We’ve always encouraged our students to bring their Bibles to our programs and small groups. It’s been a real struggle; however, yesterday I noticed some headway in our efforts. In our 5th/6th grade program Ascent the majority of tweens had brought one; however, instead of having the standard paper version many of them had brought the Bible on a Kindle or Ipod. In fact one student was bragging about how he just got his new Kindle and the first two books he uploaded were Twilight (argh) and the Bible (yeah). Interesting. I didn’t really notice this with our older students(7th-12th); however, for our younger students they were proud of their finding. But, as great as it is for students to bring a Bible, if it’s electronic it brings up an interesting question:
Does this encourage teens to bring their other electronics into the program?
And again I have no problems if it’s on a Kindle or Nook, but when you are bringing it in on your Iphone, Ipod, Droid, Ipad you are playing with fire. I know you can read and do other stuff on the Kindle and Nook but there aren’t nearly as many temptations as their are on their electronic cousins. It’s a battle that I fight because there are times where we ask students to use their cell phones for texting polls or interactive messages; however, recently I think it’s gotten out of control, especially with our middle school students. We’ve discussed collecting cell phones at the door unless we plan on using them, but then again we know that students need them like they need oxygen, plus it keeps some of the more distracting teens preoccupied as they listen to a message. I can’t figure this out. I know I’m not the first youth minister to approach the subject but I’m curious as to what you all think:
Do you ban electronics in your youth program?