In a historical move a church minister will perform the most sacred religious ceremony, a marriage service online on Twitter. Reverend Tim Ross who is to perform the marriage ceremony has invited global Twitter users to witness the ceremony. The audience following the ceremony will be asked to type ‘amen’ after each tweet. Hundreds of people have already registered to follow the service.

‘This is a new way to initiate global prayers,’ said a church minister and ‘one day might initiate the steps for an online church.’ Brenda, an avid church-goer, agrees that online communication is as important for the church as it is for global businesses. ‘We live in a tech-savvy world and online communication by the church will help out a lot of followers.’

Sceptics who fear that important human emotions such as love and friendship are being commoditized are now wondering if marriage ceremonies on social networking sites will dehumanize sacred religious rituals. Church minister Reverend Ross addressed such fears and said ‘Those who are from a high [traditional] church background might be concerned about whether this is a valued form of communion, but this is for a global community.’

Others, however, are happy to see how ‘easy’ it is becoming to facilitate rituals that were previously restricted to elaborate ceremonies planned months and even years in advance. Twitter offers unique possibilities for communication for the Church, the minister tweeted. ‘It's a community that’s as real and tangible as any local neighbourhood,’ he added