Tag: #CNMAC12

Saturday 20th saw The Christian New Media Conference 2012 take place in London, now the great thing about it was that the amount of tweets that took place about the event using the #cnmac12 hashtag meant that if needed, people could attend the event… via twitter. Quite odd, not ideal, but still quite good fun and almost educational.

As I shared three lessons I took away from the conference last year, I decided to have a go at sharing a few ponderings and questions that stood out to me after attending #cnmac12 via Twitter, using some tweets that stood out.

1) Who are you. What do you represent?

The image of God online is important because of the incarnation #cnmac12 God painted a picture of who he is in Jesus so we can too.

— Bryony Taylor (@vahva) October 20, 2012

#cnmac12 Twitter isn't just for tweeting CS Lewis quotes, it's for telling stories & being vulnerable.

— Phil Maylor (@Maylor) October 20, 2012

We must connect with pple through our vulnerability. Pple have longings to connect not with abstract principles but with the heart #cnmac12

— New Hope (@NewHopeBradford) October 20, 2012

If Jesus painted an image of God, so we can as well; what sort of image do we paint? Do our Twitter / Facebook streams look like one long collection of inspirational Nicky Gumbel / CS Lewis moments, or do we take a chance and share when we’re vulnerable? What if we over share when we’re vulnerable? I’m sure we’ve all seen those Facebook status’ that make it obvious that the person who wrote it is upset – but they dont want to say why…

Is there a happy medium between sharing the highs and lows of life, without coming across as either boastful, or that you’re just looking for attention?

2) The Future of Media.

#cnmac12 Who last had a news story broken to them by the TV or a paper? #showofhands

— Older but not wiser (@mistersaxon) October 20, 2012

#cnmac12 socialmedia is dead as a unique space. Going forward all media has to be social. how does that influence ur church/charity website?

— Andy Burns (@andyburns1974) October 20, 2012

Well I’m sure there have been news stories that I’ve heard about via newspapers / TV reports first… But I’m fairly sure I’ve heard about all the interesting stories via Twitter first. Is the online world really starting to influence the world of printed / on screen media? The tale of George Osborne and the Standard Class ticket was first told via Twitter before the news was available via other means. In her talk on “Has twitter made it ok to pray?“, Bryony Taylor suggests that the printed media now follows what happens first on digital media, with the observation that without Twitter, the headline “God is in control” would never have appeared in The Sun.

What does it mean for the humble church notice sheet if digital media is leading printed media?

3) Who Do We Talk To?

#cnmac12 connect with the excluded: social media breaking us out of the Christian ghetto? #reach

— elimREACH (@elimREACH) October 20, 2012

Does anyone use the “nearby” search on Twitter to see who they can connect with in real life? #cnmac12

— Graham Crosbie (@grahamcrosbie) October 20, 2012

Do we stay within a Christian bubble online? Do we talk to people in our local neighborhood? If you’re on either Twitter or Google Plus, try out the “nearby” function, if nothing else you may end up finding a great way to get local news.

4) You Are Not Alone.

#cnmac12 'we read to know we're not alone' – yes! This!

— Claire Ashurst (@ClaireAshurst) October 20, 2012

#cnmac12 I always love the freedom to tweet at these conferences! Sermon tweeting sometimes gains me glares in church!

— Helen N (@Hels_Bels_1) October 20, 2012

We read stories to remember we’re not alone in the world.
We read tweets and go on Facebook to connect to people.

And I guess, conferences like this are important in case you’re the lone webmaster / facebooker / creative type / tweeter in your church. Just remember: You are not alone.

5) Pickles.

Why?

This post originally appeared on The Big Bible Website