Tweet If You Heart Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation [Paperback]

Elizabeth Drescher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2011

Churches everywhere are scrambling to get linked with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. But are they ready for the Digital Reformation: the dramatic global shift in the nature of faith, social consciousness and relationship that these digital social media have ushered in?

Tweet If You Love Jesus brings the wisdom of ancient and medieval Christianity into conversation with contemporary theories of cultural change and the realities of social media, all to help churches navigate a landscape where faith, leadership and community have taken on new meanings.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This glass-half-full approach will motivate readers to count participation by interactions instead of bodies in pews. Drescher's encouragement adds a hopeful voice to the debate over churches' use of social media."

--Publishers Weekly

"Drescher masterfully contextualizes digital media in the history of human communications... and our deepest traditions." --Julie Lytle, Associate Professor, Pastoral Theology and Educational Technologies, Episcopal Divinity School

"Drescher opens a door to understanding social media...An important and valuable book for religious leaders..." --Patricia Beck Carr, Assistant Professor of Organizational Learning & Leadership, Gannon University

"A wonderful feat...This book will help your church move into the future..." --N. Graham Standish, pastor of Calvin Presbyterian Church, author of In God's Presence, Humble Leadership, & Becoming a Blessed Church

We live in a world of unprecedented possibilities & dangerous challenges. Drescher invites us to live into the admonition of Jesus that we be as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves. --Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution

From the Author

"The Church is at a critical juncture as it attempts to respond to dramatic cultural changes related to new mobile, digital social media. Some of those changes are wonderfully liberating, inviting creative involvement in the practice of faith and the nurturing of community by believers and seekers of all stripes around the globe. Others, such as the restructuring of concepts of privacy, self-presentation, and relationship that seem to undermine notions of interpersonal, communal, and spiritual intimacy that are at the heart of much Christian practice, feel more troubling. Threatening, even." ~Elizabeth Drescher, Tweet If You ♥ Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 190 pages
• Publisher: MOREHOUSE PUBLISHING; 1 edition (May 1, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0819224235
• ISBN-13: 978-0819224231
• Product Dimensions: 5.8 x 0.6 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #73,381 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dr. Elizabeth Drescher is a scholar, researcher, and writer. She is on the faculty in Religious Studies and Pastoral Ministries at Santa Clara University. She is also a senior correspondent for the online magazine Religion Dispatches. Her work has been highlighted by the Atlantic Monthly, the Utne Reader, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Australian Radio National, the BBC, CNN, State of Belief Radio, and other national and international news outlets. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards for the study of spirituality in everyday life and teaching in religion and spirituality.

Dr. Drescher was recently named as a journalism fellow on the Social Science Research Council's "New Directions in the Study of Prayer" project, which is funded by the Templeton Foundation. Her latest work focuses on the spiritual lives of so-called "religious Nones"--believers and seekers unaffiliated with institutional religions who answer "none" when asked with what religion they identify.

Elizabeth is the author of Tweet If You ♥ Jesus: Practicing Church in the Digital Reformation (Morehouse, 2011) and, with Keith Anderson, Click 2 Save: The Digital Ministry Bible (Morehouse, 2012).

She is a popular speaker at conferences, colleges, seminaries, and universities. Dr. Drescher advises churches, dioceses, synods, seminaries, and other religious institutions on ministry and evangelism to believers and seekers in the Digital Age. She serves on the Commission on Ministry for the Episcopal Diocese of El Camino Réal. Elizabeth lives with her family in Northern California's Silicon Valley.

Learn more about Elizabeth's research, writing and speaking at www.elizabethdrescher.com and follow her on Twitter @edrescherphd.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Most Relevant Social Media Book I've Read! September 13, 2011

By Eric Nelson

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I can't say enough about this wonderful book! I work as a state-wide spokesperson for my church and I'm always looking for new ways to connect sincerely and effectively with the public. Like everyone else who is beginning to dip their toes into the uncertain waters of social media, I've read just about every "Top 10 ways to tweet/blog/facebook/etc." list there is. But it wasn't until I read Dr. Drescher's book that I really began to connect the dots... perhaps because this is the first book I've read focused so squarely on the confluence between religion and social media. This book was written for me! Perhaps the biggest revelation (a "no duh!" moment, really) was the realization that my involvement with social media is not about accumulating "friends" and "followers" but building and contributing to a community. The "accumulating" always seemed so insincere... but participating in my community? Hey, I can do that! Not only that, I want to do that! The real bonus for me was discovering that so many of the qualities that already come so naturally to us - as Christians or just as "regular folks" who may have no particular "label" for their spiritual practice - translate so easily and so naturally to the world of social media.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I {heart} this book July 29, 2011

By Richard Kautz, author of A Labyrinth Year

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Elizabeth Drescher writes about a cultural shift that I believe is as important as Phyllis Tickle's Great Emergence. At the end of her book, Drescher asks, "Is social media the end of the church, or a new beginning?" Her answer is "Yes." The Gospel proclaims that death comes before ressurrection. Many declining congregations refuse to die to the old ways of being church and therefore have a difficult time with a changing culture.

Drescher makes the point that social media goes beyond broadcasting news about the church and actually forces us to engage in community. Radio and television provide one-way communication, while social media is based on dialogue. Drescher uses research that backs up the idea that "heavy internet users have the most friends both on - and offline - and, importantly, that these friendships are no more or less superficial than those tracked in previous studies."

The church cannot afford to ignore social media, we do so at our own peril. But, we must learn how to use it and not be afraid of it. This book will help any church communicator better understand their way around social media. If you want to be part of this new Reformation, buy this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Focus on Purpose November 4, 2011

By Pat in Palo Alto

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

The strength of this book is getting the reader to focus on why his or her organization is using electronic media such as Twitter, Facebook or just a web site. It changed my thinking about our church's web site and what we can do with it. It also got me to think again about Facebook, which I had not been inclined to use. Well worth a read, even if you are not part of a "mainline" Protestant church.