Texting the preacher

Here is a release by the United Methodist News Service about a Methodist church in Missouri in which people text message to the pastor during the worship service, and he answers the questions then and there. But first, of course, the Youtube:



The article says,

[The Rev. Mike] Schreiner invites churchgoers to text him questions during his sermons, be it clarification of a point he made or some other topic.

“We’ve seen everything from, ‘Did Pastor Mike forget to shave?’ to things from John Wesley’s theology,” said Mitch Aldridge, Morning Star’s associate music director.

Aldridge collects the questions as they come in and forwards the most relevant ones to Schreiner’s onstage laptop.

The texts are anonymous, at least by the time Rev. Mike gets them.

Food for thought. Bill Easum once wrote that if the 1960s ever return, the mainline American churches are ready. The fact is that churches, as a group, are slow adopters of innovations, especially when they might affect worship. This is not altogether a bad thing since "innovative" and "faddish" are not easy to distinguish. at least not until some time passes.

But by now using multimedia in worship cannot be seen as a fad. If churches are going to reach and communicate with young people any more, multimedia is essential. Yet I'd wager that only a minority of congregations have such systems installed.

Personally, I think this idea is brilliant.