I’ve been reading 1 Corinthians lately, and again am just SO struck by Paul’s constant attitude of unselfish sacrifice- he would choose to give up ANYTHING if it meant he would offend or distract ANYONE else. His constant motivation is the edification of the church of God, and the example He can be of Christ’s love to unbelievers.

Just because something is culturally acceptable or generationally popular doesn’t mean that it’s RIGHT. When our attitude is all about us, and what our ‘rights’ are, we are missing the point of Christianity. This is what should we should be showing by our example and teaching to our young people.

As for the rest of the week being part of church, that did not even enter into my argument – we should worship all week long, yes, but not all week long are we in a situation where it is disrespectful to be texting while someone else is talking/singing, etc.

“Teaching what is appropriate and not is a cultural and social function of technology…”

Simply saying that “because a pastor is preaching doesn’t mean you should be texting and tweeting” is not a remedy for the issue – that is, you are only addressing symptoms of a greater thought that most likely wasn’t taught. Namely: ethics (re: Proverbs and Ecc.).

It is only after teaching these ethical issues of social, technology, and culture that one can sit and make the rules that others suppose should be the case of this digitally native and very social generation. I’m sorry folks, but most of you commenting are more like myself where you sit as a late Gen X or early Gen Y-er; you aren’t native to this way of communitating and therefore your “rules” and “perceptions” will cause more problems than they solve.

To those peeved that people can text better than they can recite books and doctrine, do a better job discipling and then maybe you won’t have the tech issue to harp on as loudly. And yes, I very much practice what I preach – Gabe can totally vouch for that much.

Lastly, I too am of the opinion that “church” is what happens in-between the Sunday worship gatherings. That the active acts of creating community with people in and outside of the Christian faith should be what defines church. If this action is spilling over into our use of tech, and moreso into those worship gatherings, then we need to (a) redefine and further emphasize what it means to be a gathering of worshippers, and (b) do a much better job of discipling one another towards healthy boundaries and margins, making sure that we don’t miss that knowledge and understanding of this specific time and space towards technology, while sharing the implications of this change and what it needs to mean for us and those around us as we engage in this thing called church.

On a side note, a project http://ParaTweet.com can help with live moderation and a full-screen display.

Apart from getting ’soundbyte theology’ their tweets often have no context and are fairly meaningless without one!

I don’t mean that we shouldn’t worship God or have him lifted high in our lives. WE SHOULD. I just meant that it seems that we only put Him up on his “worship pedestal” on Sundays.

I might be deserving of a stoning here, but I just don’t see where it’s biblical to put so much emphasis on reverence to God (or the pastor) on SUNDAY mornings. Where is the reverence for God the other 6 days of the week?

For once I’d love to see someone blog about or tweet about or share about how the weekly church gathering messed up their time with God. What do I mean by that? I mean that wouldn’t it be amazing if we were so in tune with God that the very thing that we hold in such high regard and almost worship (Sunday church service) was looked at as a hindrance to actually LIVING and BEING the church?

Just for the record I’M MOSTLY KIDDING. Mostly.

I think if we say this: “I think we can all put our phones away for one hour a week to show respect to God and to our pastor and those around us, can we not?” Or something similar, then we also have to ask ourselves if we can do the same EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK.

I think one point that you didn’t mention, Gabe, is that texting or tweeting during a church service can be a distraction to those around us – to keep someone from hearing & focusing on God’s word because they are distracted by our choice to tweet during church is unacceptable.

I think we can all put our phones away for one hour a week to show respect to God and to our pastor and those around us, can we not???

Or maybe even pick up the Bible sometime during the other 6 days of the week.

I’m just saying.

I think we should be careful not to place too much emphasis on the “word” of the Lord coming from the speaker from on high once a week. And we should be careful to put MORE emphasis on the “word” of the Lord coming from the WORD of the Lord during the week.

Obviously, BOTH situations together work in synergy to create a good growth situation for the Believer. Balance is key.

But as far as twittering or texting in a gathering, we know when we should and shouldn’t. A lot of that depends on the flavor of the actual congregation and the “style” of the worship gathering.