This morning we inaugurated a system that allows individuals to text message a central number – during the service – with a question relating to the sermon. Our communications team then culls the questions and passes along to the preacher the “best” question(s) allowing them (if all goes well) to answer before the service ends.
Read it all and follow the link to the power point of the sermon.
Oh please, Please. Cannot we be spared this, text messaging during church? And the best question, does it get a prize, a round of applause, a shot at the #1,000,000 jackpot question? Is there no escape from technobabble? Larry
I’m with you, Larry. Just because we have the technology to do something, doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea.
But maybe I am missing something…
Well, I’m much more interested (as are a host of folk) in what happened (or didn’t) with Steve Woods visit to 815 and environs.
this week.
Why the silence?
Grandmother in SC
Hello, Larry. Believe it or not, I share a bit of your apprehension with this experiment. Kind of ironic that after YEARS of asking people to turn off their cell phones, we’re now seeking to capitalize on the technology.
What am I hoping to accomplish? I want to meet our people on their terms. St. Andrew’s attracts a very different demographic than most other Episcopal/Anglican churches. Our congregation is young (average age is 32) and technologically savvy. I, personally, prefer a town hall environment rather than a lecture. I appreciate the give and take and the dynamic of a living conversation rather than a monologue. Our sermons (we hope!) are provocative and informative. Questions naturally occur. Most people will not ask their question personally. Nor, having tried many times, will they email later in the day. I think they may text as it is more immediate – and for an adept text-messager, it takes about 45 seconds to send the text message.
What do they get? They get an answer. Imagine that, an affirmation that their questions matter and an attempt, albeit brief, to connect the Gospel of Jesus Christ to their specific situation.
It may not work. But it may. Based on the response from yesterday’s trial, I think it will.
Well, Steve, the context may make the difference in this matter and I understand your desire to get a response from your congregation. But I must in all honesty say that if I saw someone texting during a sermon, I would darn right well tell him to cut it out. For the rest of us, I suspect, texting during the service is an impertinence, and unconscionable rudeness.
If you want a town hall environment, why give a sermon at all? Why not sit down at the front, tell those in front of you that you have some ideas and that you wish to hear what you think of them. Have a Q and A right there. Only, since they are too uncomfortable with speaking face to face, have them look at you and type on their cells. I dunno, Steve, but there is something ridiculous in this, something disconnected from reality. Are these people so dislocated from the human, that they can only speak in electrons? Are they so afraid of real human contact?
I guess we just live in very different worlds. When my deacon gives his homily, I expect to LISTEN and he expects me to LISTEN (or drowse when he is terrible). This isn’t a news show wherein one is expected to fill every second with give-and-take. This is a strange scene: He’s n the middle of his sermon and his cell goes BURBLE BURBLE TWIDDLE, he picks it up and reads, “For crying out loud Deacon, how CAN you say that about today’s epistle from Paul? This is nonsense.” and he says, ” I just got an question from Larry about my last comment re: Paul 2,12. This is a fair question, but I thi8nk that ….” And all of a sudden, any continuity is gone, the WHOLENESS of his insight into the scripture turns into debate; I return to the debate, deedling his cell, disputiing in text his interpretation…. For mercy’s sake, when am I required to shut my mouth and open my ears?
Besides, having a cell go off in church is like having the organist whistle while playing. Well, as I say, I dunno, good luck to you, Steve, but I suspect that if I were in your congregation you would throw me out from dashing some guy’s cell on the floor and stomping it to pieces. Larry
Larry, I really do appreciate your comments and your reticence. I’m not sure if it will assuage your discomfort, but for clarity with regard to actual mechanics: we do ask folks to put their phones on silent so that we don’t have cell phones beeping through the service. I do preach straight through – no interruptions to address texted questions (the system does not work that quickly). The people text to a specific number that feeds the question to the computer in our skybox (the space in our Ministry Center where our A/V operators and sound-techs – along with our in-service intercessory prayer teams – are located). Our communications guy collates all questions and by the end of The Peace hands me a list of 1-5 questions, noting which questions were asked multiple times. I, then, have the opportunity during what used to be announcement time to address key questions. For example, significant questions that arose from this past Sunday sermon: “if Jesus was fully human was He tempted to lust?”; “If Jesus was fully divine didn’t that help Him overcome temptation with an ability/resource we don’t have?”; “What happened to the God-part of Jesus when He died?” I’m not seeking questions of debate – and I don’t turn the time into a debate. In my experience, too many preachers preach moralistic sermons (do better/be better), theologically arcane sermons; political (church politics or politic politics) sermons; irrelevant sermons that bless few, teach few and, having listened to too many over the years, are a general waste of time: no ‘big idea’ no ‘so what.’ It is my guess that the possiblity of texting will actually create a more attentive congregation who are cognitively processing and intellectually engaged because the communication has now become two-way.
Personally, the physciality of thumbs moving across a keypad is visually no more distracting than signing oneself and less obvious than both crossing oneself and/or genuflecting.
As for the individual’s attention span with regard to the sermon, my 22 yr old son demonstrated to me last night that he can – and did – text me a question that took him 13 seconds to text, rather than the 45 seconds I made mention of above.
Blessings.
“I want to meet our people on their terms.” An idea to consider. Jesus did meet peoiple on their terms in that he went to them. Ate with them, walked with them, etc. And got criticized for it.
A counter point would be that the meetings changed the peoples lives; they were new people. So they had new identities.
So who are the people in the congregations of churches today? Are they people with worldy viewpoints needing to hear the gospel; or are they the saved folk who just need a reminder to do the work of the church? Or, do even the saved folk need to hear the gospel as we struggle with shedding our worldly view?
Now, that’s a good answer, Steve, and I appreciate your time. And I still must say that I have a lot of questions about this system and why I have serious doubts. But let’s let that go. You know your congregation and are trying to get their real attention. So much the better.
What REALLY worries me is that your congregation would text you but not bring this issues to you face to face later. You should be sitting in the undercroft, drinking coffee and eating scones, and your congregation should be asking you, for all to hear, what was in their minds during the sermon. Here, you have the time and the opportunity to explain at real length your answer to a complex problem offered. But this doesn’t appear to be the case. You suggest that the people who text you would not speak to you face to face. Herein I see yet again one the grave evil, now almost univesal, of the *&%%%$$# cell phone culture, that it isolates people from the human world and makes their sense of identity coterminous with a piece of technology. Their sense is: I am alive to the degree that I am hooked into electronics. I know this is true. I see adolescents sitting NEXT to each other in Barnes and Noble
texting each other. This is a dangerous as the solipsistic metaphysic that one is not real until one is on Facebook. There is in this a dreadful narcissism, a fateful disconnection from human encounter. Steve, this is Brave New World coming on like a freight train. The Word is a face-to-face Word; God did not text message mankind. When He spoke, things bled real blood. So it should be with a sermon – although Heavens knows I have heard a ton of sermons such as you cite. Do you know Father Mapple’s sermon from Moby Dick? Larry
There’s no undercroft at St. Andrew’s for the rector to hold court, with his people at his feet, and eat scones and drink coffee but people do stick around and ask questions. And they don’t just ask them of Steve or the day’s preacher but the preachers always seem to have the time to speak to anybody who is willing to wait.
The people also ask questions of each other. The best part is we see young people in their 20’s engaged with and asking questions of their elders. And their elders always seem to have time.
This is a congregation that is intent on growing the Kingdom and is willing to be out of their comfort zone to make it happen. We don’t know how our experiment will work and we’re not original in this at all. We’re willing to take this risk because we know that people communicate much differently today than they did even five years ago.
Don’t have an undercroft? Dear me, this is too bad. And no scones? This is bad too. (I make excellent savory scones.) Sitting at the pastor’s feet? Now, now. Tut, tut.
But do people communicate differently today than five years ago? Some do, and therein lies my objection. YTou do not mind the cell phone technique and justify it on the grounds of “communicate much differently;” “it’s all communication, so what’s your problem?” And my problem is precisely all communication is NOT the same, that there is a good and a bad. The issue is trivial if one argues that texting is sometimes necessary as is cell phone use. People communcating differently. Yes yes
But using the cell as a primary means of communication is very bad indeed because it allows the speaker to stay disconnected from his recipient; there is no real contact. Continued use throughout the day for this purpose reinforces an already excessive self-centeredness, a compulsive solipcism. And we all see this everywhere now. I have even heard of kids texting their parents at breakfast. (See the cartoon Zits for a parody of this breakdown in social relations.)
Again, use of a cell phone for anything but an emergency during Mass is an impertinence, a genuine rudeness, and offence against propriety and good taste, an adolescent refusal to limit impulse even for one moment, another example of making self-indulgence and immediate gratification paramount. Communicating differently than five years ago? Indeed, and a very bad innovation it is.
But as I said to Steve, I can understand your desire to increase communication with your congregation, and I must admit that I envy your having a lot of young people in your church. I wish I could say the same. Larry