Strategy for Social Media

00:00:04.640 | Welcome back to Ask Pastor John. I trust your celebration of the resurrection of Christ was wonderful this weekend.

00:00:11.160 | And today and tomorrow we're joined again by author and pastor Ray Ortlund.

00:00:14.920 | Ray, in your excellent commentary on Proverbs, you wrote this, quote,

00:00:19.280 | "Twitter and blogs and emails would be cleared of much conflict if we humbled our opinions before Christ.

00:00:25.980 | What are we here for, really? What does God want to be stirred up in our hearts?

00:00:30.760 | He says, 'Stir one another up to love and good deeds,'" Hebrews 10 24, end quote.

00:00:37.180 | Now you're online, so explain the connection and how this works for you in deciding what to post on social media and to Facebook.

00:00:44.560 | Right, I think of Facebook, it's not really a website.

00:00:51.380 | It's a landmine, brilliantly disguised as a website.

00:00:55.600 | So I got out of Facebook last summer, and I didn't just deactivate my account,

00:01:00.680 | I deleted it because I found that for me personally, it started to take too much time.

00:01:07.680 | I found it just got me riled up at times in ways I don't want. It's not hard to find political stupidity.

00:01:14.540 | It's not hard to find reasons to get angry over developments in our culture and so forth.

00:01:20.120 | And there was too much there that was counteracting my desire to walk with the Lord.

00:01:25.640 | So I bailed out. I still use, I have a blog at the Gospel Coalition.

00:01:31.300 | I do use Twitter and I do use Instagram.

00:01:34.800 | Those are more controlled environments online, and I can still pursue my purposes more easily there.

00:01:41.320 | But what I try to do with social media,

00:01:44.360 | well, I think of a wonderful verse in Isaiah chapter 50, verse 4, that I may know how to sustain with a word him who is weary.

00:01:53.020 | Everyone is weary. We're living under intense pressure. We don't need more.

00:01:57.480 | What we all need is to be helped with a sustaining word, and it doesn't need to be much.

00:02:02.620 | And I can't ask anyone for their attention for very long.

00:02:05.580 | So whether it's a blog post or whatever it might be, I want to sustain with a brief word the one who is weary.

00:02:13.620 | I want to maximize what I can impart to them with a minimum of commitment on their part.

00:02:20.520 | So I don't want to be the online watchdog of the Christian church and the corrector of everything that's wrong.

00:02:28.700 | I want to be an encourager. I think the Lord is.

00:02:31.200 | I believe encouragement is one of the most important ministries of the Christian church,

00:02:35.780 | and I think that's what social media is for.

00:02:38.660 | Well, I think you do it really well. You encourage, I think, as well as anyone online.

00:02:42.920 | Thank you, Tony.

00:02:43.920 | You can follow Ray Ortlund on Twitter and Instagram. I would recommend it.

00:02:47.660 | And our time with Ray draws to a close, but I have one more question for him,

00:02:51.660 | and I'm your host, Tony Reinke. We'll be back tomorrow.

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