iChurch
By Jana on Oct 14, 2007
This comment by Chris Bigelow, about ‘texting’ during Priesthood session, made me think about all of the men that I’ve seen occupied with their PDAs during church meetings. I can’t say that I see the same phenomenon with women at church.
Of course one could assume that the PDA-ers are just reading the scriptures and the Ensign on their handhelds, but I suspect that most are reading emails, checking sports scores, or are surfing the web to pass the time.
So I’m curious–have you observed a gender divide in the using-the-PDA-in-sacrament-meeting group? Do you pull out your iPhone during church to make the time pass faster? Do you think it disrupts the Spirit of a meeting if half the congregation is focused on virtual reality?
I’ve noticed the bishop and second counselor use their PDAs in church and did’t think twice But when I saw a woman knitting, I thought it was an inappropriate thing to accomplish in church. Maybe I shouldn’t rush so quick to judgment. Maybe she was knitting for the lord or something spiritual like that while Number 1 (making a Star Trek reference if you didn’t catch it) was checking on hoops, pigskin, or some other sport characterized by it’s equipment. And yes there is a divide going on here. My wife won’t even take her cell phone into church. I, on the other hand, don’t go into church without it. Someone’s gotta call 911 when a Deacon chocks on the sacrament bread.
Jamie Trwth
Comment # 1 by Jamie Trwth | Oct 15, 2007 | Reply
Regardless of whether someone is texting, knitting or reading the scriptures, they are doing something other than listening to the speaker. This begs the question: Does this reflect poorly on our attention span or on the quality of the sermon we are listening to? or both? Perhaps if our speakers were better prepared (here, I am not talking about General Conference) or if we had fewer meetings, our collective attention spans would not wane. But getting the Church to reduce or eliminate the number of meetings is probably unrealistic. Over the years, I have come to the conclusion that meetings are to Mormons what self-flagellation is to Jesuits: a sometimes painful act of religious devotion that often does little to enhance the spirituality of the participant.
Comment # 2 by Eric Facer | Oct 15, 2007 | Reply
I think Eric is on to something, the Mormon church has a lay clergy and the church saves a lot of money by not paying them. But we lose something with that efficiency, the result is many boring talks, prayers, testimonies etc. The gospel has become very boring because we hear the same quotes, ideas, lessons time after time. The human mind needs to be stimulated and it takes a professional (someone who is paid) to stimulate our imaginations. Its sad that people balance their check books, read novels and get on the internet during church but they’ve heard the lessons all before and its just boring to hear it again and again and again. You can’t just assign someone to be interesting that takes talent and skill and you usually have to pay for that.
As a kid in Montpelier growing up my soul used to light up when I heard a powerful talk or testimony, but it was a rare event then just as it is rare now. The journey to God should be enthralling not boring. Gordon
Comment # 3 by Gordon Hill | Oct 15, 2007 | Reply
Haven’t you folks ever heard the saying “If you’re bored then you’re boring”?
It’s not the speaker’s job to entertain us during church. It’s his or her job to communicate ideas about a topic and share a testimony about how the topic has played out in real life. Hopefully that communication will be somewhat entertaining, but that’s not a requirement, nor should we be expecting it or disappointed when it’s not. It’s our job as listeners to apply the ideas. That may mean rejecting or disagreeing, but it’s our job to engage. Obviously, we don’t do this out loud during talks, but it can be done internally. We don’t have to sit in Sacrament Meeting with our mouths hanging open, passively absorbing words. Later, discussions with family and friends can bring additional insight, not necessarily on what the speaker said specifically, but about ideas that come to mind during a talk. During lessons, it is certainly our privilege to participate, ask questions, shed light on a topic, etc. I agree that the lesson manuals (particularly for Sunday School) tend to be dry and sometimes even misleading or misinformed in light of scriptural scholarship, but no one has to use the lesson books as the only text. When teaching, I usually select one or two main ideas outlined in the lesson, then draw as much as possible from the scriptures themselves, perhaps with relevant commentary (usually by Church leaders, but not always) and historical evidence, hopefully augmented by inspiration and the teaching of the Spirit, to get the audience or class to think about the topic in a new way. Wow, I feel like I’m writing an Ensign article. Horrors! More pertinent to this topic, though, as a learner, I comment often, especially when I think the class is falling into old, familiar interpretations rather than thinking actively about the subject at hand. Deciding at the beginning of a talk or lesson to tune out because you’ve heard it all before is both disrespectful to the speaker or teacher (no matter how dull or unprepared the presentation) and stunting to one’s own growth. I disagree with Gordon Hill that “the journey to God should be enthralling not boring”. I would use the word “mundane” rather than “boring”, but the Lord never said that learning about Him and following Him would be all thrill and excitement. Quite the opposite. Everyone should have moments of insight and inspiration, but these do not occur constantly, nor should they. The majority of our spiritual journey consists of enduring to the end, not in suffering and boredom, but in active thinking (NOT being preached to) and pondering that is quiet and personal rather than flashy and mind-boggling. By the way, there are plenty of dull ministers out there, and an awful lot who emphasize style over substance, and I bet there are plenty of folks in other churches with professional ministers consulting their PDAs for diversion. My personal belief is that those who seek stimulation (knitting and answering a cell phone call don’t necessarily fall under this category, but playing games or listening to music on a PDA definitely does) while at church are looking outside for “excitement” rather than using the time to ponder their own successes and shortcomings and God’s message for them.
Comment # 4 by Villate | Oct 16, 2007 | Reply
I play solitaire on my husband’s PDA in sacrament meeting when the speakers read their assigned Ensign article at us.
Comment # 5 by Mary Ellen | Oct 16, 2007 | Reply
I have a couple in my ward who used to use their PDA’s throughout meetings. Both played Solitaire, but the wife would often chide her husband publicly for deleting the Old Testament off his PDA to make room for his favorite version of Solitaire.
Comment # 6 by Steve M | Oct 16, 2007 | Reply
I don’t think you should lump knitting and other handwork in with texting and PDA games. Doing something with your hands doesn’t necessarily occupy the section of your brain that is listening to and processing the talk/lesson. If I didn’t have small children (who are WAY more distracting than anything my PDA can offer up), I’d probably bring my latest sewing project, and only crack out the PDA when the talk needed to be blocked out.
Comment # 7 by janeannechovy | Oct 16, 2007 | Reply
I give my kids the PDA to play games in the hopes that I will be able to listen to the talk. My biggest moral dilemma is at what point/age they have to put it away and start listening more intently too, but for now I put a Treo in roughly the same category as crayons and cereal bars for kids in sacrament meeting.
Comment # 8 by Non-Arab Arab | Oct 16, 2007 | Reply
We’ve got a couple of real estate agents in our ward who work their PDA’s with the dexterity of a Scripture Chase Champion, Sunday being a pretty busy day in the real estate industry (or at least it used to be). I’m not bothered by it as I rarely listen to talks or lessons myself, my nose being firmly lodged in a book or periodical (Dialogue being less conspicuous-looking than Sunstone, in my opinion). Of course, if this digitization thing gets off the ground, I can read Sunstone on my PDA…
Comment # 9 by Anon for this | Oct 17, 2007 | Reply
I photocopy or print articles to bring so that they look less conspicuous. Or I bring a hard cover book without the dustjacket.
When I was younger I bought a bunch of hardcover copies of miracle of forgiveness and a marvelous work and a wonder. I cut the cover off the book and then superglued it to books that I wanted to read. I brought a handfull of books into the MTC with me that way and it was wonderful to sit back in boring meetings or firesides and be reading something. Alas, guilt overcame me and I ended up destroying them. Too bad, I’d love to have them as keepsakes now.
Comment # 10 by Rick Jepson | Oct 17, 2007 | Reply
Most of the knitters I’ve noticed in meetings have been working on the leper bandages for Humanitarian services. Even if that’s not what they were working on, I don’t have a problem with it, since you can knit while listening to a speaker much better than while using your PDA. And I don’t really care if people use their PDAs in church anyway– it’s not noisy, so not a problem to me.
I found that the later Harry Potter books fit nicely in scripture covers, and can pass for a triple combination.
Comment # 11 by Paula | Oct 17, 2007 | Reply
I have been professionally employed on the staffs of many “other” denominations since I was twelve years old. I have attended more hours than I could count of staff meetings making every attempt to provide meaningful and compellling worship to the congregants I was serving.
The hours of preparation required total commitment to the scriptural theme of the week. The scripture was to lifted up in hymns, sermons, readings, prayers, lessons and musical offerings, even the prelude and postlude music.
That immersion in the preparation feeds me spiritually and focuses my worship and teaches me.
LDS meetings tend to be something to be endured to show commitment to weekly attendance. Kind of like the monks wearing the scratchy underwear.
In my LDS callings I found that I frequently annoyed bishops and auxilliary and other leaders with my desire to improve the worship experience. We are to be there to fulfill an obligation to show our righteous commitment to “attend our meetings.” Enduring is mandatory. Worship is optional.
It is not surprising to me that Mormons are pleasantly surprised when the testimonies, talks and lessons are humorous. Sitting through the poor readings of Ensign articles and personal tales is usually arduous at best. To say nothing of the nebulous and or nefarious doctrinal rants that cross the pulpit. How many times did we hear the story of the missionaries who were somehow late to their meeting at the World Trade Center on the fateful September 11. I had priesthood leaders who insisted on perputatiing the legend even after they were shown that it was not valid. Laughing is better than longsuffering, I suppose.
I, too, slip extra reading into my scriptures to fill my mind during the meetings. Even while sitting on the organ bench I have googled pages to paste on the pages of my prelude books to get me through the talks. No one faults the organist nor chorister for looking at their music between “rest” hymns.
Comment # 12 by Suzanne | Oct 18, 2007 | Reply
Eric Facer.
No, it does not beg the question.
Comment # 13 by a random John | Oct 22, 2007 | Reply
A Random John.
Pithy. Devoid of thought and substance, but definitely pithy.
Comment # 14 by Eric Facer | Oct 23, 2007 | Reply
It seems like there is a common underlying thread here that a lot of the meetings and talks just don’t reach us in the way they should or that we want. Sure, I used to play Testimony Bingo with the kids during testimony meeting, in hopes there would be one or two talks that would be useful (or different). Is it the result of over-correlation? Correlated thinking comes from correlated teaching which results in correlated talks. And why do “we” continue to attend? In hopes that we will indeed obtain a brief glimpse of the spirit or learn something new (which, thank heavens, still happens in my ward)?
Back to the subject. We still use the low-tech way of keeping the younger ones entertained during sacrament (books, coloring, food, etc.), but increasingly I use the cell phone to let them play with pictures and stuff. I use texting to talk to my wife or boy if they are attending another ward, or if I get a call from work. My wife has a hard time texting, so she doesn’t do it at all. And it seems mostly the younger teens in the ward are fiddling with their phones all meeting.
So is it good to have them at least physically present, but not mentally?
Comment # 15 by Keva | Nov 11, 2007 | Reply