"Dear Dad..." - Confession of a Dad

My buddy Neal Benson is a campus pastor in San Francisco.  He and I were youth ministry buddies back in the day before he moved up to San Fran.  He totally kicked my butt this morning with this blog post.  My prayer is that what kicked my butt this morning kicks yours too.

Don't miss today with your kids.

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Confessions of a Dad: I love my phone too much

"Hey dad, wanna play?"
Looking down at his phone, "Give me one minute, I'm almost done."

Dear Dad,

Look up from your phone for just one minute, I'd like to tell you something. Your kid is only going to be this age once. Tomorrow she will be older. Today she wants to play: Legos, hide and seek, soccer or Go Fish. So why not play with her?

Do you know there is going to be a day that she isn't going to want to play with you. Sure, you'll still have your phone. In fact, it will be an upgraded model with more "cool" stuff. There will be more apps and games for you to play. But she will always be your kid, there is no trading up here.

Let me ask you: "Is what you're doing on there really that important?" I mean, can it wait? Do you really need to check your email every five minutes? Will the posts on Facebook still be there when she is in bed? Is it more important to check Craigslist right now?

Let me give you an example to help you. Walk to your room. While you're walking turn your phone to silent. Look at your dresser, there is tons of room there. Set your phone down, try facedown. Now walk out, leave it there.

I'll stop telling you how to live your life, I can see you're either frustrated with me or get the point. I know being a dad is tough for you but fight for her. She wants to play with you. Remember how big she smiles. Remember how much she laughs. She loves you!

Put your phone down, it can't really be more important than her.

Signed,
Me

This is a letter I wrote to myself and I'm sending to myself. It's not for you, though it may speak to your situation. The letter is for me. I'm sick of stuffing my face in the phone, so it's a reminder I need to focus on my family and what really matters most.

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A New Youth Ministry Tradition - Offering Cell Phones

We started a new tradition at our Sunday night youth group Awake event a few months back.  We call it: Cell Phone Offering.

On Sunday nights, we basically offer a program that is church for students.  We have a couple of excellent teen worship bands.  We play games... have a message from God's Word... give out prizes and more.

While we don't take up an offering at our Sunday night crowd program... we do ask them to give an offering.  After our welcome time, we ask them to power down their cell phones, iPods or other electronic devices.  We started doing this as part of a series we were doing called "Focused" where we talked about all the distractions vying for our attention.  During that series, we thought it might be a good learning to power down our phones for the 90 minutes that we meet youth group so that we could practice focus.

The idea has stuck.

We don't force anyone to do it.  We put out these baskets, our Sunday morning adult worship service offering baskets, on each of our tables and ask our students to power down their electronics and put them in the offering basket as an offering of attention and focus to God.  Most of our students do it.  And I think, from what I hear, most of our students really like it.

It's a simple idea that has stuck.  Plus, it gives our students an opportunity to connect with God without the distraction of Instagram/Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/texts/etc.

Just a thought.

Those of you who know me know that I love technology.  We aren't doing this as anti-technology.  We don't use cell phones officially in our service (all the Scriptures used are printed on their bulletins) so we are just eliminating the distraction.



Jim

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