I belong to the Assemblies of God. I feel like most (if not all) of you already knew that. Just thought I'd clarify if there was any confusion. Anyways, I attended the 7:14 Prayer & Bible Conference this week, an A/G event. It was great. At this conference was the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, Dr. George Wood. Dr. Wood is a wonderful man and a fantastic speaker. He's also on twitter. That's what this is really about. It's about his twitter. If you're a spiritual leader in some capacity it makes sense that you'll use social media to share insightful spiritual thoughts, right? Right. I get it. I see those tweets all the time. You do too. Let me go find one right now….BOOM. Found one. Didn't take more that 3 seconds. Spiritual tweet from Jacob Jester: "The vision belongs to God, it doesn't belong to you. It's more about We than it is about Me." Cool. Good word.
Some times the spiritual tweets aren't as good. Some times it feels like they're trying too hard. Something like "God is not just a new pair of jeans!" What? I don't know. I just made that up. It makes no sense. I wonder if I could get any retweets if I actually posted that. I'm going to try. I'll let you know by the end of the post if I get anything.
So some times spiritual tweets can be really good and some times they can be the opposite. But then there is this one specific tweet from the general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, Dr. George Wood. It was posted at the beginning of February and it FREAKED ME OUT because it MADE NO SENSE AT ALL. Here it is:
I took a screenshot of it immediately and sent it to several friends. "What in the world does this mean?" I knew it had to mean SOMETHING! Dr. Wood is a very smart man. I've had the pleasure of hearing him speak on several occasions. I love and respect the guy. So this thing about gorillas had to mean something. It had to be profound. I just wasn't getting it. It was like some sort of word puzzle. Was it a riddle? Was it the Da Vinci Code? It had to mean something!
I sent the tweet to a friend who is a youth pastor. He showed his dad, who is also a pastor. Neither got it. I showed it to a few other people. Everyone is confused. Good. It's not just me.
Then I find out that a few minutes after it was posted the tweet was DELETED! What?! What does that mean? Was someone trying to cover up this tweet?! WHAT DID IT MEAN?! I'm so glad I took a screenshot. If I hadn't I wouldn't have any evidence of the gorilla Jesus tweet.
Time passes. I find out about this prayer and Bible conference. I find out that Dr. George Wood is going to be a speaker. "This is my chance," I thought. "I'm going to confront this man about his tweet!"
After one of the sessions of the conference I waited around in the auditorium with a few friends. They knew about my mission and were there to make sure I wasn't going to chicken out. I really wanted to chicken out. Finally an opportunity presented itself. Dr. Wood had just finished a conversation and he was on his way out. I made my face do that thing where you can tell it's about to say something. It caught his attention. He stopped.
"Excuse me, sir. I just wanted to ask who runs your twitter?"
He tells me that he does a lot of the posts but also has another guy named Mark who posts for him.
"A little while ago you tweeted something and I was really confused--"
I immediately regret that I am doing this. Who am I? What am I doing? Idiot. Idiot. Idiot. Don't ask the man about his insane tweet. Leave him alone! But I keep going. I even show him the screenshot of the tweet that I keep on my phone.
He tells me he has no idea what that is. Join the club. He's never seen that before. I try to force myself to laugh a little. I want to show him I'm playfully showing him this silly accidental tweet. This isn't hard hitting investigative journalism where I need him to answer serious questions about what he posts on the internet. I'm a dumb 23 year old. I don't work for the New York Times.
He tells me again he has no idea what that tweet is. Then he turns to a man who with him. "Have you seen this?" A few other guys gather around to read the tweet. They're amused. Thank God.
Again Dr. Wood brings up this Mark guy who writes some of his tweets. Apparently "Mark" usually goes through Dr. Wood's writings and selects a thought that seems tweetable. Somebody jokingly asks "you ever write anything about a gorilla?" Dr. Wood considers the question. "Yes," he says "I have written about a gorilla. But it had nothing to do with that. I don't know what that is."
I thank him for his time and walk away. I felt as if a weight was lifted. The mystery was over. It was a mistake that had nothing to do with Dr. Wood. It wasn't one of his thoughts. Good to know.
But seriously! Who DID write that and what were they thinking?!! Was it this Mark guy? Did the illuminati hack his account to spread their message?!
Should we not let Jesus sit where He wants? Is that the message? And why is there an extra i in Him? Typo or hidden message? Someone ask that guy who made that Illuminati Super Bowl video to investigate.
What's the moral? I don't know. Leave George Wood alone? I feel like that's what I learned. Seriously, I felt like such an idiot showing him that tweet. Dr. Wood, if you're reading this…please buy my stand-up album off iTunes. Oh, and I'm sorry I bothered you. That too.
That's the end of my story. No one retweeted my "God is not just a new pair of jeans" tweet. I did get one response that said "you can say that again" but I think they were just making fun of me.