Unclean

Just then a woman who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, ‘If I only touch his cloak, I will be healed.’

It’s near impossible to have a proper understanding in Western culture of the nature of “unclean”. We can read about it in the Old Testament, but it doesn’t carry over into the present. The idea that bleeding – surely an easy cure now – would bar us from participating in important communal activities, of building community itself, is completely foreign. Of course, the woman so desperate to touch Jesus had a healthy understanding of what she could gain from being cured. She’d no longer be marginalized, no longer be broken, unclean.

In Africa right now, there’s an easily operable condition called a vesicovaginal fistula. The condition occurs most regularly in young girls who give birth in their early teens. The birth wreaks havoc on their bodies and their wounds don’t heal properly causing constant incontinence. Think about that for a moment. Constant incontinence. These women are shunned from their families and abandoned by their husbands. They live out their lives alone. Call them pariahs.

Just recently SIM was given permission by the government of Niger to build a VVF center in Danja. (It’s being constructed right next to a SIM leprosy center.) Many women will be rendered clean again. They will be given a new life.

I can’t help but compare the story of the bleeding woman in Matthew 9 to this present story of the VVF clinic in Danja. Christ said, “Take heart, daughter…your faith has healed you.” While we can’t heal supernaturally in the same way Christ healed, we can use medicine to heal the body (while preaching a need for faith in Christ). The bleeding woman already had faith. These women with fistulas in Africa need it.

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You can read a full article from the New York Times that mentions the fistula clinic in Niger, and you can also learn more about the clinic by reading this SIM news bulletin. The SIM link also has a link to give funds to build and run the clinic, if you’re interested. Also check out this PBS documentary on fistulas in Africa called A Walk to Beautiful.

Power and Prosperity

HT: Justin Taylor

This video, courtesy of Christianity Today’s The Global Conversation series, points out that “The Prosperity Gospel” may not be most destructive in the US; instead, Africa may be the place its lie finds root most deeply.

To know Africa is to know that spiritual power means everything. It’s hard for Americans to see The Prosperity Gospel through the African grid, but the best analogy is jumping back in time to Greece where each god had a power, and you wanted to keep those gods on your side as much as possible. When bad stuff went down, the last thing you needed was a spurned god adding to the melee. Africans (in general) think along the same lines: Please as many gods as possible because, if you do, you’ve got their power on your side. If someone wants to put a curse on you, you had better hope you have more spirits and deities that have your back than they do.

Syncretism, the term for melding two opposing belief systems together, is popular in Africa. “You want me to accept Jesus into my heart? YES! I want him. I’ll add him to the 216 other gods I worship.” You get the idea; however, even when Africans decide to give up the treasure chest of gods they bow to in order to follow Jesus alone, you can see the pull of the Prosperity Gospel: “I guess I can give up all these other gods as long as Jesus gives me the most power.” In this case, power is prosperity. What African whose family is starving wouldn’t buy into a message of ease in prosperity when rapped into one god? And so what happens when an African gives everything away to an itinerant preacher in return for promised material wealth?

But let’s not let ourselves off the hook as Westerners as if we aren’t just as gullible. Watch until the video ends. Listen to what the narrator says.

It’s been said before, but it deserves repeating: North Americans and Europeans are just as syncretistic with Jesus as anyone else; we just add him to the worship of our HD TVs, our computers, our homes, our clothing, our cars, our jewelry, our season tickets, our…

Twitter and Missions

I’ve been thinking quite a lot lately about writing about technology and missions. I have become the de facto “social media guy” at SIM USA. That’s mostly because I am under the age of 50, and I know how to turn my computer on. I really started my knowledge from scratch by necessity. I’ve spent countless hours reading article after article about Twitter, Facebook, Twuffer, Digsby, Twibes. (It’s clear from the look of my blog that I haven’t studied up on CSS yet.)

While many out there have a handle on the uses of Facebook, I find that very few people can articulate how and why Twitter is a useful tool – and more specifically, how/why it is useful to missions organizations (and missionaries, but that’s a whole different post). I think there are those that assume Twitter is just the next Facebook and can’t be bothered with keeping up with the latest and greatest. That’s the first misconception: Twitter is a substitute for Facebook. Twitter, when used correctly, requires a very different use strategy than Facebook.

A couple of the differences off the top of my head between Facebook and Twitter:

• While most personal accounts on Facebook are protected and require permission to access, Twitter users generally don’t protect their accounts which means “following” a Twitter user is simple and quick.
• Twitter (due in large part to its unprotected user accounts) has an excellent search function. Search millions of users for key words in real-time. Which brings us to “real-time”: While on Facebook, you can search your friends latest updates. On Twitter, you can find out what’s going on all over the world while it is happening.
• Twitter keeps it simple and uncluttered. With Twitter you can do one thing (really two things, actually). Twitter allows you to type (famously) 140 characters in each update. (The second thing is that you can add a web link in your message.) Alternatively, on Facebook, you can take quizzes, upload videos, play games, post pictures, blog… You get the idea. The best way to think if it is that on Twitter, you get the headlines; on Facebook, you get the whole newspaper.
• Facebook is relational. Twitter is informational. On Facebook, the greatest use is keeping up with friends. Twitter is more like reading an ever changing encyclopedia of everything. It doesn’t just connect information/content, however: It connects people and ideas. Facebook is a place for old friends, Twitter is the place where you find new ones, specifically, business (professional) and organizational connections. Call it LinkedIn Lite.
• Tagging connects content on Twitter. Twitter allows you to tag usernames of other Twitter users and also phrases (using hashtags). A hastag looks like this: #Urbana09. A username tag looks like this: @wanbaclone. (Wanbaclone is my personal username.) While it’s true that Facebook just started incorporating username tagging, it is still only possible to tag people and organizations that have allowed you to follow them. More about the uses of tagging later…

As you can see, the differences are significant. When I started noticing the differences in use, I took note, but I still hadn’t changed my approach to Twitter. What I was mostly doing was spewing content about SIM and missions in general with little regard for why I was doing it. Who was my audience (if anybody)? What was the effect of the information I was sending. You can see the dilemma: Without having a strategy, I wasn’t really sure if I was helping or hurting by using Twitter.

After watching several other missions related Twitter accounts such as @nationsbeglad and @omusa, I was able to notice trends and  best practices. Tweeting everything missions wasn’t a good strategy and tweeting everything missions all the time was even worse. It might work for @nationsbeglad, but of course, John Piper and company are a juggernaut of content.

I want to share a couple of the lessons I’ve learned in hopes that it may be helpful to others who are involved in ministry. Keep in mind that the content below assumes a Twitter user has a decent handle on how Twitter works, so you may want to get familiar with Twitter before you read on:

• Post three types of content regularly: (1) Original content (2) Retweeted content and (3) Relational content. Original content may involve links to your organizations website for articles, updates, etc. It may include links to pictures or videos. You may want to link to blogs affiliated with your organization or pull quotes from your missionaries. Retweeted content is pretty self-explanatory, but it’s important to note that retweeted content should be inline directly with who your organization is. Relational content should include responses to others’ content or questions, thoughts that people on Twitter can respond to.
• Because Facebook and Twitter are different, you shouldn’t be posting all the same content from your organization’s Facebook account to your organization’s Twitter account, so don’t link them. This also will make it important to interact regularly with Facebook and Twitter users rather than neglecting Twitter because Facebook is pushing your content over to Twitter automatically (or the other way around).
• Use a  Twitter client. This isn’t specific to ministry/missions organizations, but it certainly applies! Using Tweet Deck, Digsby, Seesmic, or Hoot Suite will make tracking tweets and tweeps so much easier, or if you have an iPhone or Mac, check out Tweetie.
• Know who your organization is and strictly keep to posting content that is important to what it is. For instance, if your organization focuses on evangelism to unreached people groups and is based in the US, don’t retweet a lot of content from Europe or from areas of the world where ministry is mostly focused on mercy ministry like medicine, food, and clean drinking water.
• Don’t tweet prayer requests constantly. Most people can’t pray for 15 of your prayer requests a day while also praying for their kids, extended family, missionaries they support, pastor, etc. Keep prayer tweets to a select few.
• Don’t tweet Bible verses constantly. Unless it relates specifically to another tweet you’ve already posted, or you happen to be tweeting for a Christian publishing company, it isn’t to your advantage to post Bible verses very often.
• Space out your tweets. No one wants to get a barrage of 15 messages from the same person/organization and then hear nothing for the next two days. The problem is that most of us can’t sit at  a computer all day to make sure tweets get spaced out to once an hour; however, there are other ways to make this happen. I currently use Twuffer to space out my tweets. It’s a website that allows you to type in tweets and then say when those tweets will actually post to Twitter. This means you can space out 10 tweets over two days if you want. Another option is using Hoot Suite if you’d rather not use a web-based solution. EDIT: Do not automate all tweets. You run the risk of becoming impersonal very quickly. A large percentage of your interaction on Twitter will always need to be “at-the-moment”. (advice via @bt4jc)
• Know who your missionaries are and follow them. Then, when they tweet something relevant, retweet it. This will allow those following your organization to have the option of checking out individuals who are affiliated with you. It will also help you tweet up-to-the-minute information from your “correspondents”. Tweets like “Just finished digging well 206 in South Sudan” or “Just saw 15 new believers come to Christ in Thailand.” @BobWeszely does a particularly good job of this for SAT-7. Instead of posting missionary quotes, he posts quotes from those affected by the SAT-7 ministry. One of my favorite quotes he’s posted is this:

“Thank you for the program 'Follow Me'. I accepted Jesus as my savior because of it.” - SAT-7 viewer from Egypt

• Be aware of who your followers are. This doesn’t necessarily mean you need to follow everyone that is following you, but you should periodically sort through your new followers so you can at least follow the ones who are relevant to your organization. If you check your followers regularly, this will also help you to stay on top of deleting “Twitter porn”: all those spammers with suggestive profile pics. While it won’t hurt your organizations reputation most likely, it will be distracting to those thumbing through your list of followers.
• Identify other organizations on Twitter that overlap in ministry. Engage them. Ask them questions. Retweet them. (1) This will allow you to gain a whole lot of knowledge that you may be able to bring back to your own organization and (2) those other organizations will start returning the favor most likely. This gets at the heart of Twitter: sharing information and learning from it. One caveat: make sure to “brand” your organization. If you retweet too many other sources regularly, followers won’t have a strong idea of who your organization is.
• Use a good RSS feed reader to keep track of blogs and websites that relate to your organization. When you find something interesting, Tweet about it. Google Reader is the one I use. This is also a great way to find breaking news. Many times, a bit of good news that overlaps with your organization’s purpose will go up first on someone’s personal blog before it hits a major website. This means if you get to it first, a lot of other Twitter accounts will be retweeting you as a source.
• Make sure to consistently tag your content. Use hashtags like #missions if you are a missions organization. Tag @vomc (Voice of the Martyrs, Canada) if you know of Church persecution that is happening where your organization works. Coming up this December, the Urbana conference will be held in St. Louis. If you are going and tweet about it, tag your tweet with @urbana09 or #urbana09. This will allow people to search for your content easily.
• Think about what you can give people without thinking about what you’ll get in return. This means tweeting about contests and job opportunities without tweeting about these things all the time. If all you talk about is your budget, your jobs, your giveaways, it’ll get old really quick.
• Which brings me to a final key point: While sticking within the bounds of who your organization is, make sure to ask yourself one major question: Will someone that has a passing interest in my organization/ministry find this information interesting? If the answer is no, it probably isn’t worth tweeting about – even if it is something groundbreaking, exciting, or new to you.

This list is in no particular order nor is it exhaustive. These are just some observations I’ve made about what works and what doesn’t work with a ministry Twitter feed. If you’ve got any suggestions, please feel free to add them in the comments section. I’ll be sure to read them.

Big thanks to Taylor Martyn (@sudantweets), “that SIM Sudan media guy”,  for making editorial contributions to this post. He added a few things I had forgotten or wasn’t aware of and dissented on a few key issues which needed to be reworded or reworked.