Speaking as one who's had to deliver many sermons at funerals, I couldn't help laughing at Stephan Pastis' modernization (?) of the field. Click the image to be taken to a larger version of the cartoon at the 'Pearls Before Swine' Web page.
Given the number of people I see with their heads buried in their cellphones, despite everything else going on around them (including their kids running amok!), this rings eerily true . . . I wonder if any pastor has looked down from his pulpit and found most of his congregation doing that? I've heard of some churches putting the lyrics to hymns on their Web sites, so worshippers can follow on their phones and sing along during the service, but I've always felt that merely encouraged further slavish concentration on electronic devices rather than God. Does that make me a spiritual Luddite?
Peter
6 comments:
Peter, the Catholic Church already has an app equivalent of the Missal. It includes the readings and the words of the Psalm/response between the 1st and 2nd readings.
I admit to being rather fond of my phone, but it is on silent and in my purse from just before I step into the sanctuary until after my post-mass coffee and community time. And from what I see, everyone else in my church does the same (though they don't always remember to silence their phones, and the ringtones can be amusing...)
Well, us poor Baptists have to use hymnals for the song lyrics...
I am very guilty of checking my email during the sermon. Multiple times in fact if I have heard the sermon a few times before.
The minister previous to the current one would encourage people to log into F@ceB00k and update their status to “at church” or “in worship,” so … I do see people using their phones instead of a printed Bible (or the ones in the pews, beside the hymnals.)
TXRed
Well going from cave paintings and hieroglyphs - pictograms - to alphabet and true writing was progress. Now we're going back to pictograms - what else are emojis? That's regress if you think about it!
Post a Comment