Is your phone a tool or a distraction?
Every Sunday morning, I receive an alert that tells me how much time I spent on my phone the previous week. I am too embarrassed to tell you my average daily use of my phone. I justify my use because I use my phone to read articles, respond to emails and text messages, and listen to podcasts. I spend way too much time mindlessly looking through social media.
How much time do you spend on your phone each day? What do you use your phone to look at? Is it a productive use of time or is it mindlessly scrolling social media These are questions we should all ask ourselves and ask each other.
1 Timothy 4:7-8 says to train yourself for godliness. The book of 1 Timothy is written by Paul to a young pastor. This verse comes in a section of scripture where Paul says some will depart from the faith and follow the teaching of demons. He tells Timothy to stand firm in the Bible and good doctrine and have nothing to do with the false teachings. Rather, train yourself for godliness.
Did you know that your phone is discipling you? It is training and teaching you to think a certain way. If it goes unchecked it can have a disastrous effect on your faith. Social media is teaching us that our identity is found in Christ but on how many likes we get on a post. Secular music teaches us to sing truths that are contrary to scripture and we listen because it has a good beat. Thirty second video clips pull at our heart strings and get us to ask ourselves “did God really mean this” Pornography tells us that everybody is doing it, nobody will find out, and nobody is getting hurt.
This article is not meant to condemn you. My hope is that it encourages you to use your phone to please God and grow in godliness. Our phones can be used to make us better disciples of Christ, to be conscious of what our phone is feeding our minds.
Here are some tools and apps to help your grow in godliness.
Tools
- Screen Time Tools – Turn on the screen time feature which allows you to see how much time you spend on your phone.
- App limits – Set an app limit for Facebook so you can only be on it 30 minutes before it locks.
Bible Intake
- Bible App by Life.Church – This is a great resource for reading the Bible. You can also listen to the Bible through this app.
- Dwell: Audio Bible – This is a great app to listen to the Bible.
Bible Memorization
- Bible Memory – This app allows you to select the verse you want to memorize. It has a fun way to memorize Bible verses.
- Fighter Verses – You can pick a set of verses you want to memorize and go through them at your own pace.
Prayer
- Church Prayer Chain – Sign up to have church prayer requests sent to you via email by Karen Martin and Terri Burnett.
- PrayerMate, Echo Prayer, and Prayer Notes: Ask, Seek, Knock – Apps for entering prayer requests and remind you to pray.
- Operation World – This app can be used to pray for countries around the world.
Worship
- Spotify, Amazon Music, and Pandora – These create playlists of Christ centered songs. They set your affections towards Christ.
- One of my professors in Seminary said, “the people will not leave church quoting the three points of the sermon, but they will leave singing the songs you sing.” Music is powerful and important in our life.
Extra Resources
- Christian Audio – You can download a free book each month to listen to. I would suggest starting with a Missionary Biography. They are fun to listen to and spiritually encouraging.
- Covenant Eyes – This app helps you fight porn. A cell phone is dangerous because you can look at porn without others knowing. This tool allows others to hold you accountable. If you struggle with porn, I highly recommend this app. You can experience victory over this sin!
What apps or tools on your phone have helped you grow in godliness? Post them to the church Facebook page so we can all benefit from it. Make 2021 a year where you use your phone to help your grow in godliness instead of distracting you from Christ.