Please, for your own sake, set your cellphone to “vibrate” when visiting this church:
(Note: as the video creators explain, it’s staged and meant to be humorous.) I love how the pastor interrupts his sermon on love to storm over and smash somebody’s irritating cellphone (while children scamper and shriek unnoticed in the background). I assume this is a riff on this angry professor’s cellphone rage, immortalized last year by internet video (possibly also a staged incident; I’m not sure).
The video’s message is that we get upset over things that are ultimately rather trivial, and that’s a worthy point to make. But I think it points to some bigger questions that are already facing a lot of church congregations: as we become increasingly “wired,” how will worship services change? It’s easy for a Gen-Xer like myself to switch his cellphone off before church and not give it any thought, but what about younger generations for whom near-constant online connectivity is an integral part of the way they relate to the world? I’ve always looked forward to Sunday morning church worship as an opportunity to be blessedly disconnected from the gadgets and gizmos that demand our attention all throughout the week… but will that pleasant disconnection even be possible or desirable in ten years? What about when your church starts incorporating these technologies into worship and congregational life?
I suspect that parents of teenagers today are already getting a good glimpse of this. Anyone care to share their experiences with connectivity in church?
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November 7, 2007 at 11:09
As a Sunday school teacher and part-time preacher, it really is annoying when you hear a phone ring in the middle of class or sermon. The way I see it, if you lived without it 10 years ago, you can live without your phone for a few hours. Unless you are a Doctor or a professional where you need to be available because of some life or death issue, you are not required to be connected during Church hours. That time should belong to our Lord in worship, learning and edification by His Word. My $.02
November 7, 2007 at 11:41
As a youth pastor I constantly struggle with youth wanting to text during Bible study! I have warned kids that if it ever happens again that I will collect all cell phones when they enter the church and lock them in my office until after church. The problem has been resolved for now.
November 7, 2007 at 13:58
I’ll sometimes put up a slide asking people to turn to their cell phones on to vibrate during worship. Once I joked that I’d answer any phone that rung during the sermon. While I was doing it I recieved an IM that showed up on the projection screen. WHOOPSSS!!!!!
November 7, 2007 at 22:53
I’m from Malaysia and the latest statistics tell us that more than ninety percent of the population of about twenty-seven million own a cellphone.The remaining ten percent or so are children under the age of five.It’s obvious that many of us own more than one device.The thing is not fifteen to twenty years ago,the cellphone was a status symbol of the rich in this country.Most of us relied on payphones located on street corners.So,why is the obsession with being connected all the time happening now? Strange but true.I think it’s a satanic ploy to distract people,especially in church.
November 7, 2007 at 23:33
I’m with Billy on this one, it’s very distracting as a student minister when your students are texting their friends while you are teaching or trying to get them to engage in different aspects of worship. I don’t mind them having their cells but keep it to before and after the service.
I read a study that said the average teenager spends a minimum of 80 hours in front of some type of screen every week. 80 hours! Media drives our culture and our churches. The 20 something generation and below tend to tune out anything that does not have a media aspect. I do believe that it enhances our worship services, but it’s really for us not God. He does not need the latest and greatest techie stuff for worship, he desires us and our open hearts.
Sometimes I take my cell during our youth service and throw it on the floor, it’s about giving up the distraction and ya know some students follow my example. Other times when we do an eXalt service the cells are left with their shoes by the door.
November 8, 2007 at 11:01
Maybe the best course of action is to add a signal scrambler that prevents anyone from getting a signal at church. Or would this be stripping freedom from our church attendees? Maybe Cel usage in Church today is what “money changers and the benches of those selling doves” were back in Jesus’ days when he overturned their tables. Remember that Jesus said that his house should be a house of “prayer”. Maybe we need a headline that says, “house of prayer, not house of mobile communication”. Maybe I’m going overboard. But it is a problem today, and it needs to be addressed.
November 8, 2007 at 11:55
Being a parent I have a difficult position. Ultimately I would like to be able to tell my son that no phones are allowed. Then it turns into an argument that distracts the whole family for the day. If he gets distracting to others in church, I draw the line, but having him in church is where God can work on him. There is a message that he gets, I just need to pray that he hears. I have noticed that over time he has been using his phone less and listening more. With all things,trust God that he will handle the situation.
November 8, 2007 at 16:22
very interesting idea Moe…I might consider that! and for the record Dan…i haven’t been called Billy since 5th grade! ok Danny?
November 9, 2007 at 00:09
A bit off subject but relates to Moe’s comment:
I think of the money changers etc… as the churches who sell stuff to make a profit in the back of the church. I have no issue with selling messages series for the cost of production (no profit) or other materials, but I was in a church a few weeks back that was selling about a 100 different books, CD’s, message series, hats, mugs, etc… and making a profit. It just didn’t seem right to me, in fact it made me uncomfortable. I have a desire to not shop in Christian book stores for similar reasons. What does Jesus think of us when we can purchase mints to share our faith, or sandals to wear to the beach to share or faith that have little pictures of Jesus and crosses on them. Who really does this? The most outrageous item I have seen is a measuring tape that you can use to share your faith and work on a construction site.
November 9, 2007 at 05:33
This current need to belong by being constantly connected to a cellphone is a sign of our societiy’s sense of security. We need to find a means of creating a real sense of connectivity to God. Just as St Paul encouraged us to “pray without ceasing.” It would be wonderful if we found that possible in our churches’ worship services.
November 9, 2007 at 14:42
Dan Browne,
I detest Christian bookstores, and have a general distaste for in-church bookstores (even though my own church has one). But you say they are turning a profit; in the store itself, perhaps, they are selling each book for more than its wholesale price. However, the bookstore is part of the larger church. You don’t know where that money is going—to the local outreach operation, to the poor, to missions, to improving the facilities, to meet the financial requirements of another ministry.
A church that is “turning a profit” loses it’s 501©3 NPO tax status. Every cent a church makes must by law (and Biblical mandate) go towards operating costs or ministry, not “profit.” A church cannot build revenue.
So, by all means, hate church bookstores—because they are tacky and not particularly helpful. I’m all for selling Bibles, concordances, study materials, devotionals, maybe even irritating little inspirationals—but why do we need to hock Thomas Kinkade-inspired decorative plates, fake jewelry, Testamints™, etc.?
This links back to the original phenomena of the post: it’s all about being connected. All these little things give us an external image of connection to the Church. It is a failure to recognize that our connection is more than skin deep. That’s why people my age (I’m 19) are obsessed with cell phones—because we think, subconsciously, that if we are not in touch, somehow that person does not exist, that our relationship is lost. We fail at the spiritual disciplines of silence and solitude, the moments when we are open to the Deep.
November 10, 2007 at 19:44
The Future? What will be left of the Church in the future? Maybe the pastor will just text his message to the congregation and we will just read our screens. Then we can text our amens back to him. An over head screen will record comments. Oh spam! What fun that will be!
I was in a newly built mega church some months ago that had no pockets on the back of the pews for Bibles. You remember the complimentary Bibles for visitors? Gone.
I wondered what it could mean. With so many versions they could not make a decision which one to use? So they decided to leave off and build the pews without them? There were pockets for offering envelopes by the way.
Will the Bible disappear altogether? Will believers just read the text from their phones?
We use to pray and talk to God in the House of Prayer, I’m old enough to remember it. Now people just want to talk to each other—and talk and talk.
I have to agree with the reader from Malaysia, there is something demonic in all this. The future? Look at the young people and their addiction to cell phones and we know what the future church could possibly look like.
Millions of Christians have voiced their opinion and left mainline Christianity to save their faith in Jesus. I’m one of them.
If the Bible disappears replaced by an electronic Bible, it can only be setting the stage for the Tribulation period and a Bible to be perfected for the deceived.
November 12, 2007 at 12:43
The problem isn’t with media. The problem is with the way we raise our children at home. We are so busy trying to make a living or attain/maintain a certain standard of living that we pay less attention to our children during their developing years.
Multimedia toys make great babysitters and keep the kids out of our hair, but the results of our negligence shows up in short attention spans, questioning authority, and shallow or nonexistent contemplative thought.
The church can’t do in three hours a week what the parents have failed to do in the other 109 waking hours of the week.
November 27, 2007 at 22:52
How can I get the firt video of pastor thowing the cellphone down ?