Top Adventists on Twitter
I think I have finally recovered from the General Conference Session. Reflecting back on the experience, one of the elements I appreciated was the information sharing and the little community that developed via the Twitter tag #gcsession. In the press room or across the world, during the Session Adventists shared news and opined. In fact, the GC Session Twitter account itself has over 600 followers and was responsible for 475 tweets.
Yes, Adventism is on Twitter. Let’s be clear here, despite some folks’ evangelistic hype, it is a very tiny drop in the massive tweeting bucket of the interesting and the inane. But as any search for “adventist” shows, there is a conversation developing.
In light of that, I thought that I would do a quick update on some of the top Adventists on Twitter. This is in no particular order and it does not include everyone. There are Adventists with interesting things to say and some with large followings who are not included here. Short on time, I made this list in an effort to landscape Twitter users who are some mix of the following: Adventist institutions, engaged in conversations that connect with SPECTRUM, are a good source of Adventist news. I have included the number of followers as of today. Of course that will change.
@adventistnews – 1662 followers
The official Adventist news service twitter feed. Listed by We Follow as the most influential Adventist Twitter user, the Adventist News Network tweets out a mix of its own well-reported stories and occasional breaking news, like this from May 5: “Looks like new Adventist Risk Management President Bob Kyte and the board are shaking up their management structure a bit. Story to come.”
@Hope_Channel – 92 followers
The official network of the Seventh-day Adventist church.
The Hope Channel is very poor at using new media. Not only do they they not put their decent shows – CLIFF!, Global Faith and Freedom TV – online and embeddable (exception: Intersection), but they rolled out their Twitter account months ago and have only tweeted three times. FAIL. No wonder no one watches.
@AdventistHC – 649 followers
Adventist HealthCare is an integrated health care delivery organization based in Rockville, MD committed to improving the health of people and communities. Boring, but occasional community-building tweets. Hmm. . .maybe this health care org could teach a certain local Adventist media outfit about using media.
@asabbathblog – 408 followers
Adventist news site run by youth for youth. From events and meetings to movies and music, we post on the different ways people are sharing Jesus!
This tends to be an interesting mix of church-related news, observations, and other Adventist retweets.
@spectrummag – 314 followers
The Journal of the Adventist Forum | Community through Conversation.
Listed by We Follow as the third most influential Adventist twitter user, it mostly auto-tweets out SPECTRUM articles and breaking Adventist news.
@BUCnews – 111 followers
BUC News is a weekly e-mail newsletter produced by the Communication Department of the British Union Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. A mix of Euro-centric Adventist news and occasional commentary.
@NADpres – 238 followers
President of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in North America Under Don Schneider this usually functioned as just another strand of PR – sometimes annoyingly tweeting out half a dozen links at once with no context. But with new leadership (and a new picture) perhaps Dan Jackson (or less cool his representative) will use this tool for informing and conversing with the NAD constituency.
@ADRAi – 876 followers
Present in 125 countries, ADRA provides sustainable development and disaster relief without regard to age, gender, race, ethnicity or religious affiliation.
The Adventist Development and Relief Agency used to be a little twittering machine, particularly around the Haiti earthquake. Yet, it has not tweeted since April 30. Strange, particularly with all the End It Now campaign news during the GC Session. Here’s an idea that would boost interest, followers and donations – give the login to Chuck Sandefur and let him share his thoughts as he travels and works.
@adventistchurch – 478 followers
The official twitter of the Seventh-day Adventist World Church Headquarters.
Their last tweet notes that Ted Wilson was elected. Telling that the church officially stopped tweeting immediately?
@AdventistsAbtLf – 123 followers
Twitter account for Adventists About Life, the official YouTube Channel of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
A legacy of Jan Paulsen and Ray Dabrowski, this late 2009 creation has over 50,000 views – sadly the tweets about new videos also stopped on July 3rd.
@AdventistReview – 650 followers
AR Online Editor
Carlos Medley gives his name for this account which is strange for an organizational account. This mostly just tweets out so-called News Alerts which are neither particularly alert worthy and are sometimes just tweets of items from the Religion News Service.
@TodoJoven – 159 followers
Lo Todo de los jovenes hispanos de la NEC
One of the more prolific Adventist Twitter users, with over two thousand tweets, this is a bilingual mix of New England church news, discussion of relevant contemporary issues, and they often tweet SPECTRUM articles.
Adventist Higher Ed on Twitter
http://twitter.com/UniMontemorelos – 348 followers
http://twitter.com/AndrewsUniv – 268 followers
http://twitter.com/pucnow – 228 followers
http://twitter.com/lasierranews – 227 followers
http://twitter.com/WashAdventistU – 127 followers
http://twitter.com/NewboldCollege – 54 followers
http://twitter.com/oakwoodedu – 48 followers
http://twitter.com/UnionCollegeNE – 30 followers
The following two, from Florida Hospital College’s online nursing program and Avondale are not public accounts.
http://twitter.com/fhcnursing – 1070 followers
http://twitter.com/avondalecollege – 4 followers
Perhaps I missed them, but I cannot find Twitter accounts for the other schools. Frankly, most institutions are very late to Twitter and unfortunately merely use the service to pass along PR articles or mindless observations: “It is 77 and sunny here at Union today, not a cloud in the sky.”
@AdventistWheel – 353 followers
…progressive christianity within the advent movement
Gary Walter is the master retweeter of Adventist online publishing, often linking to articles from @atoday and @spectrummag.
@InteramericanIT – 266 followers
Harvey Alferez – Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de Tecnología, Universidad de Montemorelos
A very serious Twitter user, Harvey comments on technology, with occasional spiritual insights and Adventist news.
@carpenterale – 315 followers
Adventism | Academia | Art | Activism
I comment on a mix of articles I read on social justice, the visual arts, and the intersection of religion, politics and academia along with Adventist news and SPECTRUM blog articles.
Here are a few pastors connected to the SPECTRUM conversation who use Twitter regularly.
http://twitter.com/samirselmanovic – 893 followers
Samir Salmanovic – Faith House Manhattan, NYC
http://twitter.com/ryanjbell – 467 followers
Pastor Ryan Bell – Hollywood Church, Hollywood, Calif.
http://twitter.com/saneves – 115 followers
Pastor Sam Neves – Wimbledon International Church, London, UK.
http://twitter.com/wrightus – 56 followers
Pastor Jared Wright – Arlington Church, Riverside, Calif.
http://twitter.com/trevano – 92 followers
Associate Pastor Trevan Osborn – Far West End & Patterson Churches, Virginia.
And finally, a new humorous tweeter on the block, be sure to check out:
@StuffSDAsLike
Adventists have their a way of life completely unto themselves. Here are some of the things we like!
Recent tweets:
“SDAs love leaving work at noon on Friday, so they can guard the edges of the Sabbath…by eight hours.”
“SDAs love initials. The more you have, the more important you are: EG White, JN Andrews, EE Cleveland, HMS Richards…”
OK, which ones have I missed?
