The sanctuary filled with a nervous laughter. I think some of it was out of pure disbelief at what I’d just told them. Others figured that I was totally serious but were trying to figure out what this would mean for them.
I was preaching at my church’s youth group and decided to try something a little different than what they were used to. Before I got into my actual message I put my number up on the whiteboard at the front of the sanctuary and told them to text me any questions that they had at any time through my message.
It’s important to me to be able to address all of the learning styles when I share, and that means that I need to let people converse in some way. But that’s difficult to do in the traditional preaching model. Besides, who has the guts to stand up in front of everyone else and say something like:
Umm, excuse me, but I really don’t understand…
I talked through it with my Homiletics class, and we all agreed when I was asked to share with the youth that it would be a good time to try this approach.
It didn’t take long before they started testing the system with questions like:
- What’s your favorite color?
- How did they get the mashed potatoes out of your ear? (it’s a long story…)
But some of the questions that came in were serious and relevant to my message:
- How r we Gods chosen ppl?
- Are we really worth something to God?
- If your a Christian & you do something… God still can forgive you right?? Like he won’t turn away?
The experience was a little awkward at first, but certainly something that I believe will continue to add value when sharing with that group. However, using texting as a communication tool when preaching and teaching is something that should be carefully considered.
Here are a couple of guidelines that might help if you’re thinking about trying it:
Know Your Audience
The first and most important thing to consider is who your audience is. It’s almost no-brainer when trying to decide whether to invite a youth group audience to text you questions. Virtually every teenager in the room has a cell phone glued to their hand, and sends more text messages in a week than I probably have in my entire life!
Texting is how they communicate, so really all I was doing was communicating with them in their natural habitat.
But this isn’t the case with other audiences. Obviously this approach wouldn’t work very well if you’re sharing in a nursing home ministry. As far as using this approach in a Saturday evening or Sunday morning service, you really need to consider your audience.
I don’t think that it’s necessary for everyone in your audience to be text-savvy, but it certainly helps if the majority of your audience uses cell phones for features other than phone calls.
Develop a System for Managing Incoming Messages
At first I found it a little difficult to maintain my train of thought while my cell phone is sitting on the pulpit alerting me of new incoming text messages. I know the more I do it, the easier it’ll become. Depending in the environment that you’re in, there are several ways to manage incoming texts other than with a phone at the pulpit.
For example, if you have people that you trust to filter the appropriate text messages working your overhead projector, you could easily have someone sitting in your ‘control booth’ getting the incoming texts, and sharing them on your big screen at appropriate times. However you decide to manage the incoming texts, make sure that you first think all the way through your system for managing them.
It may require some new resources and training if you are involving other people.
Set Clear Guidelines and Expectations
When you invite your audience to interact with you via text messaging, you’ll definitely want to set some clear guidelines with them.
In my experience working with the youth I had to talk briefly about trust and how I wasn’t giving them permission to sit there texting their friends and let it become a distraction.
I also wanted to let them know that I would answer as many questions as I could, and that I would try to follow-up with a blog post (or something similar) with responses to questions that I wasn’t able to answer from the pulpit.
You may also want to create a ‘privacy policy‘ in order to ensure people that you will not use their text messages to embarrass them in any way. This could be an important expectation to set because some people may only be asking questions from behind the veil of anonymity.
If you share who the person is asking the questions (without their permission), then you run the risk of shutting them down.
Don’t Give Up
One thing that I can promise you is that it’ll feel awkward for you and your audience at first. So please don’t try it once and give up on it. Like anything new, it’ll take time to get comfortable with it. Even if you decide to test it for a trial period, make sure that you’re giving it a fair shot at working.
I believe that willingness to stick with it will have the potential of reaping some great rewards!
If you have any experience with texting in church, I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences! Or if you’ve been considering it, what issues are holding you back or do you feel need to be addressed before you actually try it?
Joshua says
this is a really, really good idea. a lot of people dont ask questions that are on their minds, because as you said, no one wants to be the guy who doesn’t get it. this is a perfect way to sidestep that.
John Saddington says
definitely…! also… tell me about integrity.com…
Dan King says
Absolutely! I wonder how many people walk out of sermons (or other Bible teaching) with questions lingering in their mind that they either never had the opportunity or the courage to ask. To me that seems like it would be a BIG problem with building a church that can truly stand on their own… but that could be a WHOLE other discussion…
Thanks for dropping by and sharing your thoughts dude!
Wilfredo Mora says
I think this its a good idea, i was thinking in how to activate a gadget to block their cel. signals (Mmmm) but thinking further i though wasnt a good idea. but definetly if we open this option to them, they porbably will lose interest to do it. Another idea that i read couple of days ago was to open a #SERMON hash tag in Twitter to interchange ideas during the sermon.
Dan King says
I think to address your concerns that would prompt a desire to ‘block their cell signals’, the most important thing is the setting of expectations. If you are clear on what you consider appropriate use of the technology to ensure that it doesn’t become a distraction, then most people will respect that.
I also love the idea about using hashtags in Twitter! I’ve got some thoughts on how to do that effectively, and I know of some tools that might help with aggregating those tweets to make it more useful. But I’ll leave that another post… 🙂
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Wilfredo! You rock dude!
Justin Piercy says
Love that this dialogue is getting busted open. We tried this last year in one of our adult services at Connexus Community Church in Ontario, Canada.
We posed the question: “How do I use the bible to help me determine what to do in (x) circumstance in my life.” Check out the message here –> http://drp.ly/PnW7f
The ball was a little slow to get rolling, but once it did the questions came flooding in. We did deal with the typical silly questions, but were also really surprised and thrilled with the depth of some of the questions people were asking. Clearly it’s a medium that works and allows people to engage at a depth that goes way beyond a typical Sunday morning in church.
Since then we’ve also done the same thing at a few student ministry events, with even greater success. Dan, I love what you said about knowing your audience. Since our adult population tends to be very plugged in, we experienced success on our first try out of the gates on a Sunday morning, however, the success we experienced at our student events were much greater.
We used the software “iWall” (http://drp.ly/PnYS). If you’re looking at integrating texting as a part of a service of any kind, definitely check this out. With the one drawback that it’s PC-only, it offers great moderation and will send the messages to a video output that you can route however you choose through your video switcher.
For anyone on the fence, I’d say this is definitely a worthwhile experiment, and my guess is you be pleasantly surprised at the level of serious interaction once you get over the initial hurdle of overcoming the medium.
Dan King says
Thanks for sharing your experiences Justin! This is good and helpful information! I particularly appreciate the reference to iWall! I’ve poked around a little bit for stuff like that, but haven’t seen this one yet. I may have to check it out a little more and maybe write a little more about using it here.
I totally agree and appreciate your encouragement for people on the fence to try it out. Like you, I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of the conversation that started to emerge. It’s hard to ignore something that brings out such deep exploration of faith for people.
Erik Wood says
Hello –
I saw this posting and I wanted to suggest a solution to the texting management issues there were being discussed. My three year old daughter was almost run down by a texting driver last fall. I have worked non stop since then on a tool for smartphone users to manage their incoming texts whether that be at home, in the office, or driving down the highway. We have already heard of several teens using this tool called OTTER to schedule their own “texting blackout periods” so that they can get some studying done. Why couldn’t the cell phone user use the Auto-Reply feature to do the same thing while at church? Let us know what you think.
Best,
Erik Wood, owner
OTTER LLC
http://www.OTTERapp.com
Amy says
I think this its a good idea, i was thinking in how to activate a gadget to block their cel. signals (Mmmm) but thinking further i though wasnt a good idea. but definetly if we open this option to them, they porbably will lose interest to do it. Another idea that i read couple of days ago was to open a #SERMON hash tag in Twitter to interchange ideas during the sermon.