Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Confessions of a Pastor: September 2012

The more I confess the better I feel.  Now I am sure that I am not alone on this confession but it is something I struggle with.  I don't have ADD or anything like that but I am prone to distraction (even at church).  For the last two years I have carried a little device in my pocket that allows me to access almost anything from anywhere.

My confession is that I check my phone during church
(Now that I said it I feel much better)

I love my church.  I am super stoked to be a part of what God is doing on Peninsula but every now and then I find myself checking my phone.  This didn't just start since we moved but it has been a reoccurring problem in my life.

I usually avoid this during the message but there are that I find myself "checking in" on Facebook during the announcements.  I am usually pretty good about avoiding checking my feed so that is a plus.

Then it gets worse.  Sometimes I like to quote something that we are singing or a point that my pastor shares.  I open this amazing app called Twitter and go for the post.  Since Twitter automatically takes me to my feed I tend to find myself checking it for about 20 seconds and then quickly lock my phone so I can stay dialed into the message.

The real confession begins now because we are in a time of the year that I love: Football Season.  When Football season comes around I find it easier to justify checking my phone.  I want to see how the Chargers are doing and who the Raiders are loosing to.

The only solution to this problem that I currently have is to keep my phone in my pocket during service... but that doesn't always happen.

2 comments:

Jamie Smith said...

My suggestion is to turn off your phone during church, and if you use it as a bible get one of those real fancy book-bound bibles.

I do the same thing, but since I started turning it off I go to check it and it's too much work to turn it on again!

:)

Wm. Darius Myers said...

Another solution: come to church in the remote mountainous regions of Northern California where there is no signal available in the sanctuary.