By Tim Lubinus, BCI Executive Director/Treasurer
Tim Lubinus, BCI Executive Director/Treasurer
The way that I’m wired, I communicate best in a one-on-one or small group setting. I’m not sure if that is a strength or weakness, but that is the way it is. The interactive and personal nature of the communication works best for me. I applaud those who publish books or speak to large audiences.
In my work my main media for communication are the phone, coffee shops (I’ve put about 20,000 miles on my car visiting pastors in the last seven months!), personal texts, and handwritten notes. I’ve enjoyed a new discipline during the last few months to write a handwritten note (so old school it surprises people) to someone everyday.
Having said that, below is a personal social media update:
My social media of choice lately has been Twitter. It is great for receiving nearly real time customized content.
I send out the name of a book that I’ve read recently on each Friday morning. This helps me to remain disciplined to read a book each week, helps my followers to have some recommendations, and focuses my book selection because I know many people will see what I’m reading (e.g. causes me to read fewer novels!).
At church on Sundays, I summarize the sermon and tweet it out. Rather than being a distraction, the exercise of summarizing the sermon in one sentence helps me to stay attentive to the message.
A few weeks ago I began to summarize the main message from each verse of Proverbs and tweet it out every day at 8:00am. This discipline of summarizing and tweeting helps me to go beyond simple reading to go deeper into the meaning.
Finally, I try to read broadly online and off and tweet out content that I think is helpful to my twitter followers. This helps me to stay disciplined and focused in my reading and web browsing.
Follow me here. Sign-up for twitter account if you don’t have one.
What about a blog? I still write at WorldChristians, but not as frequently. I’ve noticed in the last year or two my blog writing has declined a little along with my blog reading, but all my articles are still available and I still post from time to time. I just finished a ten post series on “Ten Lessons Regarding Mission from Church History”.
What about Facebook? I still have an account, but recently I was attending a conference and I noticed that half of the guys with computers were not taking notes or even getting caught up on their email, they were checking Facebook. Much of Facebook content is candy, it looks better than it really is and adds almost nothing healthy. Because of this and also because my son, Andrew is bailing out of Facebook, I decided to take the app off of my phone and iPad so at least it is less distracting.
Social media tools are no substitute for face-to-face interaction, but when used carefully are helpful in sharing information and staying connected.
Let me know if you have additional thoughts or comments at TLubinus@BCIowa.org or direct message me through Twitter here!
Question? Comments? Email me directly at TLubinus@BCIowa.org.
