One of the areas that we try to bend towards here is that in learning what works and what doesn’t is that we experiment a good bit. Over the past year, we’ve experimented with using the Kindle Fire HD as a productivity tablet, and learned some good lessons about what works and what doesn’t  – both about Android and the 7in form factor. But, that’s for something that kind of a normal experiment. Its those far-out experiments and prototypes where we find some of the other kinds of questions and answers that don’t always reveal themselves too easily.

For example, when we did the Mobile Web Server Experiment it was more about the capability of the person using the mobile device to design and foster an environment than it was the technology or the developers/company who enabled it. Other projects have had a similar aim. How much of the person authoring the experience is central to the experience, rather than the tools or even methods used?

I get these kinds of ideas from looking at other industries and the kinds of design experiments that are done there. In an article at Wired Magazine, there was this concept design of a one-handed First-Aid kit:

…The designer’s compact first aid box unfolds to reveal an entire suite of salves, not only giving you the things you need to treat cuts, scrapes and burns, but offering guidance on how to treat them, too. And the best part? You can use the entire thing with just one hand. The concept cleverly brings together a few key improvements over whatever kit is likely collecting dust in some long-unopened kitchen cupboard…

That’s a really good design exercise. And profitable to a problem not just with the messaging of “what do you do when there’s an emergency,” but, what a person is capable of when they get there.

While we do understand that much about mobile ministry is an exercise in seeing what works from what we’ve done in the past. Occasionally, we’ve also got to make some room for the experiments that open us up to the perspectives that might not be as easily seen. Not so that we can teach, preach, or evangelize more. But that we can get out of the way so that others who are seeking for answers in this faith have the capacity to encounter God (perhaps even a theophanies) for themselves.