The Techonology Highway: Progress or Distraction?

My friend and fellow pastor, David Head in Lexington, Kentucky provides some great commentary on his blog regarding the growing phenomenon of people texting and emailing during worship services. You can check it out at: PonderAnew

I found it sadly amusing that I caught David's blog while surfing the web with my laptop waiting on my car at a local dealership. Picture this. It's Saturday, sunny and an abnormally cool day for our part of the country. The dealership service waiting area is crowded. Only three people out of about 25 of us waiting is reading a book, or newspaper. Twenty of them are: talking/texting on a cellphone; online at one of the five computer stations provided by the dealership, while others wait to get on one; and two people are sleeping in the lounge with the television. Oh yeah, I forgot to include the three children in the area for kids watching Disney DVD's. My point? No one is relating personally to their immediate environment. We're all connected to something or someone else (via the Internet, or someone on the other end of our cell), but none of us is engaging the other in fairly close quarters.

I text. I Google. I Gmail. I surf. I blog. I travel with that geeky Verizon guy and his "network" band. Yes, I am a strong advocate of the electronic and cyber-world. However, I continue to find that instead of using electronic gadgets, they are using us. Heck, a weekly morning prayer group I attend can't make it through the ungodly early hour we gather without one of our phones vibrating, or buzzing during prayer.

It's time to unplug! I mean it. Go for a walk, mow the yard, work out, play golf, visit a coffee house, read a book, or newspaper, engage in one on one, face to face conversation with those you love, focus solely on God in a worship service, but do it all (at least once a week) without anything electronic in front of you. It will be a major challenge for many, a welcome break for others. For some it will be the first meaningful face to face conversation they've had in memory.

P.S. As I wrote this blog in an enclosed waiting room off the larger waiting area at the dealership, a very large man entered and sat down across from me and another gentleman who was reading a book. He proceeded to continue his conversation in his very loud voice. Upon leaving the room, the gentleman reading the book looked at me and we both laughed. Then he said in a beautiful African accent, "That would not happen in Europe. Only in America are people this loud, rude and self-centered." More food for thought and conversation.