One of the things that Twitter allows is for people to immediately get into conversations about anything stated in those 140 characters. This morning’s article was based on tweets said later in the day on Sunday. And those tweets were responded to by Kevin Purcell, a good brother, pastor, and friend. He got a pre-viewing of this morning’s article and yesterday posted an excellent counterpoint to it. Here’s a snippet:

…My first reaction was to say, add something like SMS as a way to respond in addition to the paper card/pencil method. Unfortunately, I still have some of the above problems. It could be a distraction to those who don’t have SMS, don’t know what it is, or feel apprehensive about using it. Plus it takes more time to explain this when I could simply say fill out the card in the pew in front of you and be done with.

I do like the idea of offering digital response to those who would prefer it. I don’t have to even mention it from the platform, but it could flash before them in the opening announcement slides. One thing I learned in my doctoral research about using multimedia is that your members seldom see the announcement slides anymore, but the visitors often look at them carefully as a means of judging the church. They will likely notice a slide advertising your church email address, Facebook page, official text message number or Twitter handle. If you do this, make sure these tools are kept fresh. A stale website and Twitter feed does more harm than good. This won’t distract as it would if I actually mention it is because this engages the visitor before worship begins…

Read the rest of Mobile for Visitor Contact in Church from Kevin Purcell.

Now that you’ve heard both, what are your thoughts?

Side note: the image is tongue-in-cheek; Kevin had this posted on a previous article and it just kind of fit.