At Religion Dispatches, Pauline Hope Cheong writes about how different religious groups are using Twitter, a microblogging system for messages of 140 characters or less:
Twitter asks the simple question: “What are you doing?” Some evangelical Christian groups are harnessing these coincident messaging flows to strengthen their religious communication via synchronized prayer. Consider the Calvin Institute of Worship’s set up of an automated Twitter feed to “pray the hours”. Inspired by the Holy Scripture’s injunctions to “pray without ceasing” ( 1 Thessalonians 5:17), users can sign up to receive hourly prayers sent in verses of brief twitter feeds or view a “Tweetgrid” with all prayer feeds to prompt continuous prayer or help those who are unsure of what words to pray.
In this way, contemporary believers may reinvent the century old practice of praying set prayers from the Bible, hymns and devotionals and matching prayer rhythms with fellow believers at designated times of the day. This also brings to mind the Pentecostal religious practice of prayer chains, where lay followers are charged to pray on particular topics, during particular hours, and for the same length of time.
Read the full post here.