The heart of a person is what God is concerned with. If one can Twitter to the glory of God during a service, God bless them! As hand-held devices become more popular, most people will start taking notes electronically. If someone occasionally chooses to send one of their notes out over Twitter for the edification of others then I certainly won’t stand against it.

I remember hearing a sermon several years ago about how overhead projectors shouldn’t be used in a church service. That sentiment today sounds ridiculous as projectors are a staple in most churches for worship song lyrics and for displaying scripture text. The Church adapts to new technology and will adapt to Twitter, iPhone, etc.

Personally, I think it’s overall a generational thing. 20 years or so from now this will be a non-issue.

I think there’s a difference between this issue and overhead projectors. The issue is not whether technology should be used in church meetings.

I take notes in sermons almost all the time to help me listen and to record what I hear so that I can remember it and go over it to digest it and then use what I’ve learnt to teach my brothers and sisters seeing as that is what the sermon does.

But I don’t talk to other people or write notes and pass them to someone else in the church, or text someone during the meeting. So I wouldn’t tweet during the meeting.

But then I would say that tweeting what we’ve learnt should be encouraged after the meeting – we should remind and teach and encourage each other.

Well I think I still agree with you, even if you don’t agree with yourself.

I’m not going to address the Twitter issue specifically but please… consider this point of view:

Sometimes I have taken notes via text message on my phone simply because the speaker just said something I wanted to remember and haven’t had a pen or paper on me.

I have often wondered if someone in the congregation has spotted me doing this and was “concerned” for me for “playing” with a hand-held electronic device during the sermon. Not that it would ultimately matter, but my Flesh likes to turn my thoughts and feelings against the older generation Christians.

With the increased sophistication of hand-held devices, especially with Bible programs on the iPhone, Christians who are pining for the old days will have to fight harder against these legalistic tendencies.

Here’s a text I received in church from someone about fifty feet from me during the sermon last week:

“There’s 7 college-aged guys sitting above you in the front row of the balcony. I haven’t seen them here before. Let’s get up there right away after the service and strike up a conversation before they make it to the door.”

One time I texted a guy (who was discipling me at the time) that I was struggling with the temptation of addiction, specifically desiring to go get high. He sent me a long response of Truth spoken in Love which God used to help me see Christ more brilliantly and by God’s Grace I escaped the temptation. Guess what! He texted on his iPhone while in church. The horror!

If you struggle with legalistic tendencies regarding this, the truth is, you don’t really know what people are doing on their phones, give them Grace and assume one of the stories I just shared.

Like Jared said, the issue is where your heart is at, whether you use your phone during church or not.