I remember a couple of year’s ago taking out my laptop at General Synod and starting to blog. “You’re doing what?” shrieked the incredulous crowd. Well, actually, the crowd in synod was not terribly interested though the crowd beyond the synod hall was fascinated. Actually it was Mother Ruth who shrieked in derision, though not for long.
Last year, blogging was much more mainstream at synod. We have internet access in the hall now and you don’t need to dash out to have coffee in a wifi enabled coffee show to post updates as I did the first year I did it.
This year it was the turn of twitter to fascinate the episcopalian technorati. A number of us were doing the one line updates directly from the synod floor. If you don’t know what twitter is, check out this article which will tell you more.
One of the things that the I and C Board had arranged was for Mother Dunblane to come and give a lunchtime seminar on twittering for beginners. It certainly had the desired effect, with a number of people, including the Bishop of Edinburgh having a go.
We had feedback via twitter during the synod from, amongst others, clergy who could not be at synod, someone in the Alban Institute in the states, someone in Kentucky (one of Glasgow and Galloway’s companion dioceses) and Dave Walker the Cartoon Blogger (who put it on the Church Times blog).
Meanwhile, out in a world made darker by repression and violence, twitter is allowing Iranians to tell the truth about what they are seeing on the streets.
Twitter is just fast and furious one-line blogging. And as Bishop Pierre has observed, it gives us revolutionary power.
It is a revolution inside the church, as well as outside, and you can find me revolting, twittering here.
Any ideas what we should use it for next?
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