Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Lw&Gspl?

At our staff meeting today, one of the topics brought up was the issue of people texting during worship. No, the pastor is not one of those who encourage congregation members to text questions during the sermon.
I will admit, I don't text message much. Granted, this is because it costs extra on my phone. I did text during a conference--shortly after the "worship" service--only to make a snarky comment, which I'll admit was probably remiss of me.
What, however, drives people to text during church? Is it the inability to abandon one's technology for an hour? Maybe it's a very important aspect of one's job that one must immediately respond to. Maybe it's a highly important conversation about the worship service.
I think I understand. It's a diversion for when the pastor preaches too long and never actually gets around to Jesus' death and resurrection. [I am not pointing fingers here, just making a general observation that some pastors will never pass the Issues, Etc. sermon diagnostic.]
Perhaps it is a substitution for thumbing through the hymnal. Send the pastor a text message instead which reads, "More Jesus, please, and less psychobabble." That might exceed text message length. Maybe it could be shortened to txt spk: PDBL&G. Proper between Law & Gospel.
Maybe we should just go with the same option for texters as for sermon snoozers. Do a David reenactment with a slingshot and some stones.

1 comment:

Phillip said...

Texting during church? That's one I haven't noticed yet. I'm sure it's coming to Naperville, too, though - or I just haven't seen it yet.

At least the texting doesn't distract others. (Perhaps that's why I haven't noticed it.) What bugs me are things like acutally taking a phone call during church (yes, that's happened twice now), refusing to take out a very loud screaming baby, or, as spoofed on my last Fine Tuning post, flash photography.

I'm glad when visitors come to church, and don't expect them to know or even participate in our Lutheran customs. But unfortunately our culture is losing what it means to be a GUEST. People instead act like CONSUMERS.

The worst part is that even some members of our congregations have little sense of churchly behavior.