iPhone Scripture

In the midst of the whirling chaos of cascading failures that was our worship this last Sunday, I found meself with a conundrum.

As the anthem faded and our Youth/Lay Pastor came up to read the first scripture, I was scrambling to get my MacBook to communicate correctly with the little Dell projector that had been brought in to replace the failed Sony projector. A few tweaks and twiddles were all that needed to happen, and when it was done, things were more or less copacetic, even if the images weren't quite working well. The Keynote was good to go.

With the first reading almost under way, I looked to my right for my old worn well-loved study Bible. It was at that point that I realized that my old worn well-loved study Bible had not accompanied me into the sanctuary. It had remained on my desk in my office as I spent the morning frantically trying to figure out why the church didn't have any heat.

Erk.

Not having memorized the passage for the day, I had...well...forty seconds to find a Bible. I looked around for another Bible, but the extra I'd left behind the lectern for emergencies had somehow wandered off. The bible to my left was in Korean. No dice there.

I now had thirty seven seconds. Do I make a dash for my office? No. Fleeing the sanctuary right before the sermon generally doesn't look..pastoral. Do I wander out into the pews in search of one of the pew bibles? Seemed too random, and most of the bibles were in folk's hands. Do I run over to one of the worshippers, wordlessly snatch their Bible, and scamper back to the lectern, cackling mischievously? Entertaining, but possibly counterproductive.

I fumbled in my pocket for my iPhone, popped it out, and hit Safari. Twenty seven seconds. I called up the bookmarked website of my church. Twenty two seconds. I tapped "Scriptures of the Week." I tapped the link to this week's readings. Fifteen seconds. As the microscopic text appeared on my touchscreen, I touchscrolled down, then did that little unpinchy thing to make the passage legible. All was copacetic, with seven seconds left to spare.

And thus I became one of those hipster pastors who read their Bible verses from an iPhone during worship.