A common question posed to myself here at MMM has been the idea of local engagement. That is, what can churches/ministries do on a local level to engage their communities by taking advantage of the mobile technologies that are becoming more commonly used around their communities. An experience that I had yesterday points to a few ways towards making this possible.

I was invited to Remedy Church by some friends for service this past weekend. The friend and I communicated the entire matter via SMS. He did the noble thing and sent me the address of the church, I promptly looked up the address within the mapping application on my mobile, and got two sets of directions to get there.

I wanted to get a small feel for the church before getting there, so Sunday morning before departing I took a look at their website using my mobile. I browsed through every page of their site, and thankfully, my mobile had the ability to view all aspects of their site. I did have trouble finding the address information – as it was embedded into a picture rather than as HTML text – but other than that found everything that I’d wanted to know before hand.

Using Ovi Maps, I was directed to Remedy and then just made my way into speaking with several people. They are really a nice and youthful community. I even spotted a person using an iPad during service. One of the things that I really liked is that they are doing Scriptural memorization as an entire community. They passed out a card and both sides were presented with passages in 1 John 2 that they were setting to remember. The pastor made the mention that it wasn’t a requirement, but it was something they were doing to help facilitate maturity in speaking the Scriptures within and outside of their community.

The message was on point. The person preaching was not the usual pastor, but a member of the community who has stepped into the calling to be a church planter. His message was not just very direct (re: convicting) but also packed with several references outside of his main passage in Luke 9:57-62. This too was very good to hear as the person stayed very close to the text in interpretation, and kept the application relevant to the listening community.

As the service ended, there was another card to fill out (since I was a visitor). This was the normal connection card asking for name, email, address, and having a few check boxes for a few other items and comments. All in all, the same and nothing too different – except the entry and managing points of all of that information.

So here are a few points where mobile, SMS, and mobile web can be points in this story:

• Instead of sending a person the address for a venue, send them the address from your web or mobile mapping application – which will come to a person as a SMS with a URL link, or MMS with a picture of the map location
• Making sure that either your church has a mobile-friendly website or is at least accessible to mobile devices for key content such as address, phone numbers, and primary contact persons
• If your community is a bit techie, make an announcement of this characteristic just in case visitors have an aversion to using modern devices in service
• Encourage actions such as events, Scriptural memorization, etc. to be shared by as many media realms as possible. Go as far as taking a photo of flyers and sharing that via MMS with others
• Use interactive biblical tools such as YouVersion to not just share the Scriptures, but also the outlines and the commentary that your community shares over messages and subjects.
• Encourage folks to share reflections of the message on your community blog (use moderation as needed, and communicate those policies)
• Don’t just rely on handwritten forms for visitor engagement, use online forms, Twitter, and other social media tools to also acquire that information and then to reconnect with others

This is not a critique of Remedy or other churches who use these methods. It is a look at where technologies such as mobile and web intersects and it doesn’t cause any more administrative concerns than what currently exists.

Do tread slowly. Don’t try to go so far and so fast with these tools. But, do take a look at what you have in your communities and hands, and think creatively. Then engage locally.