I have been recently starting to follow the online ministry of Unitarian Universalist minister Rev. Naomi King. She has a wonderful ministry spread across a number of social media, including Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Typepad. Rev. King is a UU, but clearly comes from a more spiritual side of the tradition so I think non-UUs may find something of value in her work as well. Certainly thought some around here might enjoy hearing about what she does.

Each day, Rev. King (@revnaomi on Twitter) tweets a Chalice Lighting to open the day, a morning prayer, an evening prayer, and a Chalice Extinguishing to close the day.

Lighting and extinguishing the chalice are the opening and closing rituals of most UU services, so she is essentially framing the day as a service of worship. The Chalice words are always kept under the Twitter 140 character limit so just tweeted. #chalicelight flags the lighting and #chaliceout flags the extinguishing.

The prayers are written a day or two ahead and posted to a blog on Typepad with a Facebook post linking to each prayer as it is posted. She illustrates them with a photo of nature. She then tweets a link to each prayer on the appropriate day and time. For instance, today’s morning prayer was written and posted yesterday and then tweeted today. One thing I love about Rev. King’s prayers is how she addresses them. The terms of address are often intimate and personal, without explicitly using “God” language. “Beloved” is often used for instance.

In addition to these ritual elements, Rev. King tweets spiritual topics to ponder under the hash tag #spiritquestion, as well as links to quotes and other material of interest that she posts on her Tumblr. On “Thankful Thursday” she thanks all of the followers who have replied to or retweeted her posts over the past week. Sometimes takes her four or so tweets to do this. She tweets at the beginning and end of the Jewish Sabbath as well.

Rev. King’s prayers and her worshipful approach to life speak to me and have definitely given me some inspiration and pause for thought. I also love the way she has leveraged a range of social media to bring it all together using Twitter as her “front end”.

A rundown of relevant links:

The Typepad blog for the prayers: http://thewonderment.typepad.com/universalistprayers

Rev. King’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RevNaomiKing

Rev. King’s Twitter profile: https://twitter.com/revnaomi

Rev.King’s Tumblr: http://revnaomiking.tumblr.com/