#783. The Social Media Sermon Pause

I’ve noticed something recently.

It was subtle, so it took me a little longer to recognize than it did that the lead singer of the Pussycat Dolls, a professional dancer, won the show “Dancing with the Stars.” If I didn’t think we had already exhausted all possible, “That would be like putting the Duggars in a baby having contest” jokes I would make one right now. But I won’t.

What I will do is tell you something about pastors and conference speakers that I have discovered recently.

They are doing “social media sermon pauses.”

What’s that?

That’s where you say some line, some sort of bombshell bit of insight and then you pause, so that people in the audience can type it into their iPhones for Twitter or use it as their Facebook profiles.

You think I am joking or exaggerating.

I am not.

I am writing this way in the hope that you will tweet one of these powerful staccato sentences I am dropping much like the rappers Common or Mos Def or Talib Kweli.

Next time you go to a conference or hear a sermon, listen for it and I promise you will hear it.

One of the common techniques is to say something that involves wordplay such as this:

The difference between when we “pry” and when we “pray” is simply the letter a, which stands for Abba. Let go and let God.

Pause.

Pause.

Pause.

And after the fingers have clicked and the tweets have burst forth like hummingbirds attacking a Fun Dip factory, the message will continue.

I know this, because I am guilty of this. The other day I caught myself scrolling through tweets people had said after I had spoken. That’s not a bad thing at heart. Hearing feedback via Twitter and Facebook helps me understand which points are resonating and which ones fell flat. But when we start caring more about social media than the people in the room, things get weird.

You start saying sentences that are viral, not vital.

Don’t tweet that.

Even though you have to admit, that wordplay was pretty fantastic. (Imagine if I said, “The difference between ‘viral’ and ‘vital’ is a simple ‘t.’ That t stands for truth.” I just blew my own mind with that diamond of Twitter glitteriness.)

Have you ever heard the Social Media Sermon Pause?