My 10 Rules, Suggestions, or Commandments for Using Twitter

 1.   Know your audience on twitter. Anyone has access to your tweets unless you have locked your account. Consider how your behavior will be viewed before you speak. Remember, if it’s rude to your mother, it’s rude on twitter.

       2.     Don’t be negative or cryptic to stir up attention. People react better to positive messages on social media platforms that encourage not discouraging.

        

       3.     Be a helpful resource. Discover your passion and become the twitter expert that everyone follows for a specific topic. This may really compliment your vocation.

   
 4.    It’s best to respond to tweets by retweeting them using // after their tweet in response. This will not only help others understand your response, but the person you responded to as well.

       

       5.     Ask the most important question. “Does everyone need to read my comment or is this personal?” If not, it’s best to either withhold your thoughts or Direct Message your thoughts without others having to read it.  There’s nothing worse than 2 people taking up a twitter feed  with extraneous conversation.

   

       6.     Use Hashtags on major subjects so that people can join in on subject conversation and find new people to follow who discuss that particular subject regularly.

  

       7.     Be selfless not selfish. Tweeting constantly about extraneous life activities will eventually alienate your followers.

       8.     Don’t tweet too much or too little. A rule of thumb may be no more than 15 times per day. However, if you haven’t updated in months, I’ll unfollow you.

       9.     Don’t be afraid to use your sense of humor. People like to know that you are real people and have more than a one-dimensional life.

       

      10.  Block the Sketchy people. It’s a good idea to look at your followship sporadically to make sure no sketchy people are following you.

Redeeming Relationships: A Biblical Strategy Culminating In the Cross

What is a redemptive relationship? Redemptive relationships are “no strings attached” relationships that are cultivated to be, show, and share Christ. Christianity is fundamentally relational and interactive, not a transactional product to be sold. Jesus was the perfect model of redemptive relationships, which led him to the cross. Throughout the gospel accounts, He met temporal needs in order to fulfill spiritual needs.

Why pursue redemptive relationships? The primary factor that makes Christianity a radical faith is that the heart of the message is “relationship”. The cross is a picture of our vertical relationship with God and the horizontal relationship with others. First, God desires for us to be in a redemptive relationship with Him. Second, He wants us to be in redemptive relationships with others. These two desires are at the heart of the biblical narrative and the apex of the crucifixion; all Christians have the opportunity to be a part of the grand narrative of redemption through relationships. Needless to say, both vertical and horizontal relationships grow over time. Not only that, but evangelism is most effective in the context of relationships. Bill Bright said “85% of believers came to faith in Christ because of a family member or a friend. Put differently, evangelism is more effective being relational than transactional. Fundamentally, the gospel is transformational more than informational.

If we call ourselves Christians, or more effectively, disciple makers, then all of our relationships should be redemptive in nature. Therefore, we must see all relationships as eternal investments. Everyone on earth is someone for whom Jesus died. Consequently, we have the opportunity to share Christ and Him crucified. However, this means walking in the proximity of those who need Jesus the most.

The backdrop for pursuing redemptive relationships is personal holiness because lordship speaks loudly and earns credibility.

There are seven stages in a redemptive relationship

          1.     person is aware of messenger

          2.     person genuinely likes the messenger

          3.     person is aware messenger is Christian

          4.     person has a positive outlook towards Bible

          5.     person hears and understands the Gospel

          6.     person recognizes a personal need for Christ

          7.     Person places faith in Christ

These seven stages become the testimony of all Christians. As people who seek redemptive relationships, we must be sensitively aware to where people are in this process and carry people through these stages.  Cultivation may take as much as years or as little as seconds. God is inviting us into his activity; we are a tool that he uses to paint the masterpiece of redemption in people’s lives.

Relational Tools to cultivate redemptive relationships:

1.     Serve Others- Jesus didn’t come to be serve, but to serve

2.     Culturally converse- Common ground conversations helps to relate to others.

3.     Do things together that aren’t religious- people want to know that you don’t have an agenda relationship with them

4.     Ask spiritual questions- People tend to be open to talk about spiritual things over religious things.

5.     Listen before speaking- People want to be heard over being told.

Look for opportunities to transition conversations towards spiritual things.

   Questions to answer:

          1. What are some transitional statements we can use to discuss spiritual matters?

          2. Which person in your life do you have a burden for?

          3. How are you cultivating relationships?

          4. What steps should you take to love people redemptively?

          5. Are we ignoring the command to “make disciples?” If so, Why? 

Speaking to Students' Wants or Needs?

It would be an arrogant error to assume what students “need” and “want” is mutually exclusive. It would be unbiblical to say a student’s “need” and “want” is always synonymous.  Our hearts are deceitful according to scripture and we shouldn’t treat Bible study like a fast food drive through. However, what students want does point to an inadequate need that ought to be met through the lens of the gospel. Key phrase: “lens of the gospel” Students certainly know themselves and their wants/needs more than I do.

What students need is the life changing truth of the gospel in order to affect every component of their lives. Period… I assume many students want practical/topical advice such as dating etc. Should we talk about dating? Absolutely! Why? You can’t Christian date without knowing the gospel, therefore, you cant discuss Christian dating without the foundation of the gospel message.  Put differently, all topics should be harnessed by the gospel. Paul is quick to say 1 Corinthians 2:2 “I am resolved to say nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified”

We live in an environment of Christianity where some communicators provide a 5 step prescriptive plan for every practical life situation while other preachers rehash the roman road in a ritualistic and predictable way. I will refer to these distinctions as the pragmatic vs. dogmatic approaches.  Unfortunately, some pragmatic speakers never actually share the Gospel making them no different than any nonreligious life coach.  Dogmatic approaches may fail to help parishioners flesh out their faith.

A deeper question may be, who is our audience? Christian or non-Christian? Either way, communicators must first communicate the heart of the gospel. (orthodoxy) Secondly, we communicate what our lives ought to look like in light of the gospel. (orthopraxy)

Everything we teach should be through the paradigm of the gospel and how it affects every component of our lives. 

Campus Ministry & End of The Semester Evaluation

I’m a big component of continual assessment, but I believe it’s very important to meet once a semester with students to get feedback on the health and vitality of ministry.  This morning, I invited around 20 students to our semester evaluation meeting and we talked specifically about 3 key factors.

 1. Where are we?

 2. How are we doing?

 3. Where do we need to go from here?

We primarily talked about the main components of the BCM ministry. Here are some of the important questions.

       1.     What do college students look for in a speaker/preacher/communicator?

       2.     Do college students prefer exegetical or topical approach to bible study?

       3.     How can our ministry more effectively align with our mission statement?

       4.     What creative elements should we emphasize more?

       5.     How can we focus more on relational evangelism?

       6.     How can we better connect students to church?

       7.     How can BCM help remedy college student church shopping?

       8.     Is BCM too staff driven or too student driven?

       9.     What’s the one thing we did this year that we shouldn’t have done?  

      10. What the one thing we did we should do again?

      11.  What are some key relationships and partnerships on and off campus that we need to be invested in?

      12. How should we reconsider promoting our ministry?

We discussed these questions and more for around 2 hours. 3 General takeaways that I learned from students today:

1.     Today’s collegians want/need to learn about biblical man and womanhood

2.     Students enjoy hearing testimonies especially video testimonies.

3.     Students prefer a dialogical speaker who makes scripture applicable to collegians.

College Students & Postmodernism

There’s no question that post modernity has influenced collegians in a number of ways; namely, the interpretation of faith. What should be the response to this pandemic? Is it possible to leverage this worldview through dialogical Bible study? I believe it is possible if handled correctly. For example, delivering biblical truths in order to interactively discuss how to embody those truths would be an orthodox approach. A heterodox approach would be a subjectively interpreting scripture in dialogue.

Post Modernism has finagled its way into every conversational environent. For instance, in the middle of our bible study, students will make obvious contradictory statements without any glimmer of concern. Post modernism's influence has also led younger generations to a cynical view of the church. For example, one criticism collegians have towards the church is the overly authoritative pastoral role as if he were an OT prophet. “Mouthpiece of God” However, biblically, his mouthpiece should only go as far as scripture confirms.

I personally take an approach to deliver biblical truths in order to discuss with students how those truths should embody our lives. Simply put, the authoritative truth of scripture should drive our lifestyle and experiences, not vice versa. Truth doesn’t mystically originate from preachers or any other opinionated individual; it comes from scripture alone.

"Thus saith the Lord" comes from the Living Word not through experiences and opinions.

Here are some statements where post modernism rears it's ugly head in 21st century spiritual conversations...

1. This is what that scripture means to me. 

2. I know what the bible says, but it doesn't feel that way.

3. It doesn't really matter what you believe about Christianity as long as you are good and sincere. 

4. You are a legalitic fundamentalist if you have a propositional, objective & systematic approach to spirituality. 

5. You take the bible too literally. 

6. There's no difference between the faith of Christianity and other world religions.