It would seem that many of us who fiddle with mobile have a bit of a culture problem. We latch onto the ideas of liberty and independence that mobile and the connected web offer, but then also tether ourselves to a tradition that’s not as free.

You disagree? I’d get that. We say things like, “how can we use mobile to evangelize to ‘x’ audience?” But, in saying that, we neglect one of the very key elements of mobile – its personal. Personal doesn’t mean we change the person’s mind when we want them to change, but that we open a door and let them come in when they are ready.

We do things like create mobile apps, but neglect those folks who already have mobiles, have already transformed aspects of their behavior by those mobiles, and will not own a mobile that is able to utilize such an application. Apps are logical entry points, but not everyone is going to do mobile in that way. Sometimes, more often than we want to admit, we have to think about the other ways folks can and would come into our content/event spaces – then design an accessible point that way. There’s a lot of hype towards apps, but, definitely ways we can think differently.

Parts of our faith tradition require that we do some things – celebrate the Lord in a shared meal, administer grace and provisions to those impoverished physically, socially, and spiritually, and extend the life of the faith through education and activity. The parts that don’t matter as much, which usually are the parts we hang onto the most, are the ones in which we try too hard to fit mobile into a shell that it doesn’t belong. In this wise, mobile has to equal liberty to develop new expressions of the faith, independence to discover these in the safety of the faith, and then develop new or refined traditions that speak towards a pursuit of that eternal fellowship, that eternal reward which makes this faith something worth living.