Fasting from Twitter and Facebook

00:00:00.000 | In the last podcast, in episode 61, we talked about your goals of using Twitter, and I want

00:00:10.440 | to pick up on that discussion here.

00:00:12.080 | Pastor John, what are some strategies for stewarding a Twitter platform well?

00:00:18.640 | One is practice a fast.

00:00:21.840 | In other words, kick up a period of time, week, or like for me, two years ago, eight

00:00:26.680 | months, zero Twitter, zero blogging, and see what happens to your soul.

00:00:32.200 | See if your soul has become addicted to being known, being followed, being read, and just

00:00:39.200 | don't even write anymore and don't read anymore for X amount of time.

00:00:43.440 | That's a Twitter fast or a blogging fast.

00:00:46.840 | The last thing I would say is pray over every tweet.

00:00:50.280 | Just say, "God bless this," even if it's a joke, even if you're pointing to money-winning

00:00:55.280 | humor, say, like Kevin DeYoung does on his blog.

00:01:00.240 | Money-mourning humor.

00:01:01.360 | I do not doubt that Kevin chooses very consciously why he does that, thinks it through, prays

00:01:08.160 | over it, and I think that's what we all should do.

00:01:11.920 | Do you check your mentions or comments from followers to hear what they're saying about

00:01:16.760 | things you've posted on Twitter?

00:01:18.800 | Every now and then, I do and I don't really find it that helpful because for every person

00:01:26.080 | who says, "Thank you.

00:01:27.440 | It was a great help.

00:01:28.440 | Somebody has given me the F word."

00:01:34.520 | I don't think I can look enough to draw any valid conclusions.

00:01:40.480 | I'd have to look at it and do some sophisticated analysis to say, "Okay, 72% of the people

00:01:47.040 | said they got help and 30% thought it was hogwash.

00:01:52.000 | Surely the 70% are right."

00:01:53.760 | Well, maybe, maybe not.

00:01:56.000 | For me, it's much more spiritually safe to go to the Lord and say, "Here's something

00:02:07.120 | I think would be helpful for me to say," to think through how to say it best and then

00:02:15.040 | say it, and then I've got you and David and Jonathan and Marshall and Josh and John and

00:02:23.760 | Scott who I'm going to believe if it wasn't helpful, they're coming back to me.

00:02:29.480 | So Josh did that.

00:02:30.480 | Josh sent me a nice paragraph saying that one of the tweets I sent out just wasn't worded

00:02:35.840 | in a way that was helpful and I said, "You're right.

00:02:38.640 | You're right."

00:02:39.640 | So I didn't need to do any research.

00:02:41.240 | I've got you guys around me to help me.

00:02:44.400 | Maybe not everybody has that, but frankly, I'm so wired to love the praise of men that

00:02:52.080 | for me, it's more spiritually unhelpful to read what's being said than to just keep speaking.

00:03:01.760 | Here's kind of the way I view media like this.

00:03:04.760 | I'm basically a writer-preacher for a church and for books and for conferences, and I want

00:03:12.720 | my preaching ministry to be the main thing and my wider writing ministry.

00:03:17.480 | Twitter and these other things are spillover and I'm just scattering.

00:03:24.080 | I exist to spread a passion for the Supremacy of God in all things, and I just want those

00:03:28.800 | to be used as well as they can, but the bread and butter is over here on the more substantial

00:03:37.800 | things that I'm speaking and working on.

00:03:40.760 | Here's a related follow-up question.

00:03:43.760 | When you go to the DG blog and you look at the posts that you've written currently right

00:03:46.640 | now in the way that the website is designed, the Facebook and Twitter statistics are very

00:03:51.240 | prominent.

00:03:52.240 | You can see those right by the headline.

00:03:54.120 | How do you read those statistics?

00:03:55.960 | What do those mean to you, if anything?

00:03:57.600 | I'm not even sure what you're talking about.

00:04:00.960 | Okay, excellent.

00:04:02.640 | Well, on the DG blog to the right of the blog banner or the image at the top of the blog

00:04:06.760 | post, there will be a statistic for Facebook likes and retweets on Twitter.

00:04:11.240 | Is it just a little gauge for the popularity of a post?

00:04:14.120 | All right, maybe I'll look at that.

00:04:16.160 | So what was your question?

00:04:17.880 | Okay, yeah, well that totally undermines the question, so we'll move on.

00:04:20.920 | No, no, here in principle I can say this.

00:04:24.000 | I'm glad.

00:04:25.000 | I mean, I just got an email from Josh, who's Director of Communications at Desiring God

00:04:32.080 | this morning, reminding me what our goals were internationally for this year, and among

00:04:37.320 | those goals were generally on the blog, we want to see I think like a 20% increase of

00:04:43.040 | people who visit and for those outside non-English, I forget what, 35%, 40% increase.

00:04:50.000 | Well now, that's a goal.

00:04:52.960 | We exist to spread.

00:04:54.760 | Our goal is not to have fewer and fewer people reading what we write on this blog.

00:04:58.640 | Our goal is to spread, and therefore the people that are charged to strategically reach the

00:05:04.680 | greatest number of people have got to look at those statistics.

00:05:08.680 | Are we reaching our goals?

00:05:09.960 | If not, would there be strategies we could follow that would help us reach more people

00:05:15.100 | without altering the truth that we love?

00:05:17.480 | Excellent.

00:05:18.480 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this awkward podcast.

00:05:23.040 | Please email your Twitter questions to us at AskPastorJohn@DesiringGod.org.

00:05:26.360 | You'll find thousands of other free resources online from John Piper at DesiringGod.org.

00:05:30.960 | I'm your host, Tony Ranke.

00:05:31.960 | Thanks for listening.

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Fasting from Twitter and Facebook

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