No more cell phones

[Reuben]

Perhaps they should increase the entertainment and spiritual value of the church services?

If it wasn’t so damn boring then people wouldn’t have to be on their cell phones.

Make a better product that people actually WANT to participate in.

It's hard to do that when church is 60% driving home the messages we have the truth and we're the chosen ones. That overhead has to be paid down before getting to anything useful or engaging. Otherwise, members would start doubting, have their own ideas, and ruin the illusion of unity and superiority.

It's not "How can we better follow Jesus?" It's "How can following the prophet, yea, the only man on Earth who can speak for God to everyone, help us better follow Jesus?" The product is hopelessly encumbered, entangled in the tentacles of Joseph Smith's hubris.

Supposing a local priesthood leader could identify that this is a problem, what could he do about it?

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

No no no, a better idea is bring a black top hat and put your phone inside that!

[Random]

So he has noticed that people play games on their cell phones, but the Church also has phone apps with scriptures, lesson manuals, etc. on it. You know, it's a helluva lot easier to carry your scriptures (and the songbook, if you go to meetings where there are few to no songbooks where you sit) on your phone.

It's sad that the guy is so upset about it. I feel for him because I, too, have had a lot of angry times over the fact that people weren't doing what I expected/wanted them to do. But the truth is, people have the right to do what they want as long as it doesn't hurt someone - and playing a game on one's phone during boring church meetings is not necessarily a bad thing.

[Random]

I have been to several other churches-Catholic, Methodist, Christian. People at these churches arent on phones.

It's possible that the people you saw were there because they wanted to be there, not because they were going to be spiritually executed if they didn't go to that place, at that time, with those people.

[MoPag]

No no no, a better idea is bring a black top hat and put your phone inside that!

[Anon70]

The branch president has the authority to tell you to not use your cell phone exactly to the extent you allow him to.

this. These are the kinds of stories I share when people say "we let people govern themselves!"

[Just This Guy]

So Mackman,

How did the first week of the phone ban go? Did people follow it or was it forgotten about?

[Mackman]

Yeah, it was pretty much forgotten about people just did what they wanted anyway ( which was a good thing). As someone said they only have as much power as we give them !!!!!!