One little book is having a huge impact on how Christians engage the world online. I had a great time talking via Skype video with the authors of “@stickyJesus, how to live out your faith online.”
Tami Heim is a brand development partner in The A Group in Brentwood, Tennessee. She previously served as the executive vice president and chief publishing officer at Thomas Nelson Publishers and president of Borders, Inc.
Toni Birdsong is a partner in Birdsong Creative in Franklin, TN. With an extensive background in writing, she served as a communications specialist with The Walt Disney Company.
This is Part Two of our interview. We all met on Twitter. (Read Part One.)
Who did you write @stickyJesus for and why should they read it?
Tami: We wrote it for Christ followers, to help them, in a very practical way, use their time online to reflect the character of Christ.
They’re already building up networks and connecting with people. So, we hope they will see the potential, and have that Holy Spirit sensitivity, in how they might be able to minister and reach out to others.
Toni: We have been given unbelievable access. We’re in places that missionaries in days gone by could only pray for access to. We’re standing smack dab in the middle of answered prayer. And we need to hold that answered prayer with the highest stewardship.
We hope this little green book is a smelling salt that says to people, ‘wake up.’
Do you feel pastors and church leaders are seeing the moment of opportunity?
Tami: Some are, but we’re praying that many more will. There is this huge opportunity for congregations, and for leaders, to have ongoing connectivity and relationship.
Toni: We start where Jesus started. Relationship. Connecting. Inclusiveness. Engagement. Compassion. He was a leader and He came with a message. So the reason to get online, we feel, is for relationship, the technology comes second.
Tami: Yes!
In the book, you say anyone with essential messages to communicate must develop strategies that fit the global realities. And to create urgency you add,“Catch up…or catch you later.” Does that apply to the church?
Toni: Yes! Oh my goodness, more so than anybody.
Tami: Yes, very much so! There’s always this little cringe when you talk about strategy in the church. Strategy in it’s purest sense is the how something happens. We have Scripture and Jesus as a role model. We start there, and then we show how it looks for this time and generation. But the core strategy of Jesus connecting with people is the same.
Toni: God has done bigger things for His people than teach them Social Media. We need to have Godly confidence going to this mission field. And if this is where the conversation is…
Tami: Then we need to be in it. We not only need to be in it, we need to be leading it. We need to claim the online world for Christ, just like we need to claim Haiti, which I have heart for, and every other country around the world for Christ.
Toni: Anyone that stays on the sidelines is going to miss God’s movement.
God is truly working through relationships online isn’t He?
Tami: The prayer alone, Gordon, is staggering. When I go online, what I see in my stream is my assignment for that day. It is my holy responsibility. Nothing changes you more than when you pray for someone. What God does in you and in relationship to that person is a sacred bond.
Toni: When Christians of like mind come together online, I believe that a Holy Spirit power infuses that. We need to honor those relationships just like the ones in our small groups and in our churches. We never want to minimize the ones that we make online.
The true stories of lives changed online are astonishing. They should go a long way in showing leaders how these tools can be used to influence online communities for Christ.
You satisfy me with Your love, And all I have in You is more than enough. Chris Tomlin
Tami: They just came in from people we intersected with on Twitter and Facebook. We were blown away and would just sit and weep over them.
Toni: These were just ordinary people too. It didn’t matter how many followers they had, we prayed about each one and if God said call…
Tami: We called. When we finished the book we had this moment when we said, if God chooses to do nothing with this book, what He’s done in our lives in the experience of writing it, of being with Him, of seeing the miracle of these stories … more than enough.
Toni: More than enough.
Since @stickyJesus was released, Tami and Toni have been spreading the message of how God is working online, with speaking engagements and media appearances all over the country.