On 15th January we begin a series of Sunday talks about the nuts and bolts of being a Christian. It’s freamed around the apostle’s creed which we’re dividing up unto twelve tweets. Twelve message of less that 140 characters which sum up what we believe as Christ followers.

Why this logo?

The logo for this series of Sunday talks draws its inspiration from Orthodox church icons. Traditionally an icon consists of a picture of a saint or Christ himself that can be used as an object of veneration in worship. In protestant churches, like our own, we have relegated the significance of icons. We perceive them as carrying a danger of worshipping the object (a picture of Christ or a saint) instead of the God the object represents. But that dear is a poor reason for rejecting them entirely.

Our world is full of icons. Virtually all company logos are intended to be used as icons in their own right. They are put out there to alert us to the reality which lies behind the image. They are there to point us to the company which uses the logo as its badge.

So our #TwelveTweets icon contains some of the characteristics of an orthodox icon.

  • The halo is put there to remind us that it’s God’s work we’re looking out for. The icon represents a visual pointer to God behind the image.
  • The cross is a sign that God’s grace is mediated through the cross of Christ and its red colour reminds us of the blood that was shed on our behalf.
  • Many church icons contain and alpha (A) and Omega (W) to remind us that God’s plan spans the whole of creation and time in the same way that these two letters span the entire Greek alphabet. Jesus himself is described as the Alpha and Omega in the book of Revelation because his will and purpose spans all of our lives.

So to put the twitter bird in the place of the saint is a little tongue-in-cheek but not entirely frivolous.

The principle is simple. The saint depicted in the old icon was the person whom we allowed to be spiritually influential in our lives. We looked up to them as examples of godliness, faith or courage. But in the twenty-first century our sources of influence are found less and less in the saints of old, and more and and more in social media.

I have no intention of sanctifying social media, but rather to recognise the subtle power it has in our lives. Twitter is neither a good thing nor a bad thing – it’s just a thing. So the way we use it determines its moral tone and ethical bias. So I, for one, want to redeem it, see it used for God’s glory and communicate the life-transforming power of the gospel through social media.