Attempts at Honesty

Reflections on the interplay of the Bible and Culture

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Why I switched from Bufferapp to Timely for Tweet buffering

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Update – 2/21/2013

With the demise of Timely, I am now using Hootsuite for my update scheduling. Hootsuite now has an “auto scheduling” function which is very handy. There are two downsides to Hootsuite. First, using the auto feature, there is no way to control the time of the tweets or the number of tweets scheduled per day. The second downside is that there is no option to using bit.ly as the URL shortener. The only choice is to use the owl.ly functionality built into Hootsuite. Neither of these two issues are deal breakers for me.

Original Post

Timely Tweet Buffering

I had been using Bufferapp for Tweet buffering for a long while. Recently I discovered a similar service called Timely. Both of these apps provide a buffer for spacing out Tweets. When I am looking at RSS feeds or catching up on email I often find links that I’d like to share. The beauty of Buffer or Timely is that instead of bombarding my followers with a bunch of tweets all in a row, I can put them into a buffer that sends them out at a specified interval.

Both of these services have a premium edition where additional features are available for a monthly fee. My comparison is for the free services only. If you are willing to pay for the premium services, you can make your own comparison. If you do, feel free to post your conclusions or observations in a comment below.

Here are the four reasons why I made the switch:

  • Timely allows unlimited Tweets in the buffer whereas Bufferapp limits the buffer to 10 Tweets.
  • Timely allows for multiple accounts and interfaces with Facebook well.
  • Timely gives you the option of posting to any or all of the accounts at the same time.
  • Timely sends me a concise weekly email summary of my activity and the performance of the tweets.

Both of these services have widgets that make it easy to use the service from within the browser of your choice. I use Chrome as my primary browser and the widgets for both services work equally well with Chrome.

To be fair, I should point out the one advantage of Bufferapp. That is that the service allows you to schedule the times of the Tweets whereas Timely only allows me to specify the number of Tweets per day.

Also with Bufferapp, if you refer friends to the service you can earn additional capacity in the Tweet buffer. But this is nullified by the fact that Timely does not have a limit.

Both services work well but because of the three items mentioned above I have a slight preference at this time for Timely.

What do you think? Are there any other buffering services I should try?

 

The sin of silence and what to do about it

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Yellow Star of David

Recently, a friend handed me a CD on which were written the words “The in of silence.” When he gave it to me, he informed me that it was a sermon and that I would be challenged by it. Perhaps he identified the speaker on the CD when he gave it to me. If so, I wasn’t listening well and did not catch the name. I have no idea about the identity of the speaker.

Some of the things that the speaker said made me think that the audience was made up of pastors. I assume that the speech was delivered at a pastor’s conference or some such event.

I was challenged by the speaker; it was a very powerful message. In it, the speaker built a case that unless the preachers in America start speaking out against the moral decline in our culture, they will have to face the regret of having missed an opportunity. He drew from the experience of German pastors who failed to speak out during the Nazi’s rise to power in the 1930’s.

When the systematic persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany started happening, most of the German church remained silent and turned a blind eye to the atrocities; they committed the sin of silence.

The call to action in the message was that American pastors need to clearly present what Scripture has to say about current cultural norms without fear of what might happen. Issues such as abortion, militant homosexuality, redefinition of marriage, devaluation of marriage and the breakdown of the family should be strongly addressed. Yes! I agree with this, we need to be strong in our proclamation of what Scripture says on these topics.

Here is my concern. Too often, when Pastors have spoken out on these issues, the tone is one of unloving judgment. The message is lost or rendered ineffective behind the anger and condemnation.

I want to remind myself and my readers that we need to use Jesus as our example. In the Gospels, the only harsh words recorded as coming from Jesus were reserved for the religious leaders and those who sought material gain from religious observance. We do not see Jesus spewing words of condemnation on the people who did not know better. To them he simply proclaimed the truth while healing their diseases and meeting their physical needs.

I recently did a study of the letter to the church in Ephesus as recorded in Revelation 2:1-7. This church was doctrinally correct and did indeed speak out against the pagan culture around it. The Ephesians stood strong against those who would lead people into moral chaos. Yet, Jesus had one condemnation against that church. They had left their first love. They has allowed their love of God to decline.

While I agree that the church in America needs to step up and boldly proclaim what Scripture has to say about the moral issues of our day, we need to so so after we return to our first love.

It is possible to be morally and doctrinally correct and be spiritually dead. The world around us will not accept our morality or our doctrine until it accepts our Jesus. We need to return to him with our whole being if we really want to impact our culture. We cannot expect the world to believe our message about Jesus if we don’t live as he did. We cannot impact our culture unless we love the people as Jesus did.

We must return to our first love.

Skepticism – Means or an end?

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SkepticismI seem to recall that in the introduction to at least one of his books, C. S. Lewis offered the caveat that he was not a theologian. In a similar vein, prior to the material below, I must offer the caveat that I am not a philosopher nor the son of a philosopher.

In a post reflecting on the death of Christopher Hitchens, one commentator drew a contrast between skepticism as a pathway to truth and skepticism as a destination. In the former, skepticism is a methodology for seeking truth. In the latter, skepticism makes the statement that there is no truth to find.

It is one thing to be suspicious of truth claims and seek to verify them before believing. It is another thing entirely to reject all truth claims. A piece of lyric from a Rush song comes to mind, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” To maintain skepticism as an end or destination is an attempt to remain as a spectator on the sideline, but ultimately it fails. Skepticism is a choice in itself.

It seems obvious to me that man is born to believe in something. As evidence of this I would point to the various religions that can be found around the world. Pantheistic, polytheistic, or monotheistic, there is quite a variety of beliefs. While the various religions are in fundamental disagreement on the particulars, they all are a function of belief.

But there is evidence that the irreligious also have a need to believe. Politicians, actors and musicians are followed with a devotion that borders on worship. Sports teams also function as a focus of belief. I live near the city of Philadelphia where a loss by the beloved Eagles (a frequent occurrence this year) is mourned like the death of state leader. Whether it is politics, music, sports or hobbies, many are caught up in these things with a religious fervor.

It seems to me that skepticism as a goal is a dead end. But is all skepticism wrong?

If you want to point to some of the foibles of the church throughout history as a reason to distrust religion, you are welcome to do so. The church, like her individual members, is not perfect and we get it wrong some of the time. But as Thomas Gilson points out in his thoughtful post on the death of Christopher Hitchens, it is important to make a distinction between God and religion. In my mind, some level of skepticism about the ability of the church to live out her relationship with God is healthy. We do not have a perfect track record.

I would ask those who are skeptical about the church to judge by the standard and not our inability to live up to it. The writer of Hebrews encourages us to look “unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith.” (Hebrews 12:2) I encourage the skeptic to do the same.

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