"From the Office of Rick Warren"

In a recent post I wrote about my curiosity when I discovered that Rick Warren was following my twitter feeds. My cynicism caused me to think that this was part of a marketing plan to get more followers to follow him. So in fairness to Pastor Warren I hand wrote a letter, simply asking why he was following my tweets. I received this email from his Chief of Staff David Chrzan:

Dear Dave,

Thanks so much for your note to Pastor Rick and for your question. Pastor Rick attempts to follow as many pastors, church leaders and church planters via Twitter as he can. Through listening to the tweets of other Christian leaders Pastor Rick is able to discern a little of the pulse of the church at large. He hears what is on the hearts of pastors and church planters; and as a result he is able to pray for the church and its’ leaders more specifically.

Rick teaches that every leader must be a life time learner and so this is one more way he seeks to learn from others in the Body of Christ. I’m not able to tell you specifically how Pastor Rick came to follow you on Twitter. He follows pastors and church planters on Twitter as they become known to him. There are many pastors and planters that Rick follows because they were recommended to him for their teaching, and inspiration.

Thanks again for writing to Pastor Rick. Our prayer team will be praying for you and Renovate Covenant Church of Muskegon, Michigan as you seek to fulfill God’s purposes by planting new churches.

God Bless,

David Chrzan

Chief of Staff

Well...still not sure why he is following my tweets or how he can comb through the 14,000+ people he follows, but the response is genuine and for that I'm thankful.

Now, I wonder what Rick Warren's favorite Garbage Pail Kid is?

Purpose Driven Tweets

I just got a notification that Pastor Rick Warren is following my tweets. Why would this celebrity-pastor (with 135,233 followers) follow my tweets (along with 14,115 others)?

Since I don’t know and have never met the Purpose Driven Pastor I have to admit that my response is a bit cynical: It's part of a marketing ploy that many “celebrities” engage in. A marketing team manages their account and “follows” other people in the hopes that they will in turn follow their tweets. Then, when you click “follow” they either un-follow your Twitter feed all together or simply never pay any attention to your posts.

Why would this bother me? Because it is disingenuous. Following someone on Twitter should be based on a genuine desire to hear what is going on with others. Whether it is your friend from college or Kim Kardashian, the point is not how well you know them, but rather your desire to engage in their life and hear what they have to say; superficial or otherwise.

I have no delusions of grandeur regarding my tweets/postings, nor am I trying to gain any kind of “following”. Simply put, I just don’t want to be “used” in an effort to pad another’s Twitter stats.

To be gracious, I do not know Pastor Warren's motives for following my Twitter feeds. So out of fairness to him I wrote a letter asking him why he is interested in following my tweets. I'll keep you posted on his response... via Twitter of course :)

Feeding the Twitter Bird

I'm trying to stream line my online communication. Twitter is sending feeds to Facebook and Blogger, now I'm trying to get Blogger to send feeds to Twitter and then on to Facebook. Hopefully this works (it will save me from having to make updates in three different areas).

How do you manage your online status, communication, and networking?