Is it worth it? That is what I was thinking!

I didn't even want a cell phone. In the 90s, I didn’t have a cell phone. They were those big albatrosses anyway. Some tried to give me their used ones (so noble), I took them but never used them. I valued my privacy. 

The flip phone arrived. Small. Easy to use. I got one. It gave way to the smartphone. I got one. I moved to a different platform. But then social media came to the fore. AOL online, My Space and then Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. I wasn’t about to do any of it. I thought is was silly, time consuming, etc. It certainly had no appeal to me. Call me a name. Call me old fashioned. I didn’t care! Still don’t. I like good tradition. I like solid ground. Thumbing around on a small keyboard was not for me. Stupid. I'm not doing it. 

Time passed. I thought! I prayed. It occured to me that since I was a communicator, maybe I needed to glance, glimpse, consider other methods of reaching out to people. So there I sat in a breakout session in Nashville, Tennessee listening to Phil Goldsberry talk about how his church was using the internet and how social media could be a tool that very effectively gave ministry a presence and platform that it would not otherwise have. All of a sudden I looked down at my cell phone (I had one now), and there was a text from one Matt Tew. Matt did not know where I was, what I was doing, or what I was thinking. It read, "Pastor Bowen, have you ever considered using social media for ministry, I know some churches have done very well in using it to reach out to people!" Bing. Bing. Bing. Bing! What a "coincidence!"

I knew God had my attention. Now, you are reading this years later. I have to admit I have seen the abuses and been abused on social media. Just like other occupations, I considered cutting the ties that bind many times. Even today I vacilate sometimes with thoughts that are filled with or driven by emotion. Quit. It's not worth it. It's not effective. Very few care. You are not making a difference. Its not worth the time, stress, effort or emotional investment.

But then I think of you. You. The person reading this article. The one who cares. The one who is encouraged. The one who is impacted. I think of you and then I realize, I have to keep doing it. Some are being helped, some are being equipped, some are being blessed, and some are being changed!

But the bottomline is the light of Yahweh's presence shines out of my heart and onto the page. It comes out in prophetic words and the unction is explicit and definite in its comfirmation that somehow, someway, someone is needing to hear what I have to say. And so I continue to write and communicate the love of God that has been shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Are you blessed? Say Amen!