In previous articles where we’ve looked at some of the applicable contexts for defining mobile ministry, we’ve only lightly touched on the specific discussion of Spiritual Implications. However, we did start with a focus:

theological constraints/precedents; psychological/cultural effects of mobile vs. other personal/connected technology media elements

So what are some of these in a bit more of detail? Let’s explore a few memes:

Theological Constraints/Precedents for Using Mobiles in Ministry Contexts

John Dyer (Don’t Eat the Fruit) posted about the 10 Commandments as a communication event, here is a piece of that post:

…The Israelites might have argued that the technological means they used to approach God didn’t matter as long as they were devoted to him and him alone. But God begged to differ, because he knew that the instruments we use for worship always reinforce certain beliefs…

Through our lens of today’s computer technologies, what becomes of the rules and the methods that we used to govern other types of technologies (communications – with an ‘s’)? Does the teaching of language structure, cultural context, also bring into the understanding of the shaping of the message and how a message heard in one context (for example Twitter) can shift or change the effectiveness of the entire message? Or, in looking back at Dyer’s piece, why didn’t Moses come down from the mountain with tablets for all 2 million persons? Surely, it would have taken longer, but wouldn’t the message been easier to keep with them? Or, was the device not the point, and there was something greater with the message that needed to be taken in that we sometimes miss when we take our churches into the realm of social media.

There are theological questions here. Let’s dig.

Psychological/Cultural Effects of Mobile vs Other Personal and Connected Technologies

We can also look at those spiritual implications as matters of culture and psychology that effect us on another level. Surely, getting an SMS conjures up different response mechanisms than seeing a paper mail message. An article that I read recently put forth a figure-ground relationship not just to technology, but how are technological affects are effecting how we understand and maneuver through history. Here’s a piece of that article that I found relevant and leading for this kind of discussion:

…The biblical archetype for hunter-gatherers has traditionally been the Garden of Eden. Savages are minimalist predators, and simply live off the bounty of nature, in areas where it is effectively inexhaustible.  To the extent that their gathering has evolved into agriculture, it is slash-and-burn agriculture based on immediate consumption and natural renewal rather than accumulation and storage of vast quantities of non-perishable food over long periods of time. You could call their style of farming “nomadic” farming, since they move from cultivating one cleared patch of forest to the next, rather than staying put and practicing crop rotation in a small confined (and “owned”) patch of land.

For the record, I think the Garden of Eden story has it right. Savagery is the most pleasurable state of existence, if you can get it (until you annoy the witch doctor or get a toothache). Not in the sense of noble savage (an idea within what is known as romantic primitivism that is currently enjoying a somewhat silly revival thanks to things like the Paleo diet), but in the sense of what you might call the idle savage state. In some ways, an idle savage is what I am, in private, on weekends…

And here are some of those psychological thoughts, some that shouldn’t be divorced from the understandings that we should get about spiritual implications of mobiles (all tech) in ministry.

I admit that some of this gets incredibly philosophical and academic, and to some degree might even by why spiritual implications might not as well developed or explored as other areas of mobile that we’ve looked at. And yet, I am determined to mine the available understandings and thoughts present so that there can be some merit towards our efforts in mobile/social web. Maybe then by penning some of those thoughts and observances, we can corporately better direct ourselves – and the world at large – towards the kind of thinking that is more proactive than reactive.

What might some of your thoughts be here? Surely, I’m not the only one thinking about this, but there should probably be a better (pastoral, theological, etc. framework) given to this segment of thinking that I’m missing. Let’s chat, let’s learn together.