Patrick Stewart says he doesn’t tweet (2 minute YouTube video) because he likes complexity,  and “reducing life” to 140 characters is “a little bit simplistic; maybe I like complexity”.  OK,  how about looking at what Twitter DOES allow us to do in 140 characters?   He follows up his Twitter comment with how much he loves his iPhone.  But isn’t that “reducing life” to a really small screen?  Never mind that the size allows you to carry it in your pocket,  thus providing portability,  and connectivity. Stewart reduced Twitter to 140 characters,  rather than Twitter “reducing life”.  Twitter has found its niche,  even as many use it primarily to live in the center of their world.

I blog as well as Tweet,  and connect with people via Facebook.  I blog because there are indeed several occasions when 140 characters just won’t handle even the brief responses.   This is why I didn’t “come to Twitter” in any significant way until relatively recently.  I saw so much irrelevant, egotistical blather.  But when I started seeing the referential uses,  and how it took what I found in RSS and added some recommendation flavor,  and that it came from people I want to have show me what is significant to them,  I saw the value of curation.  Now I rarely look at my RSS reader. I let those I follow on Twitter point out what they find interesting, funny, or valuable (or a combination of the three). And I allow them to point me to yet more good curators.

The church needs good curators.  All “flavors” of the church need it.  I am struck by the dominance of Twitter by the conservative evangelical flavor of the church is in on Twitter,  when you look at the sum total of all “church folks” who are there.  I find myself running across more Christians who curate the kind of info I want to see via the lists of the secular anthropologists/sociologists (not that none of them are Christians,  I suspect they are, but they do not curate with the church in mind) .