God Uses Twitter, Too?! (Conference Speech-Part 1)

For MC: Mike Campagna and his family have lived in the Sonora area since 1997. He has been a twitterholic since November 2008. One twitter follower (@LifeVerse) describes him as the "jogging, blogging, tweeting Pastor." His day job is information technology/social media specialist for Sugar Pine Realty, a local real estate company.

That said, please welcome Pastor Mike.

Good morning. My name is Mike Campagna (affectionately known by some as Pastor Mike).

I'm @aheartforgod on twitter and @blogboy2.

Each of those twitter sites has 50,000 followers.

In a moment I’ll be offering:

5 tips to help you gain 50,000 followers on Twitter based on the acronym: Tweet.

But before that I want to tell you my story.

And as we’re discussing social media and its many uses as it relates to business, government, education, entertainment, etc., I'm going to be bringing the perspective from the spiritual side and how social media can be used to get a spiritual message out.

I started tweeting in November 2008 (a relatively late date compared to the "gurus"). I'd been blogging since 2005 or so, but didn't really plug in with social media until later.

And let me just say: Social media changed everything.

If you know anything about blogging, you know that bloggers can spend years blogging with relatively few readers.

Enter on to the scene social media and Twitter in particular. Twitter offers the incredible ability to reach thousands of potential readers and from all over the world in 140 characters or less.

And so that’s what began happening. My blog posts were actually getting read! ~ as I began tweeting them. (Tens of thousands of visits.) My video blogs were being watched. (Hundreds of thousands of those.) Both were being retweeted.

It was a blogger/video blogger’s dream come true.

And I began connecting with people on twitter.

1. I’ve connected with people on twitter to encourage.

Like this message from Konstantin Dorichev recently. He tweeted:

@aheartforgod I enjoy reading your worship-focused tweets. It helps me prepare for the day as I commute to work ~ and then he has in parentheses (in Russia). (That was on April 12th, 2011.)

If you go to his twitter site (@kdorichev; his location is Moscow) you’ll see some of his tweets in Russian.

And so I’ve connected with people on twitter to encourage.

2. I’ve also connected with people on twitter to pray.

Like this DM from Kimberly McCarthy (@Kmac4him on the East Coast of the United States):

d aheartforgod Thanks for the prayers for our son. The surgery went well, he should recover and get full use of his hand! (That was on April 28th, 2011.)

And so I’ve connected with people on twitter to pray.

3. I’ve also connected with people on twitter to answer their spiritual questions.

One of those questions was a little bit off the beaten track. I received the following DM:

d aheartforgod What do you think about cleansing negative energy by using sage smoke (smudging)? My heritage is Native American but I'm Christian. (I’m going to leave this gal as anonymous who asked this.)

But just to show you how interesting and timely this question was: I’ve had experience with Native Americans as members of my former congregation. And so I had unique insight as regards sage smoke (smudging) that I’d gained spending time with them that I simply wouldn’t have had otherwise.

And so I’ve connected with people on twitter to answer their spiritual questions.

4. I’ve also connected with people on twitter to provide teaching material in their own spiritual setting.

A gentleman on the big island of Hawaii emailed me:

Aloha Pastor Mike,

I know you through twitter and I really enjoy your videos. I’m teach[ing] a Sunday School class…in our church…[and] will begin a new quarter this Sunday. As a supplement to the regular material, I'd love to go through [your] "Seven Last Sayings of Jesus" series leading up to Easter. Would you be alright with this? Is there any way I could download these videos? If so, would you like to be compensated for them?

Thank you and God Bless,

That was twitter follower: @MarkFromHawaii on February 25, 2009.

Of course, I said, “Go for it, Mark!”

And so I’ve connected with people on twitter to provide teaching material to use in their own spiritual setting.

And let me just give you three more real quickly:

5. I’ve also connected with people on twitter to teach online Bible studies (@mcProdigal)…

6. To participate in online song services (@mcProdigal and @spreadingJOY)…

Check out the hashtag #Tworship, Monday thru Friday, 9 Eastern, 6 Pacific…

7. And then now finally, probably the one “connection” I remember most is Jennifer Johns (@goingbyfaith in California).

(Speech conclusion: click here)

(Info on the 140 Character Conference - Central Sierra: click here)