so to speak, and sitting across the desk from the person himself.

With Twitter, I get to do the same on a more regular basis with people who are making a difference in the fields that are important to me; most often related to Christianity and culture. It’s not just through replies — I do that regularly — but in the occasions where the person receives DMs (direct messages) and is someone likely to recognize my name from some past interaction.

Still, I consider myself stewarding valuable potential contact opportunities, and it is not something I ever abuse.

If you try to leave a comment on my blog, after you click you’ll see it says, “Value-added comments only.” I put that in there many years ago, because I was tired of having to approve comments that merely said, “Nice article;” or “Good work.” (At the time, a lot of those were a form of spam anyway.) I wanted to hear from people who were willing to engage with the topic at hand.

In most respects, any time I use direct messaging on Twitter, I try to make absolutely sure that my comment is “value added;” that it contains some additional information that the recipient will find helpful in that moment. It gives me a seat at the conference table; or in board room. It gives me a voice. People, especially if they feel they have any level of expertise on a given subject, just want to be heard.

However, I’ve occasionally used Twitter messaging as a desperate act where other means of communication have failed. Most recently, I’ve encountered people and organizations whose websites don’t contain a contact option; not even a form to fill-in to get in touch. Some people want the communication to be one-way, and they would rather talk than listen. If I absolutely can’t find a back door, I’ll try going through Twitter.

My only regret is that when I saw the slow decline of blogging, I switched many of my creative energies over to Twitter. This was problematic in several ways. First, long-form writing gives more space to really flesh out an idea, and leaves less room for ambiguity and misunderstanding. My early tweets were in the 140-character limit days, and there were no threads. Imagine.

Second, tweets aren’t highly searchable; they aren’t indexed. This is also my issue with podcasting. But podcasting also has the opposite problem when it comes to fleshing out a concept or idea: There is no concision. In a busy world, concision is the communications skill people need. Podcasts just ramble on. I receive updates on a handful of them, but am not subscribed to any. And don’t get me started on photo-based or image-based social media. You are lucky if the person posted a caption.

I keep telling my wife she would enjoy the interaction on Twitter. If anyone says it’s a cesspool of uninformed opinion, I would say it depends on who you follow. You could criticize Reddit for the same reasons, but no one is compelling you to enter any particular conversation. You simply need to be selective, both on the very subreddits you follow, and the threads you choose to examine. I tell my wife she should simply sign up and follow all the people I follow.

Unlike Facebook, I don’t know all the people I follow in Twitter. Sometimes I will just read something insightful that was retweeted, and click over to the original person’s profile page, and decide they are worth following. And I’m more than willing to unfollow if they start down a different path.

I never enjoyed the success on Twitter that I did with blogging. From appearing on three different lists of the “Top 100 Christian Blogs” to having only a mere 600 followers on Twitter is quite a social media decline. It just didn’t work out numerically. But it means I keep the number I follow to scale, again 600.

Sadly, that doesn’t mean I see their every tweet. I have to go looking for some of them periodically and catch up on things I missed. Were it possible, I’d like to exchange some harsh words with the algorithm. And there are far too many advertisements, at least on my phone app.

The news a few weeks ago that Elon Musk might shutter Twitter was cause for personal alarm. It wasn’t that I was afraid of losing content; of losing memories. It was more a regret that I hadn’t stayed more faithful to my blog, Thinking Out Loud. However antiquated blogging may appear, it’s still the best option of writing something which leaves a permanent record.

In the meantime, I get to interact with the up-to-the-moment thoughts of leaders, creators and observers working in the disciplines and organizations I truly value.

This is For All the Lonely People

Lorne Anderson is a Canadian living in Germany. This appeared on his blog earlier today.

Lonely People

Guest post by Lorne Anderson

As an introvert, I try my best not to overload on people contact. I need space and solitude.

I’ve come to the realization that is one of the reasons why learning German is difficult for me. It is not just that the language is hard, but I was also thrown into a classroom with a bunch of people I didn’t know and expected to interact. Tough to withdraw into your shell in a such a situation.

Despite my preferences, I understand the need for human contact. Living a solitary life isn’t healthy, no matter how appealing it is. When my wife wants to invite someone over, I usually agree. And enjoy myself.

I am introverted, but not shy. I have no difficulty standing on a platform speaking to thousands of people at a concert, as I have had to do from time to time in my radio career. But that is something that comes with the job, not out of my desires.

Most people, I think, crave human interaction far more than I do. And with the social changes of the past 50 years or so, people are getting far less of that interaction than they want or need. As a result, many people are lonely.

I suppose it was inevitable that government would step in to deal with the loneliness problem. The United Kingdom now has a Minister of Loneliness. I seem to recall hearing that other jurisdictions are introducing similar positions. To say I have mixed feelings about that is an understatement.

I applaud that the problem has been recognized, while at the same time decrying the solution. I don’t believe government has the answers to our problems; nor do I believe government is my friend. I’ve worked in politics; if I was lonely it wouldn’t be politicians I was turning to for companionship.

Dealing with loneliness may become one of the central issues of our time. We live in a world where it is increasing possible to be always connected to others through social media. In theory people should not feel lonely, surrounded as we are by so many others.

Yet social media does not bring with it intimacy. It may indeed discourage it. Your posts are there for the world to see. It makes sense therefore to hold back some of yourself rather than let your personality show, warts and all. After all, others may be judging you. Better to put your best face forward. But is your best face your real face? Do you trust people with the real you? And if not, does that holding back take a toll, isolating you and increasing the chances of being lonely. Just because there are always people around doesn’t mean that you have anything deeper than a superficial relationship.

Which is why I doubt that having a Minister of Loneliness can have positive effects, aside from providing jobs for some otherwise unemployable social science graduates (full disclosure – I am a social science graduate.).  Government no matter how well-meaning, isn’t going to find friends for me, or anyone else who needs them. If it tries, I suspect it would fail – despite data mining, it doesn’t know me that well.

At this point I could make some theological observations about human nature and being created in God’s image, which would be relevant but would also make this post longer than it should be. So, I’ll hold back on that thought, maybe for another day.

One basic observation though. I wonder if the cure for loneliness starts with cutting back on or even eliminating electronic communications? Maybe we would be less lonely as a society if we spent more time fact to face and less time face to screen.

It couldn’t be that easy, could it?

 

Loss of Church Leadership Position is Like a Death

It’s now been seven years. Sometimes when you lose a relationship with a church it’s like a death in the family. My wife and I have been through this with respect to one particular church both individually and collectively, but because of our long history with the place, seven years ago she went back for another final run at it, which means that this death for us has been somewhat recurring, much like the plot of The Terminator.

Much of the bridge burning took place on Thursday, March 4th, 2010 at a meeting my wife was summoned to attend in response to a request to have her volunteer position reinstated. Nearly a full fortnight later, she finally committed her thoughts to writing on her blog. The day after she allowed me to run this at Thinking Out Loud, I came back the next day with what I felt was an objective discussion of some of the other larger issues her meeting raised. That will appear here tomorrow.

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By Ruth Wilkinson

I’m reading a book right now called Introverts in The Church by Adam S. McHugh. McHugh is a pastor and a self identified introvert who has struggled with the American-extrovert personality of so much of the Church.

It’s a very cool read for someone like myself. We’ve grown up in the church being told, explicitly and implicitly, that to be introverted is at best a character flaw and at worst a sin.

It’s refreshing to read a book that takes us seriously, as a group of people whose brains are hardwired differently from those of the majority, with strengths and weaknesses, beauty and pitfalls.

Especially after the latest chapter in my adventures with the churchIusedtogoto.

I used to be a volunteer worship team leader there and got fired by a pastor with whom I’d had some philosophical differences. He and I are friends again, both of us now being ex- of the aforementioned church.

But at the time, and since, I’ve mourned the loss of that ministry. Leading worship in a congregation is something I love love love doing. I told someone lately that losing it was like losing a finger. Especially since it ended so abruptly with no chance to say goodbye.

So I took a risk recently. I got in touch with the people at the churchIusedtogoto who are in charge of these things and asked them whether I could come back one time. Just once, to have a chance to stand in that space once more, to lead worship with a bunch of people I care about, and to close the door for myself.

They said they wanted to have a meeting and “discuss this.” Which is never good.

But I said “OK,” and one evening the three of us sat down to “discuss this.”

I wasn’t optimistic. I’ve known enough people who’ve been alienated from churches to know that you just don’t try to go back. You just don’t. Because it hurts.

One time a few years ago, I got a call from a woman who’s the wife of a former pastor of another church in town. Their time there had ended very stressfully and he’d been fired. But she had founded the local chapter of a national prayer group and they were having their annual shindig. Guess where. She couldn’t bring herself to walk into that building alone after what they’d been through and just wanted somebody to go with her. I said sure. She met me in the parking lot and we went in together. Those kinds of forays are tremendously difficult for the wounded.

Lately I’ve heard a couple of preachers say that “You don’t have to forgive a church that hurt you. You have to forgive the particular individuals in the church who hurt you.”

They’re wrong. Completely wrong.

Anyway, my meeting at the churchIusedtogoto was cordial. The answer was no. Or rather, “Maybe someday.”

Maybe someday. These are obviously people who’ve never read Proverbs 13:12.

The condition they set on the “maybe” was this: That there are people at the churchIusedtogoto who don’t know who I am. People who would wonder, if they saw me at the piano, “Who is that?” And their policy is that “We don’t have guest worship leaders.”

That’s it. That’s the reason. Not that I’ve failed morally. Not that I’m a bad example. Not that I’m incompetent or dangerous. Not that I’m a communist, or a heretic, or I dress funny. Just that somebody might not know who I am.

And their solution to this “problem” was that I should attend the church regularly, spend time after the services talking to people, shaking hands, chatting, getting to know folks and to be known.

Then, once I’d built these “relationships”, then “maybe someday.”

As I said, I’m an introvert. I think about things. I use my brain to ask myself questions. People say things and I actually listen, and then give them thought.

I thought about this. And decided it was bumph.

After a few days, I wrote them back. In part:

I respect your answer, and won’t pursue the question anymore, in spite of the fact that I really don’t believe I was asking for much. Just one Sunday.

But your reason for saying no was so absurd. There are people there who don’t know me. You don’t have guest worship leaders.

All through school, children show up in the morning, occasionally to discover that they have a substitute teacher. People turn on the Tonight Show to find that the host is away and there is a guest host. The evening news anchor goes away for a few days and his seat is filled by a guest anchor. Just the other week, you had a guest speaker as churches do all the time.

And you’d ask me to believe that your congregation is so simple minded that they wouldn’t be able to cope with a guest worship leader. It’s almost funny, if it weren’t pathetic.

I don’t know what you think you’re protecting them from, but if you treat your congregation like simpletons, don’t expect them to challenge themselves.

Not my most diplomatic, but I figured, hell, the bridge is on fire. What have I got to lose?

(Yes, I know I said hell. See above.)

There might be a few things at play in their response.

First, this is a church that had a burst of progressiveness in the 80’s and then just stopped. Since then the leadership has become dominated by policy wonks who seem to be always looking for one more loose end to tie down.

Second, we ‘worship leaders’ have been done a grave disservice over the last couple of decades by being given an exaggerated sense of our own importance. We’re told that we’re ‘leading people into God’s presence’, that we’re ‘temple musicians’ and stuff like that. Rather than that we are just one part of the body of Christ, whose diverse giftings are all of equal value and sacredness.

Which is all another post for another blog.

But reading McHugh’s book has given me the language to better define the vehemence of part of my antipathy to their reasoning.

McHugh points out that, since we introverts usually struggle with social interaction, we find our ways into community by different paths than extroverts and normal people do.

He makes me smile when he describes the hellishness of “unstructured social events”, and writes of a man who leaves church a few minutes before the service ends to avoid “the agony of the fellowship hour”. I love that phrase. It warms the cockles of my contemplative heart.

Those of us who can’t function in the schmooze and chat world of North American evangelicalism connect with their churches through the roles they find to fill. Having a place to step into when you get there is a tremendously valuable thing. It’s a piece of ground from which to meet just one or two people at a time, to find like minded friends and to, yes, build real relationships, not ersatz hi-how-are-you-fine ones.

To insist that one of us has to run the gauntlet of coffee time in order to reach that place, is cruel and unusual punishment. Like telling you that you have to park your car a mile downhill from your house. If you want to go home at the end of the day, you have to sweat for it.

Screw that. Guess I’ll have to make do with one less finger.

Which might be just as well.

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To this day, I still get comments from people as to how much they appreciated Ruth’s worship ministry in that church. I may be biased, but it was awesome. Vast song selection. Custom made video clips. Dramatic readings. Times of bold proclamation and times of deep introspection.

Some even go so far to ask if she might consider a reprise of that role. Without going into detail, I tell them to contact the church with that suggestion.

Since the article appeared, the wounds simply have not healed. At the center of this was one particular individual who is otherwise greatly admired and respected by the people of that church. In hindsight — and we’ll get to this tomorrow — what he did at that meeting at night constituted spiritual abuse, not to mention certain aspects where we now know he was lying through his teeth. He continues in a leadership role that leaves me totally mystified.

There was another change of pastoral leadership after this was written and on hearing the full story the new pastor basically said, “He would never do anything like that.” In addition to what we’ve already had to deal with, I’ve now had to suffer the loss of credibility for attempting to defend my wife’s version of the events. 

Finally… saving the best (or worst) for last… Not more than three weeks later they had a guest worship leader. A recording artist who was also doing a worship workshop with them that weekend.  

It had to have already been booked at the time she was told they don’t bring in guests.

For the Smart People in the Room

You’re considered a smart person. You

• are a quick study
• have an encyclopedic knowledge on a variety of subjects
• know how to think and articulate things logically
• rarely find yourself at a loss for words

So many times you find yourself in conversations with people who may not share your gifts and understanding of different things. Here’s what I want to share with you today:

Your gifts and knowledge are only as good as your ability to present them in ways that the common person can understand them

and

your only barometer of how well you are getting through is to make high levels of eye contact with the listener and look for signs of recognition.

If you’re getting through, you can then move on to the next point, or know you can continue but communicating at a higher level. If you’re not, don’t be afraid to say,

• “Are you with me?”
• “Are you tracking with that?”
• “Have I lost you?”
• “That’s not too confusing, is it?”

But if that’s the axiom, here’s the corollary: Sometimes you find yourself in conversation with someone who

• is simply better educated
• has a much more specialized knowledge of or training in the subject at hand
• has progressed to an aspect of the topic that is above your pay grade
• processes things more quickly than you and therefore talks faster

Certainly at times like that humility sets in. And smart people need that to take place in their lives from time to time.¹ In those situations:

A truly smart person won’t continue the conversation beyond the point where they’ve lost the plot

and

it’s okay to ask the person to backtrack so you can regroup your forces and continue.

Faking it — pretending you understand — is a terrible choice. In those moments don’t be afraid to say,

• “Can we go back to the previous point so I can see how we just got to where we are?”
• “What’s the ‘…for Dummies‘ version of how you would say that?”
• “What is the 25-words-or-less take-away of what you’re saying?”
• “I’m hearing you but I’m missing the nuances of that particular argument/distinction.”

Rarely if ever are our interactions a conversation of equals.² Wisdom will dictate that you do all that is in your power to level the playing field as much as possible.

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¹ A really smart person won’t begin a sentence with “And;” but that’s another discussion.
² Sometimes you have to ask yourself why you’re in the conversation to begin with. Jesus talked about casting pearls before swine. Are you simply trying to look intelligent to someone, or feign intelligence to someone else? Talking over someone’s head, or allowing someone to talk over yours for an extended period is just a waste of time. Wisdom lies in knowing when to proceed and when to bail and cut your losses.

Recurring Death in the Family – Guest Post

Sometimes when you lose a relationship with a church it’s like a death in the family.   We’ve been going through that loss for the past two weeks now, but because of our long history with the place, we’ve gone back several times for another run at it, which means that this death for us has been somewhat recurring, much like the plot of The Terminator.

Much of the bridge burning took place on Thursday, March 4th at a meeting my wife was summoned to attend, and nearly a full fortnight later, she finally committed her thoughts to writing on her blog.   Although it’s longer than many of my own posts, I wanted to kick off the discussion with her version of it, and then come back tomorrow with an objective discussion of some of the other issues her meeting raised.

---

By Ruth Wilkinson

I’m reading a book right now called Introverts in The Church by Adam S. McHugh. McHugh is a pastor and a self identified introvert who has struggled with the American-extrovert personality of so much of the Church.

It’s a very cool read for someone like myself. We’ve grown up in the church being told, explicitly and implicitly, that to be introverted is at best a character flaw and at worst a sin.

It’s refreshing to read a book that takes us seriously, as a group of people whose brains are hardwired differently from those of the majority, with strengths and weaknesses, beauty and pitfalls.

Especially after the latest chapter in my adventures with the churchIusedtogoto.

I used to be a volunteer worship team leader there and got fired by a pastor with whom I’d had some philosophical differences. He and I are friends again, both of us now being ex- of the aforementioned church.

But at the time, and since, I’ve mourned the loss of that ministry. Leading worship in a congregation is something I love love love doing. I told someone lately that losing it was like losing a finger. Especially since it ended so abruptly with no chance to say goodbye.

So I took a risk recently. I got in touch with the people at the churchIusedtogoto who are in charge of these things and asked them whether I could come back one time. Just once, to have a chance to stand in that space once more, to lead worship with a bunch of people I care about, and to close the door for myself.