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?