Texting God...or not.

Her boney hands were covered in sterling silver mood rings. She sported a trendy lime green nail polish on her fingertips. She quickly texted, “I miss u 2 huny, happy estr” half under her leg, half on the church bench.

I could hardly believe what I was watching and reading. A young girl, probably about 15 years old, was sneaking text messages during an Easter Sunday church service. I heard the dull vibrating sound of her Blackberry during the processional, the readings, the homily and communion. She would glance down the church bench at her mother, grandmother and older sister to make sure they weren’t watching before she would nonchalantly sneak her phone out of her skirt pocket.

Usually text messagers don’t bother me. However, there is a time and a place for text messaging. Place #1 that you don’t text, other than your car, is in church. Unless she was texting God, which I highly doubt - the last time I checked he didn’t have the text messaging capabilities – she should have put her phone away for an hour.

But, after a simple search of ‘texting in church’ on Yahoo, I discovered a church that is allowing parishioners to text the pastor while giving his sermon. They can ask any burning questions they have about apostles, commandments, or what have you. I can already see my text appearing on his cell phone, ‘hey padre, turn up your mic. I can’t hear you in the back. also, tell the screaming baby’s mother to take said screaming baby outside.’

One of many problems I see with texting the pastor is the signature some people have on their text messages. Even though mine is the simple, yet sophisticated, ‘-Sarah Mulder,’ some texters have signatures of ‘~*bAbY dOlL 09*~’ or ‘sexy cowboy.’ I don’t think the pastor of your church needs to know you are someone’s baby doll or sexy cowboy.

The point is, let go of your cell phones for an hour if you are going to church. It’s the one hour where you sit in a hard wooden bench and listen to someone else talk. I’m pretty sure the pastor of your church is more insightful than your ‘sexy cowboy’ or ‘~*bAbY dOlL*~.’