An Invitation to Phone-Free Worship for Lent 2025

To the MDC Community,

I wanted to write this post to extend an invitation for a corporate practice during Lent this year, as well as offer some of the heart and vision behind this invitation.

First, the invitation itself is for us, as a community, to consider practicing “phone-free” corporate worship through Lent this year (which begins on March 9th). Practically, this would mean leaving your phone/devices at home or in your vehicle during our Sunday morning gatherings. We will also have a basket/receptacle in the back of the room for those who would like to leave phones there during the gathering, and we have purchased extra Bibles, which will be available for folks to use in place of reading scripture on their phones.

Before explaining some of the reasons behind the idea, I want to emphasize first that this is not a “rule” or “policy” that we are going to enforce in any way! We are not going to call out, shame or pressure anyone to participate, and we recognize there may be some who, for personal or professional reasons, are not in a position to be able to set aside their phones. Whatever the case, my hope is for all of us to view this as an invitation to engage in a 6-week practice in community, in the spirit of “fasting” for Lent.

Fasting, like any practice or discipline, can certainly become a superficial, empty ritual. Ideally, though, fasting creates space to engage with God, as the experience of intentionally removing something from our lives can repeatedly remind us to turn the energy and attention we normally give to that “thing” back to God instead.

I suspect I am not alone in this, but I can definitely think of times in our Sunday gatherings in which texts or notifications from my device have disrupted my ability to be present to God and others. Even with the best of intentions, I might grab my phone to look up a scripture passage and my eyes are drawn to an email, or a weather alert, or a text that I’ve been expecting, and suddenly my mind and heart are elsewhere. So my hope is that this Lenten practice might increase our focus on God, our ability to hear more clearly from God, as well as our ability to be deeply present to each other in our gatherings. We may also find that it creates a weekly experience that is quite different (set apart) from the rest of our culture, which is increasingly bound up in social media, notifications, alerts, and the resulting frantic anxiety and hectic pace. This would not be a bad thing.

However this initially strikes you, I invite you to prayerfully consider this! And if this invitation stirs up questions, reactions or concerns, please do not hesitate to reach out to the leadership. The elders and deacons have discussed this invitation at length, and are available to process reactions.