Lord have mercy: cell phones in church

To all of you who celebrate Easter, I hope you enjoyed spending the day with friends and family (not to mention the nice weather until today’s rain moved in).

And if you went to church, I hope you managed to turn off your cell phone during the service. 

How hard is it to turn the thing off for 60 minutes once a week?

Not a week goes by, it seems, that I don’t hear someone’s cell phone during church. Often as not, this happens during a quiet time, like during the Lord’s Prayer. (Our Father, hallowed by thy name .. oh wait, hang on, I need to take this call.)

Our minister takes it in stride. Usually he ignores it. Sometimes he’ll say something funny like, “Go ahead and answer that, it’s probably important.” I wish he’d make the person come forward and stand at the front of the congregation and apologize, but I suppose that’s not quite the spirit of forgiveness I should show.

Not quite as irritating are the folks who check their Blackberries 20 times during the service. Really? You can’t tear yourself away for one hour without scrolling through your inbox? Are you expecting an e-mail from the President or what?

Yesterday was Easter, which always means a fuller house than usual. And that translated into more cell phones. I only heard a couple of them going off. What I heard more of was people turning them off before the service began. Hallelujah!

Do cell phones in church try your patience? Do you say anything to the person whose mobile device chirps while the hand bell choir is playing? Or do you just pray that he or she will get some sense and leave the stupid thing at home next time?

WWJC?