I have been thinking about this for a while now and I have decided to finally put it together. It was not an easy choice but a racer needs to speak up even when it is hard to. Many people will disagree with me, but what I want to do is offer some middle ground between the 2 sides. The 2 sides are “let them bring phones,” or, “don’t allow them.” Each side gets something. It might not work out like this but it is worth a try.
Adventures in Missions has talked quite a bit about how cell phones take away from growing as a team and that by the end of the race the most common response is “less time on the screen”. I have a friend who gave up his smart phone for a year (he used a dumb phone) and this is his story about why he did it and what he got from it. Keep in mind that he was a High School student when he did this.
Brent’s story
The Dumb phone fast
Two years ago, I was led to give up my iPhone and switch to a dumb phone for a year. It was not easy to go the whole year, but God used it to teach me a lot.
The first lesson I learned was that I was unaware of how often I had been using my iPhone. I had it with me all the time, and in my hand most of the day. I would have it out during conversations with people, and while attempting to do other things it was distracting me with notifications, even if it was away in my pocket. I was not present where I was at. There were times during family get togethers where I’d miss out on conversations because I was on my phone. There were even times when God was calling me to reach out to people in the waiting room or in line for something, but I ignored Him because I was doing something on my phone. Every new update made it easier and easier to waste more time locked onto my phone. It had been a useful tool for communicating, navigating, and documenting, but it became too much when it started interfering in real relationships with the people around me. Once the games and apps were out of my life, my dumb phone’s sole purpose was to communicate with people through texts and calls. There was nothing for me to endlessly scroll through, nor aimless games for me to become obsessed with. I found that, without my iPhone, I had more time to focus on more important things, including real relaxing, spending quality time with my family, and cleaning my room. I learned that my “down time” had consisted heavily of time sitting on my phone, rather than taking a break from it all and relaxing.
Now why did I go from a perfectly good iPhone 5, to an Intensity II (an old slide keyboard phone)? During the spring of my junior year in high school, God gave me a dream to raise $500 for building water wells in Africa (our youth group’s missions project at the time). I was unsure of how this was going to happen, but God had a plan.
In my family, I am the one who understands the complexities of cellular network plan comparing and explaining it to my parents, I knew both my iPhone’s value, as well as the difference in price per months between a smart phone and a dumb phone on our plan. So a $300 iPhone, plus $120 from twelve $10/month bill credits brought me within $80 of what God had laid on my heart. So, I switched from a smart phone to a dumb phone. That was the first time.
I say the first time because recently I have decided to do this “challenge” again. Only this time it is much easier for me. I am not selling any phones, and the bill credit is not the main motivator for me now. This time around, it is all about remembering the lessons God taught me in discipline from the first time. I noticed that, again, I was too tied into my screen too much of the time. It hogged my life in ways I did not want it to. So, for my own sake, I am back to my Intensity II for the time being, not sure whether or not I’ll ever go back.
Now to clarify, since I am not selling my old phone this time around, it does still work on Wi-Fi, which allows me the ability to use it as a more portable type of internet connection, rather than carrying my laptop around. So if I need to send an email or check my account balance, I am able to grab the device from my car or backpack and quickly do so. The difference is that the device is not on me 24/7. My dumb phone is on me most of the day, but if I need to use the internet, it has to be important enough for me to go find/grab my old device and do so.
It was life changing
As you can see it changed his life. I am not saying cell phone use is a bad thing in fact my Youth and Young Adult pastor both use them for their jobs. What I am saying is that as time goes on while on the race, the urge to spend time on your phone for a long time becomes a thing and soon rather than team time you will have “team time screen time” where your team just looks at their screens for hours, not saying anything to each other. If you have not done the race, this is something that might be hard to understand, but it is true.
My challenge to AIM is a simple one. For all future racers, since it would not be fair to make current racers do this as they are on the field, to give up their phone for the first 2 weeks of the race after travel days to focus on God and each other, as well as when there are any team changes. Current racers could decide to do this as a team, but it would need to be a 100% agreement among the team and if they want to do it via a secret ballot that would also be fine.
Future racer – a racer who has yet to go on the field and has yet to go through Training Camp. Training Camp is the final stage of the interview process. This should be communicated clearly to them clearly at the start off the application process, if they have already applied this should be clearly given to them along with an explanation on the heart behind it
Brent (not a racer) mat (Aim staff) and a few other people who asked not to be named talked about this and here is what we came up with. Please note, these are my thoughts on this issue. I want to thank them for their feedback on my ideas and they were edited after feedback from them by me. They expressed personal thoughts on this and their thoughts are unedited and were written by them.
Challenge 1 – The regular route
- No cell phones for the first 2 weeks of the race (teams can go up to a month if they choose to. Teams can use them to take photos and make a Facebook post since supporters want to see them). Racers will be able to post I’ve made it here safely and take photos. They will also be able to post blogs and status updates but the time on the internet should be no longer than 5 minutes since it should not take more than that to post a blog (typing can be done offline) or make a post of Facebook. Uploading lots of photos might take longer depending on how good the WI-FI is.
- No cell for the first week of ministry at each contact. And no phones the first 2 weeks of team changes. (taking photos is ok with the phone) This is to allow you to grow closer to your team and your contact. Contacts could be instructed to not had out the Wi-Fi password to anyone other than Team Lead, Finance, Squad leaders and UH coordinators since they need it to do their role for the team/squad. If someone is behind on raising funds then they can use it to ask for funds on Social media, email etc.
- Keep cell phone use to a time frame every day (no more than an hour or 2 on any day. No more than 10 hours a week as an example) and stick to it. Sometimes you need to call X person at Y time and that’s fine but as the race goes on it becomes more and more screen time and less of going out and having fun exploring the town if you are in a big city (I was often and it went like this). You might go over if you need to fundraise or are making a video for the month and that time will not count towards your weekly limit.
- This one would depend on ministry but there could be a time of the day when it is not “internet time” or “screen time”. This would depend on what your team is doing that month since some months have different free time than other months but even 1-2 hours a day should be doable for no screen time (unless you have a non-stop day from like 6am-11pm then get it in when you can, but keep it as quick as possible.)
- At lease 1 screen free day a month as an adventure day/day off. You can take photos on your phone but nothing else.
Challenge 2 – The no cell phone route (disconnected route)
- No cell phones on the race at all (there will be team phones but that is all)
- MP3 players (your phone is not an MP3 player), tablets, cameras and computers only.
- Keep personal screen time to 7 hours a week (Sometimes things happen at home and they would need extra attention and that is ok and it happens.) Teams can decide on less if they choose to. I know making a video of the month can take a lot of time so things like that or a video for your ministry would not count, it would only be for personal use. Team time movie night would not count but a personal movie would.
- Some people might not bring anything with a screen at all (note: you will want a screen to e-mail and update your supporters and raise support) and they will need to be on a team with at least one.
- Free days are not screen days
Number 3 might be to extreme to some people. I know it would be a challenge for some people, and for others that would mean buying a tablet or computer to blog and send photos and e-mails to people. I believe that Challenges 1 and 2 would bring the race away from what it is like now and what it was when it first started.
The thoughts of the people who I talked to on this
Paul (Alumni Racer)-This is the middle ground I am proposing; to me it is not too much to ask of someone who is giving up their normal lives to do this. I know for some people it will be hard, and for others easy. I would also encourage people to not over-do screen time once the phone can come on.
Challenge 2 is a bit more of the extreme end to some people but just keep on reading. Back when the race first started most people went on the race with only a computer since they just did not have phones like they do now. My friend gave up his smart phone in High School for a full year. If a High school student can do this, a racer, who will chose to do it, should be able to. I know that this would not be an easy choice to do and that a route that offers it might not even fill up or it might even be the largest one ever.
One month my team had no Wi-Fi and we just got to hang out and spend time with the Lord. In that month I spend more time with him on a daily basis than I did on any other month on the race. I got a lot out of it and want other racers to get the same and even more
Zach (Team mate) –I didn’t have the constant distraction so I could spend as much time with the Lord as I wanted or needed. I spent more time with teammates also. Wi-Fi is so pernicious you don’t realize how much time and energy and focus it zaps away
Matt (Aim Staff) – This is a real problem. I have a flip phone, and sometimes I still feel like I’m too tied to the internet. Smart phones free us from some of the deeper wrestles of life, but instead placate anything we don’t know with the ability to know it immediately. There’s a comedian who once said, “(before smartphones) if you didn’t know something… you just didn’t know… and you had to deal with it.” Our ability to immediately “know” almost anything we don’t know kills our intellectual endurance. It’s hard to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, MIND, and strength if you don’t have the intellectual fortitude to go 5 minutes without knowing what year Moulin Rouge came out. We are citizens of heaven living in a foreign land. The Kingdom of God requires our full attention and does not manifest itself in our lives accidentally. If we want to be men and women who bring Kingdom we don’t have the luxury of living lives on autopilot, scrolling away a thumb flick at a time. We must live on purpose and with purpose. I highly doubt I’ll ever hear the words legitimately uttered from a death bed, “I wish I’d spent more time online.”
Brent (non racer) – Smart phones are not bad. They have actually proven very useful to me in everyday life (using my friends’ when available). At the same time, I’ve never seen them on a mission trip. Both trips I have been on were phone-free except for the leaders who mostly had them in case of emergencies. I think of the idea that “All things are lawful, but not all things are permissible. All things are lawful, but not all things edify” (I Cor. 10:23). There is nothing inherently wrong with having a smart phone, or even bringing your smart phone on a mission trip. I get that it has a camera and the ability to communicate with people where there aren’t cell phone towers but there is Wi-Fi. The question though is, is it edifying (or helpful and beneficial) for a team’s health as a community to have devices which are known to be a major source of distractions from other people in the room.
Questions for you to think about
If God asked you to give your phone up for a year would you do it?
What are your thoughts on this?
If you were or are on the race would something like this have helped or will help your team/squad grow as a team?
