In our current THE SOURCE podcast (Episode #13) I promised I'd blog about it. It's something youth leaders all deal with: Every kid in our youth room has a cell phone in their pocket!

• How do I communicate to kids to stop texting during worship?
  
  
• Can I say "no cell phones" on our trips?
  
  
• What if parents WANT their kids to have cell phones with them?

These are great questions. And, as we said in the podcast, we WANT YOU to help us answer. Here's the situation:

In the HELP ME section of our most recent podcast, youth worker Matt from Longview, TX asked us:


In the podcast David and I shared some funny "cell phone" experiences and provided our 2 cents on the matter. The most difficult situation to figure out was what to do on trips. After all, many parents want their kids to have their cell phones so they can be reached (have you read about the epidemic of "helicopter parents?"). David suggested that we don’t circumvent parents’ authority on the matter, and allow cell phones. Just tell kids to not use cell phones EXCEPT to communicate with their parents..

This, of course, brought a skeptical laugh out of me. So I asked David, "How the heck do you monitor that?"

It's not an easy answer. And there probably isn't ONE answers. So... we want to hear from you.

• How do you control cell phone use at youth group?
  
  
• Do you allow cell phones on trips?
  
  
• Should we put the foot down and say, "no cell phones" on trips?
  
  
• If we allow cell phones on trips, how can we control use?

Share your 2 cents by commenting
on Jonathan's Blog Here!