Time for another mobile activity. In our last one, we took a big step – you were asked to try becoming a publishing point for Gospel content that you created yourself. In that activity, you essentially were able to do similar to what Bible societies and publishers have done for a few thousand year,
This time, we are going the investigative-conversational route of a journalist. With the end result of having the elements of a story that can be created in one of several modes.
For the following activity you will need:
- Any mobile phone (preferably yours)
- The ability to record video or audio
- Courage
Step One:
Get associated with your mobile device. Take some time to figure out whether you can record audio or video.
Usually, there’s an application called Voice Recorder or Recorder on your device to do this. On some devices, this functionality is built into the Notes application. For videos, you should find this feature within the camera settings for your mobile.
Step Two:
Make a trip to a place where there’s a steady, but not necessarily high amount of people traffic (coffeeshops are great, libraries, waiting rooms, and food courts are great).
Your first goal here is to observe and note how people are using their mobile devices. Either by recording your voice, or the people themselves (get permission before you do this), note things such as how they maintain eye contact within conversations, whether or not they “play” with the device while in conversation, etc. Are there some people taking pictures of various items? Or, do you hear conversations about applications, ease (or dis-ease) of use, etc. Note these items in your “journal.”
Step Three:
This is where courage comes in. When opportunity presents itself, approach a person (or a small group) and ask them simply if they like their mobile device? Ask this question openly, giving them room to expand on reasons why they might like or not like the device.
You’ll be asked “why do you ask” and your response can be that you “are doing a mobile activity for Mobile Ministry Magazine. Its an activity designed to help me better understand how people are using mobile devices, and how I can better understand them in the context of my faith.”
After that, allow the conversation to take its course.
Here’s Your Opportunity: Open the Door
As you can tell, this kind of activity can easily get into evangelizing about your faith. It can also dive into a conversation about devices, apps, games, or challenges with mobile. The goal though is to simply open the door of conversation, and before you converse, you’ve already investigated the environment and gotten a base understanding of the context. In a sense, your time in observation will allow you to not ask the wrong questions.
We talked about being like a journalist in this activity. And that’s definitely the case – observing, recording, and questioning your environment. Your story elements are there, and now you can begin to put together a picture of the social fabric of that area. When you asked the question about liking one’s mobile, you shed some light on one aspect of social life, and as you dug into faith or other topics, you added color, layers to the story. What you ended up with is a picture of that environment, and all the information you’d need to respond by faith to the needs there. Imagine doing this exercise with youth or singles’ groups – what kinds of different stories could come from this investigation of life and faith?
Once you’ve had this conversation, note it and mark what you did right or wrong. Come back to this post also and share your experiences. What could have made broaching the conversations easier? Or, how could your mobile been better able to help you during that observational period?
Personal Testimony/Caution:
I commonly do this behavior – and usually over the course of weeks am I doing the observations. In many cases, I’ve got to take a little longer in explaining and demonstrating MMM as the question, “do you like your mobile,” I’ve been told can come off like a pick up line. To that end, I’ll simply say be mindful of whom you are asking, and the context in which you approach anyone – depending on your heart/walk and their’s, this could be interpreted differently. Be respectful above all things.
Previous Mobile Activities/Experiments:
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) and the last mobile activity – Creating an Opportunity for Gospel Interactions.
Around this time last year, a slide show looking at mobile trends for the next 10 years was released to wide acclaim and conversation. The amount of contribution and conversation around this effort spoke loudly to where many people see mobile, web, and other computer technologies going. We even posted our take on these trends, focusing on specific implementations to faith communities.
In a recent meeting with some people about the 
Tomi Ahonen has been quoted 
The Solo or Siloed Conversations of Faith and Tech
Monday, February 14th, 2011The tweet was answered by John Dyer who said:
It caused these follow-up tweets:
The trek for an answer to this (often to myself) asked question took me to Scripture first. Hearing verses before context, I started looking at a few items:
And while there are verses in those that soften my heart, they don’t address the matter that sits at the core. Another person in a twitter conversation put it nicely:
Lanier is the author of a book that I’m reading now (You Are Not A Gadget). So far in my reading, I’m impressed on the same line of questioning: where is the Body speaking and engaging the conversation around computer technologies in a way more meaningful than numbers, revenues, and tools? After reading this quote from Lainer’s book, I had to put it down (iPad running Kindle) and reflect, where are our conversations:
Where do we speak and live into lives? There’s the education of kids, as well as adults who still have much to pass down. There’s an economic system built on secrets and misunderstood histories. Yes, there’s censorship, and there’s also exploitation of the very resources that build communities (people, fresh water, safety). If Christ is the bread that binds, it doesn’t matter if we are on a social network “doing church” if the greater parts of our community can’t even use a computer (mobile or otherwise) to get a job because our computer labs are closed to non-members, understaffed, and/or fronted by leaders who resist the approaches others have done in their own neighborhoods.
Dr. Philip Jenkins (The Lost History of Christianity, The Next Christendom,etc.) recently came to Charlotte to speak. I was able to make the last half of his second (and final talk). One of the points that was intimately clear was that we have no choice about the changing faces and patterns of the Christian faith on the global stage. USAmerican mainstream deonminations either need to adapt to the changed/changing demographics of their communities, or be marganalized into small and mostly echoing relics of a faith that was once relevant. There’s value in what every faith community offers, but none of that can be communicated through solo or siloed efforts, there’s a larger narrative to the implications of faith in these merged communities, and (as I discussed with him afterward) a similar discussion being played out with mobile/web.
Efforts like Digital Disciples and the Digital Bible Society are great, and these are the kinds of efforts that more of the Body should be taking part in. But, we also should be noticably involved projects such as OLPC’s One Laptop Per Child, discussions such as the implications of WikiLeaks on media and content, and working out the theological answers to the social implications of mobile across generations.
So Body, what are you doing? And does the rest of the Body know anything about what you are doing? Is an injection of Jesus into tech culture just something one group does at a time, or is it isolated to certain conversations only? I’m of the persuasion that IT won’t exist much longer (am not alone in this thought) – what will you do when digital isn’t an appended layer to faith, but is an active and integral part of how communities will engage the validity and experience of their faith? Will the conversation about what we do in tech be meaningful or just noise?
Tags: Digital Bible Society, Digital Disciples, education, implications, innovation, iPad, Kindle, Lainer, Luke, Matthew, mHealth, OLPC, relevance, Sterling, You Are Not A Gadget
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