What’s that you say? Am I checking my email, right here in the middle of church? Sir, I am insulted you would even ask that. How dare you!
This is 2011, I can’t be carrying all kinds of bound and printed words on paper. What do you call them again? Oh that’s right, books? Yes that’s it, books, specifically the Bible. I’ve got the entire thing right here on my iPhone. Not only that, I have access to every translation ever written. Can your printed piece of paper magically transport you to the Douay Rheims 1899 Edition of the Bible?
I think not and you know how often I’ve got to cross reference a verse during the middle of the sermon and the Douay Rheims is the only one that will “Dou.” See that, a pun? Thank you iPhone!
And no, I’m never tempted to play Zombies vs. Plants during one of the “down times” at church, though everyone knows the roof level is the hardest to conquer. I never use the three minutes of announcements to check what time the game is on today or look up an email or download a new song that just popped into my head or text somebody about our lunch plans. I don’t use the amount of time it takes for the offering basket to get here as a small window of multi-tasking.
I’m the one person on the planet who is focused and attentive with their iPhone and never drifts away to verify on IMDB that Steve Buscemi was not the little kid in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird despite them both having really crooked teeth.
Well, I do have a small confession. The other thing I do use my iPhone for during church is to take notes. To capture words of wisdom if you will. Sometimes I will email them to someone who needed to hear the sermon but wasn’t here. And no, I don’t check other emails then either while I am doing that. I also archive my notes for later review and sometimes even set an automatic reminder. Does your paper do that for you? Do your fill in the blank sermon notes ever ping you in the middle of the week to remind you of a nugget of wisdom from the sermon? I thought not.
Enjoy your paper, Gutenberg, I’ll stick to the iPhone. But wait, what happened to Steve Guttenberg? How come Howie Mandel has had some sort of renaissance and the Gutt is still denying us his craft? I should Google an answer to that right now.
