For some time now the Church Mouse has blogged and twittered about the Church of England, and has also collected up the  Tweets of other clergy on his own blog. Now, with the help of fellow blogger Peter Ould, the Church Mouse has set up a new website – The Twurch of England. It’s a twitter aggregator… the idea is that you can have a stream of clergy tweets, interact with them, make your opinions known. As well as a front page of clergy tweets, there’s also a blog, with today’s guest post from blogger and twitterer Bishop Alan Wilson on ten reasons why he likes Twitter.  Go check it out.

This is what Mouse says about his new site:

Regular readers of the Mouse will know that for some time he has been
keeping track on Archbishops, Bishops and Clergy on twitter through
his Twurch of England Twitter stream. Mouse finds this a fascinating
way to engage with the church. It is rather like having a permanent
invitation to listen in on someone’s conversation and join in whenever
you want. In fact, that’s exactly what it is.

Mouse currently follows around 70 people in this Twitter stream,
including one Archbishop (John Sentamu) and nine bishops (Alan Wilson,
David Hamid, David Rossdale, David Tomson, Lee Rayfield, Mike Hill,
Nick Baines, Pete Broadbent and Steven Croft). Mouse provides his
readers with an occasional top 10 tweeters in the Twurch, based on
statistics from Twitter Gradr.

Then Mouse had an idea.

The thing about the sidebar widget is that it is not very engaging. It
does not really let you get involved in the conversation – the exact
opposite of Twitter. So Mouse recruited vicar, tweeter and geek Rev
Peter Ould to help build something a little more fun.

The Twurch of England website now allows you to follow the
conversation in real time and log-in to twitter and get involved. The
site has a blog, where Mouse will offer up his periodic stats and
other views on what the Twurch is discussing, but also hopes that it
will be an ‘open blog’, where the majority of posts will come from
others who want to discuss how the church is engaging with those
outside it. You can grab the side-bar widget for your own blog /
website too.

The Twurch of England is, of course, on twitter itself. Please do get
in touch if you know of any more clergy or bishops who should be
included in the list. For the time being it will be just clergy and
bishops, but in future may expand (e.g. to ordinands).

Mouse was delighted that the good old CofE even seemed keen on the
idea:

The Church of England is happy that this site is available as a hub
for people seeking to engage with the church and its various tweeters.
[CofE spokesman]

The blog kicks off with a guest post from one of the Twurch’s most
active tweeters, Bishop Alan Wilson on ten reasons why he tweets.

Finally, before you respond with theological questions about a church
that only contains clergy, that is not the idea at all. The Twurch is
open to everyone to engage with, its only the twitter livestream which
is limited, as this is an interesting way of engaging with the church.

Comments, suggestions, ideas all very welcome.