So a lot of people laugh at me when I talk about or tell people that I use and enjoy Twitter.

The biggest criticism I hear of Twitter goes something like this, "I don't want to know what you had for breakfast". First of all, this shows a major misunderstanding of Twitter - Twitter is more about conversations and passing on interesting websites and ideas - and second, for some famous people or Christians who we look up to it can actually be interesting to get an insight into what their lives look like. I know a whole lot more about people like Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer, Michael Hyatt, Max Lucado, Don Miller and Doug Fields, because they tell me about their lives on Twitter. This is actually both interesting and refreshing to see lots of what they do is just like me, hang out with their family, friends etc.


Putting this aside there are three other great reasons I like Twitter. First, I've been able to interact with people I would never have if it wasn't for Twitter. I've had conversations on Twitter with John Piper (or the guy who twitters for him at least), David Allen, Alan Hirsch, Lifeway Student Ministry, Rick Smith, Guy Mason, Communicate Jesus (aka Steve Kryger), the Youth Ministry Blog people, to name a few.

The second great reason for my love of Twitter is that I've had consumer problems fixed because of Twitter. Back in March, I was seriously annoyed with The Commonwealth Bank for something they did. I wrote this on Twitter, and then they rang me to sort it out! (I have blogged about that before). Then just last week I tried to reformat my first computer hard-drive. This was going very badly and I tweeted that I needed to find the Drivers for the Medion computer I was playing with. Medion UK replied to that tweet and told me where to get the drivers from. And now that computer works fine!

The third reason is because I have also won a CD through Twitter. It was from Lifeway Student Ministry when I entered a competition on the pastor ran on Twitter only for Youth Pastors.

So I would encourage you to stop bagging twitter, or stop wondering about it and make a commitment to try it out for a month (aiming for 2 tweets a day). And see what happens.

Twitter is all about followers, so at the end of this post I'll give you a great list of people or organisations who are worth following on Twitter. Start interacting with them. You will enjoy it. It's also fine in Twitter land to follow and unfollow (stop following) people. So follow someone, and if they are boring or annoying, simply unfollow them. I have done this several times.

The other thing that most people who use Twitter do is use a 3rd party program. This makes Twitter better. I use TweetDeck. It's the best one I've found. You can download it here

If you want to learn more about Twitter, check out the Mashable Twitter Guide book. It lays out everything you need to know to get started!

So why not head on over to twitter and sign up now?

People worth following:
Me (Chris Bowditch)
HTD Youth (The Youth Ministry I run)
Michael Hyatt (CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers)
Mashable (The latest info in the world of social media)
Communicate Jesus (Steve Kryger talks Web 2.0, social media and harnessing it for the church)
Rick Warren (Senior Pastor and Founder of Saddleback church, Author of Purpose Driven Life)
Tim Schmoyer (Youth Pastor in USA. Great websites - www.studentministry.org)
Jetstar Airways (Find out when there are cheap flights)
Virgin Blue (Find out when there are cheap flights)
Wayne Schuller (Assistant Minister at Holy Trinity Anglican Church)
Jono Smith (Assistant Minister at Holy Trinity Anglican Church)
Louie Giglio (Founder of the Passion Conference)
Desiring God (John Piper's ministry)
ESV Daily Bible (The Bible is good)
Ed Stetzer (Christian researcher in the USA. Into church planting)
John Piper (Needs no introduction, dead set legend)
Mark Driscoll (Howdy Mars Hill, Pastor of Mars Hill Church Seattle)
Matt Chandler (Pastor of Church in Dallas TX)
Don Miller (Author of many books, eg. Blue Like Jazz, Searching for God Knows What)
Max Lucado (Christian Author)
Rick Smith (American speaker to youth, and theology student)
Google (search engine)
Google Books (cool part of the web, they tweet cool quotes)
VictoriaPolice (Find out all the crazy things that people do in Melbourne)
Victorian Premier (Doesn't really know how to use this, but he might one day)
Kevin Rudd (Australia's Prime Minister, actually really interesting, writes his own tweets too)
Bob Kauflin (American worship pastor)
David Allen (Getting Things Done guy)
Alan Hirsch (Australian Missiologist, founder of FORGE)
Will Briggs (Tasmanian church planter)
Doug Fields (American Youth Pastor, Author of many Youth Ministry books)
Creative Youth Ideas (Tweets ideas about Youth Ministry)
Guy Mason (Melbourne Church planter)
Youth Ministry Blog (A good American youth ministry blog - multi-authored)

You can also go to the Twitter Suggestions section and look for some people there.