Here’s a small activity that you can do to not only extend your use of a mobile device, but take a traditional concept and by adding mobile to it, realize another opportunity for Gospel intersections.

For the following activity you will need:

• A smartphone using the Symbian, Android, or iOS mobile platforms
• Fine Mobile Web 2.0 (iFMW) software
• Pictures and/or audio that you’ve created

Our goal, we are going to turn your smartphone into a device that distribute Biblical (or encouraging) content using a mobile web server.*

Step One:

Download and install Fine Mobile Web 2.0 (iFMW) onto your mobile device.

You will need to sign-up for an account with Fine Mobile Web during the installation process. Once you have done so, you will have a web server running on your mobile device (the URL will be (yourusername).ifmw.mobi).

Step Two:

Take some pictures of Bible verses, or record yourself saying a few verses.

Try to do three or four of these as you’ll be handing these out.

Note: for this step, please do not use content that you’ve downloaded or purchased from other entities (Bibles, music, etc.). The impact of this activity is best felt when you create a product based on your walk with God, not the published activities of another. Plus, its generally illegal to give for free content that you’ve paid for from another.

Step Three:

Within the iFMW software, go to the section of the application called Contents Sharing. On the next screen, select the option to share content from you. Select the content that you’ve just created as the item(s) that you will share.

This step says that you will be sharing content from your mobile device with other people.

Step Four:

Select some people who wouldn’t mind receiving this encouraging content from you.

You will be asked to give them access to that folder where you are sharing the content. You will also be sending them a secret code, which will be sent by SMS. Keep it simple for them (and for you to remember).

Step Five:

Wait for their response.

Here’s Your Opportunity, Take Tracts Digitial

Our mobile devices are very powerful points of contact. There’s a lot that we can do on them that we’ve many times left for other content producers, ministries, etc. to do for us. But, the fact is that we can do a ton of this ourselves as time and tools allow.

This exercise uses a concept based on using a mobile web server to distribute user-generated content. But, we aren’t just serving files, we’ve actually given a URL to our mobile device. We aren’t just sending a file, but we’ve made our mobile devices a place on the web identified for producing content. This content can become picture galleries, blog posts, or something not-yet-invented (hint, hint) to making a place where others can engage not just Biblical content, but our lives as we live out Scripture. And like the websites we use daily, there’s a URL right to it.

If you’ve done this exercise, you’ve taken a step out of the normal box of handing out tracts. Similar, but instead of a physical street, you’ve created a place on the digital highway where people can make a choice about whether to receive what you have to say about Christ. And if you’ve received the URL to a mobile site from someone else, you’ve seen just how powerful and connected mobile devices can be.

And yes, you can do this much simpler with SMS and MMS. This exercise was to go beyond that to duplicating what websites (such as the one for your churches) might do.

How did this exercise works out for you? Leave your thoughts and results in the comments to this post. Please note any technical questions to the iFMW website.

For more information on activities similar to this, read our MMM Mobile Web Server Experiment Report (available in PDF, Google Doc, and blog post (pt1, pt2, pt3) formats).

Images via The Word Street Journal and iFMW.