Cell phones?!?! Are taking over!!!

    Let me say first that we have cell phones.  Well Matthew and I do.  And have talk about when and if the kids would get one.  But that's not what this is about.  Thinking back to when I was a little girl there was a sign welcoming you to Church, or maybe one asking you bring nothing but water in.  But now most Church have a sign that says please turn off Cells.  Are you kidding me.  I did not even think of taking a phone with me to Church.  This was not a time to have a phone this is a time for you and God to talk.  Or at times have God hit you upside the head when needed.
     Then Matthew went overseas a few years back, and my phone became glued to my hip!!  And I'm sorry to say I would leave Church and take phone calls from him.  I always turn it down and just had it on my lap so I could see it.  When if home now I leave it in the car.  But some many of us do not.  They have came to count on it and are not sure what would happened if there did not have it with them at all times.
    Today we had two phones goes off in Church....And I know people have their reason of having them on.  But do we have to have them on all the time.  Do we need to pull out our phones at Church and look things up on our Bible app?  Before and after Church do we need to sit there and play games or text our friends?  No, we do not need them.  We have a good old hard cover Bible with pages inside that works just as well.  And I know for me having it at my hip like that with my Bible app ready to go, I do not know the word like I should.  Why should I?  I can look it up in no time at all!
   This goes for others things too!  Why should we learn math, with our phones with us all the time it's not needed.  We do not have to stop to think about anything, with your phones.  It's right with us all the time.  Our kids can look things up in a matter of minutes and know what they want.  But they do not have to learn it, because the next time they need it they just look it up again.  And yes I have look things up!   And sometime I have to look things back up!  Not that I'm happy about that.
    Let me ask you something when you went out to eat 15 years ago or even 10 years ago, what did the kids do?  What did the parents do?  What was going on at each table?  People talk!!! Not text not play games on a phone!!  They talk and maybe a game of tic-tac-toe was played.  Same goes for parks!
   Now that I have said all of that, here is what the Landers are going to do about it!!!  We are turning of our phones!  Not for a hour or a day....but each and every time we sit down at the table, walk in to church, or have family game/ movie night!  Our kids will get phones when they start to drive.  But I hope it will not be a smart phone.  And if I think I could get away with it I would get them one that would just call home, mom, dad and 911!  I'm thinking that by then they may have some friends that they would like to talk to.  I'm not saying that it's wrong to have a cell in Church and if there is a time again that I "need" to have one I will.  But for right now as a family we need to step back a little.  Our kids spell LOVE  like this TIME, and we are not giving them the time they need with our phones on our hips all the time.

~Amber