Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-17
- Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-10: Christian Dating Blog # http://bit.ly/59uEzf #
- Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-10: Christian Dating Blog # http://bit.ly/8ro9wR #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-17
- Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-10: Christian Dating Blog # http://bit.ly/59uEzf #
- Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-10: Christian Dating Blog # http://bit.ly/8ro9wR #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-10
- Christian Dating Blog #
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-01-10
- Christian Dating Blog #
New year, New profile
It’s that time of year again when everyone does a little stock-take and makes plans for the coming year. If you’re single, it’s highly likely that “look for the one” is on the list of things to do.
I thought it would be a good time to offer up some thoughts and tips on writing a profile. It will be no accident that my comments come from a male perspective – sorry, can’t help it. Read more
Review of Christian Dating sites: Fusion101
As promised when I launched this site, here is another edition of a questionnaire into Christian Dating sites. Specifically, I asked a number of questions about what people liked or disliked about them. Read more
Dubious marketing techniques
No doubt you’ve heard of Twitter – this year’s big internet phenomenon. Since the back-end of last year a lot of companies have realised its value as a marketing tool: it makes it really simple to get your message out there. Of course the trouble with “really simple” is that it can be abused.
Just to fill you in on how Twitter works: Twitter is basically a short message service which lets you broadcast messages to your “followers” or indeed anyone who might be searching for keywords like “Christian Dating”. There are a couple of ways to abuse the system: open lots of accounts and just keep on resending your Tweets (messages); follow lots of people (expecting that a large number will follow you back) to spam their accounts with your messages.
Clearly the technique is not sustainable and it irritates people – erm, like me 
grr!
So what’s all this got to do with Christian Dating? Well, I’ve noticed lots of such messages on Twitter for BigChurch that do exactly this. At first glance they seem to be legitimate people, but when you look a little closer you see exactly the same messages from dozens of different “people”. These “people” follow thousands of people but tend to just have a few hundred followers.
There is nothing that I have seen that links these Twitterers directly with BigChurch other than they have hundreds of messages with links to their website. I mentioned in a previous post that not all Christian dating websites are run by Christians – in fact BC is run by Penthouse – and if this is a marketing technique being employed by them then it clearly demonstrates why Christians shouldn’t use their service as this kind of behaviour does nothing for our reputation.
I sometimes find Twitterers asking “why are Christian Dating sites spamming me?” It’s a good question, and clearly it’s a practice Christians shouldn’t be using.
On a slightly different tack, I just found a post on “A little Leaven” which shows a rather inappropriate photo in an advert for ChristiansTogether. @PirateChristian suggests “The church sold its soul to lucifer.”
As with anything you buy or any service you use, you need to decide for yourself whether you’re happy to promote it by buying or using it. If you care that the people who pick the beans for your coffee are paid a living wage you buy FairTrade. If you care for your reputation as a Christian perhaps you should use websites that also value that.
I thought I’d post a few examples of the Tweets here:
mary65378 take a look,free dating for church members,christian dating,find love,its great,its free signups all week http://tinyurl.com/cmpxzx
mary65378 couldn’t sleep.so back on the christian dating site,join 4 free,follow me & follow my link http://linkbee.com/UHMP
sara738495 couldn’t sleep.so back on the christian dating site,join 4 free,follow me & follow my link http://linkbee.com/UHMP
mary65378 im getting so much attention,i love this christian dating site free to join,http://tinyurl.com/cmpxzx
sara738495 im getting so much attention,i love this christian dating site free to join,http://tinyurl.com/cmpxzx
Quiz Night – Dating Night
I recently went on a single’s quiz night. It was such a good way to meet other singles. There were 8 teams with 4 people on each: 2 women, 2 men. And at the end of each round, while the scores were totted up, you got time to chat with the other people on the team, before the fellas were moved on to the next team. So all the men got introduced to all the women, but without much in the way of pressure – unless you’re ultra competitive at quizzes of course!
An interesting upside for me was that the men were shifted around together, so I got to know a fellow fella which turned into a bit of a double act.
Much better than speed-dating though. If you don’t want to make conversation with someone, then you don’t really have to, there’s always someone else to chat to. And much better than parties, because we all know how painfully awkward it can be going up to strangers without appearing sleazy, or saying really cheezy one-liners.
Anything come of it? Maybe….
The challenges of being single and Christian
I’ve just come across an interesting article in Commercial Appeal a Memphis-based newspaper. It tells the story of a Christian woman, Roshunda Buchanan, who is “dedicated to the principles of divine dating.”
The way she explains it, she was distgusted by “dating debauchery” and wanted to promote a more virtuous way of dating. She started a group called 2Unique which has an outreach programme with the mission to “impact change in mentality and behaviour through knowledge and relationships.”
“It’s about dating with integrity,” Buchanan said in the article. “It can be difficult and challenging, but you have to change your mindset.”
Buchanan’s website has a pretty good definition, I think, of what being Christian and single can be: “Singles should not view singleness as a waiting room for marriage. We have this time to strengthen spiritually and personally.”
We are where we are now, and seek God’s will for now, not do nothing waiting for what might happen.
Go check out the article: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2009/apr/14/virtues-of-dating/
Singles are not unfinished business
I was on Twitter looking at what people were saying about “Singleness”. Let me just say that I really don’t like the word: it reminds me too much of words like “illness” or “loneliness” – well it’s neither thank you very much.
In my twitter exploration I even saw someone say they saw a church sign which said “Marriage may be painful, but singleness is hell.” Which I think is an appalling and frankly unbiblical thing to say.
Thankfully I also came across Pastor Marvin Williams blog in which he writes very helpfully about this subject. He says that singles are not unfinished business. He says:
the church has inflicted much pain on singles by treating singleness as a disease for which the only cure is marriage.
He goes on to point out reasons why Christians may be single and to say that rather than being a curse, it’s an opportunity to be used by God in the church.
Well, rather than me repeat all that he said, go check his site for yourself.
Singles are not unfinished business pt 1
Singles are not unfinished business pt 2
