I think that the resolutions that we did last year were excellent in keeping a lot of the content focused here. That’s not to say that the frequency of content was not sometimes overwhelming. But, it does speak to the fact that there was a focus and a reason for why content exists here. I think we’ve covered well the implications of those resolutions. So, what’s left in mobile ministry to poke towards

A few resolutions for 2013:

1. Explain, emphasize, and demonstrate the theological underpinnings to mobile ministry
2. Detail and expand on knowledge of Non-English Language/Cultural expressions of mobile ministry
3. Increase number of and collaboration with ministry partners
4. Refine and release v2 of the Mobile Ministry Methodology
5. Embed Mobile, Not Mobile As Layer

There is a statement that’s accredited to the hockey great Wayne Gretzky, and in a lot of respects, points to how resolutions like these (and even your own) should be viewed:

I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.

The puck is mobile, and there are several players making a decent game out of what’s going on. I don’t see the puck in the same way as others do, and at the same time, what I’ve seen is in part played by others for positive and negative reasons.

I’m looking at these resolutions in part as a means to be a part of that aspect of pushing things forward in mobile ministry. Certainly, some of what is said here is caught and becomes seed or ground for other’s efforts. At the same time, this magazine started off and continues with a perspective not of going where folks are, but pointing to where they will be. In 2004, we were already in hand with PDAs and smartphones, and by 2006 we were already doing the majority of the work on this site on a mobile device. Its been very long beyond current mobility that MMM has walked. The goal in these resolutions is for that to continue… even if that means an irrelevance to MMM compared to the voices and actions of others.

Stay tuned for a further explanation of these resolutions, and how we plan on following through with them – as well as the monthly look back on progress towards these.

Hard to believe that MMM has been going since Fall of 2004 and now its Winter of 2013. That’s a long time to be looking at this intersection of faith and mobile. And even still, its a long time to have readers such as yourselves sticking around. So, first off, we want to say Happy New Year and welcome to 2013. And from there, take the first of a few looks back at 2012.

Top Articles of the Past Year
We’ve had the normal, lengthy publishing queue in 2012. It was actually one of the most consistent years in terms of days that we’ve posted content. From the perspective of articles, there was on average just under 5 articles posted per week. That’s a lot of content. Some of those articles that continued to catch the attention of visitors old and new included:

• How to Build an App for Your Ministry (2011)
• Resolution #3: Get Connected to Tech, Mobile, and Mobile Ministry Events
• Mobile Ministry Methodology v1
• Some More Examples of Mobile Advertising and Marketing
• Tablet Word-Processing App Comparison
• A Primer on the Differences Between Mobile Web Apps and Native Apps
• Apps for Pastors (2011)
• Using the Kindle for Bible Study
• Interview with David Palusky of Renew Outreach
• Differences Between Smartphones and Feature Phones (2011)
• What Are the Bible Database Sources Developers Can Use

As you can see from the listing, there were a few posts from 2011 that made themselves into being very popular for 2012. That’s good on our part that we’ve got content that lives for a while (given the frequency of posting), but also speaks to some of the things within mobile/mobile ministry that don’t move as fast as other items.

Top Pages of 2012
Some of our content isn’t produced as articles, but sits (for now) on static pages. Here are the pages that have gotten the most views over the past year:

• Bible Apps
• Services (previously named, Web/Mobile Development and Services)
• Case Studies and Resources
• Issues, Presentations, and Experiments

Makes sense that these are the top pages (that aren’t the home page) here. We did some trimming of the names for these pages at one point in the year, and the traffic to them went up (and stayed up). For the Bible Apps page, we’ve added a few more categories, some of which go beyond Bible apps specifically, but make sense on that page. We’ve also started linking to some other content sources for various platforms as it made sense to do so. The Services page is a bit of a gem and a directory. Lots have been added there as well. The latter two pages see continual updates, so its no surprise that they get the kind of traffic and recall they do.

Traffic and Stats
Overall traffic has been strong. Compared to 2011, we’ve seen an increase of about 20% across those coming to the website (normal and mobile sites) and those who use RSS. There’s been more of a question of how to get MMM via email, but that bends to a few demographics more than others.

About 45% of MMM’s traffic comes from search engine searches. That’s a pretty high number, but given the type of content and how much it is, there’s only so much surprise there. The average visitor spends a tick under 2 minutes on the site (blame the length of articles), and we get a decent number of repeat visitors. Strangely enough, we’ve got more folks who’ve come to the site more than 8 times than those who’ve come between 4 and 8 times.

Upcoming
In a future article, we’ll talk about the resolutions for 2013 and how those will guide the content for 2013 here. There might be some other changes down the pipe as well. For many, 2013 is looking like a year of new beginnings… for MMM, we just continue on the pace of continually evolving within this space called mobile ministry. From that point in this intersection, we explore the new roads and map life accordingly.

Continuing with this look back into mobile ministry (#mobmin) for 2012, we will take a look in this piece at a few more of the resolutions that were made, our progress in them, and how that points to future happenings for MMM and the genre of mobile ministry.

Resolution #3: Get Connected to Tech, Mobile and Mobile Ministry Events
This was actually a very hard one to come through with consistently. We did have a good start of things though with the introduction of the Mobile Ministry Event Calendar back in April. I think that this by itself was quite helpful towards just helping folks wrap their heads around how many ways that mobile ministry can be infused into mobile and tech conversations. Beyond that, the conversations that started behind the scenes about having more specific content geared towards how mobiles are used in ministry were generated because of this. To that end, this part of 2012 was quite successful.

Where it wasn’t as successful came on the end of attendance to more events. Though it seems like a great policy to go to 8-12 events in a year, that can’t be all that MMM is exposed to if we are going to continue to be one of the more public faces for mobile ministry. A lot of that is directly due to the one-man-operation for much of MMM; it takes a lot to make a living, then save for getting to a lot of these conferences and events where many times even if MMM is asked to present, that there’s no compensation towards travel or an honorarum coming. I hope that in 2013 things change in that respect, but am making concessions towards doing those things that keep food on the table and possibly scaling back how much time is put into MMM.

There’s a lot left to be put onto the calendar for 2013. God’s got the calendar and what we will be at then.

Resolution #4: All Books Project and Raising the Bar on Mobile UX
One of the areas that attending a few events in 2012 did help was in meeting this resolution. MMM has spent a lot of time revisiting the UX (user experience) end of information design and knowledge management and one of the outputs from that was the All Books Project.

Since that start last Christmas, the All Books UI has come a long way. There’s a solid performing HTML5 and jQuery-driven shell. With some effort, its basically possible to put nearly any compiled collection of Bible books, that are in HTML format, into an archive that this user interface (UI) points to. Unfortunately, a data mishap earlier this year lost the excellent NET Bible with notes that helped spark this project. But, there are several collections able to take its place. A current project has us working on taking Phillip Pope’s Thai translation of the KJV and applying All Books to it. Neat stuff for that audience if the encodings hold.

Other pushes into changing, or at least expanding the approach that faith-themed applications and services that have happened this year include:

• Paying more attention to non-smartphones, for example Phone Publish
• Not just a want to, but a concerted effort for ministries to utilize mobile giving (definitely check out our ministry partner Mobile Cause for this kind of service approach)
• Not just asking the question, but making non-application approaches to getting the Bible onto mobile devices, such as John Dyer and Digital Bible Society’s Bible Browser
• and several more approaches

Yes, like we said yesterday, there’s still this challenge of getting people to think outside of the “is there an app for it” way of doing mobile. But, I think the ground is working well into that direction. What happens next for these interactions has to push the mobile more into its unique characteristics, something that I think AR and similar tech have a good chance of doing well.

Resolution #5: Become a Digital Faith Advocate
I can remember in talking over email with Tony Whittacker when this point came up. There can be no movement or expression of mobile in ministry that transforms anything if only a handful of people stand up for it. There has got to be a moment where people are encouraged not only to do mobile ministry, but advocate that its direction and approach are legitimate.

By default, MMM gets to sit into making this happen all of the time. In doing some neat things such as speaking in some local tech events in Charlotte, or getting interviewed again by the BBC, we’ve certainly made for a presence about this mobile ministry space. But, the best has come from others.

Chris White Ministries gave us an excellent look not only into why mobile ministry makes sense, but whom it makes sense for in one video. Renew Outreach connected with us earlier this year not only to talk about how they are seeing mobile at the edges of the earth, but the kind of tech challenges that sit in the deepest of areas. A guide to mobile ministry was published, and a mobile ministry training course added another needed entry point into this discussion. And I can’t forget the conversations with students at Taylor University, Central Piedmont Community College, Biola University, and on the webinar with Symbiota. These are the kinds of moments that not only share the passion we have, but give others a chance to jump in and express their’s as well at this intersection of faith and mobile tech.

So, What’s Ahead for 2013
Part of me doesn’t want to go into trying to answer this. We’ve been constantly evolving the ideaology that is mobile ministry. From a 1st crack at just helping pastors, to now having a stable of resports, guides, and a methodology to guide this discussion across several applications of mobile ministry. This is a big space, and I don’t see 2013 being a year where MMM will have to, or will be able to, continue to do this alone.

I do think that we are ready for another shift in mobile. Yes, there are several reasons for this (lots of Android devices, wearable computing, Microsoft shifting the desktop/laptop paradigm, services-as-needed, OTT, and more pervasive reasons for having web-something on a mobile). But, I think the bigger one is simple: its just time. Changes in mobile have happened in 5-6 year spurts. There’s always a company that comes out of a nearly quiet place and does something disruptive enough that it makes others stand on end. Jolla, Mozilla, Leap, Amazon, and even Google to some measure, can play this card. I think 2013 is where we see that disruption, and its probably not going to look comfortable for any who have been on the fence about mobile or mobile ministry.

For this year, we’ve had in our possession several Nokia devices (the N8, N950, Nuron, Lumia 900), the iPad and a Kindle Fire HD. Am looking forward to probably investing either in swapping out all of the mobiles for an N9 or whatever Jolla brings to the tablet (especially if its like the Asus Padfone), and probably phasing out the use of a tablet (!!!). Instead of a tablet I’d like to experiment with expressions of #mobmin using a smartwatch (something like the Motoactv). Somehow, I’d like to get in my hands a device that’s able to run the upcoming Firefox OS, and the N9 might get Jolla’s Sailfish OS. BB10 looks like it will be a great play as well, but I see it more on the outside peronally (we’ve got someone who will speak on that in 2013 and own one of those too). Of Android, iOS, and Windows Phone, they are mainstream enough that the reading audience will have plenty of opinion. We’ll get impressions, but nothing owned unless its given. And nope, we aren’t going to get on Facebook unless you share us there 😉

From MMM’s end. I don’t know. This site could fold into nothing, or there could be a team supporting efforts (I would so like the latter). I don’t see the site as a destination existing beyond 2013… MMM would be much better if served like an API (you plug into our content what works best for you, and then whether its reading, searching, building, or selling, that you pull what can work best). That’s something that wouldn’t take as much work as it sounds like… though for many of you who come to us via a generic Google search (about 45% of those who come), this would be a major shift.

Or, other sites could just come and do a better job, and we could retire to being a college professor who does the occasional speaking engagement 😉

Mobile is the present, not the future. For 2013 and beyond, make it into your magic wand and do something to elevate Christ into someone’s world.

Its been a good, hard, long, joyous, and trying 2012 for so many people. Given that we’ve been good at looking at a few set items, let’s take a look at a few of these and see how we’ve kept to those resolutions, and what that means for MMM and mobile ministry (#mobmin) going forward.

Resolution #1: An app is not a strategy
It sounds like a statement more than a resolution, but given the impulse that many have had towards mobile, its a resolve more than anything else. Many of those coming up to speed with mobile, either through acquiring a mobile device or being astounded at the number of mobile worldwide really have had a challenge of where to start with mobile. Unfortunately, that start has been with the perspective of smartphones and applications. Which is good in part, but so small towards the rest of the picture of mobile, that we made this stance with the hope of helping folks know the entire picture of mobile/mobile ministry.

Were we successful? Possibly. At the same time, such a stance is something that gets proved over time. Which is what we hoped with many of this year’s presentations. It was only the first one, perhaps the other resolutions better prove or disown us from such positions.

Resolution #2: Specifically Define Mobile in Education
We started off this year at making a point to not just define what mobile ministry looks like, but make sure that the focus wasn’t just on the technology, but on how its used to engage, empower, and transform people/communities. Essentially, what does mobile ministry look like when the context is education (and to some extent, discipleship).

I think we’ve got a bit of a road ahead of us, and not just MMM but all who do mobile ministry, in making that point clear. Yes, its clear that there are some advancing processes and lessons in mobile ministry developing, but how these are influencing, changing, and even challenging educational constructs is still unclear and not well defined. We’ll see movement on this front in 2013 with the lessons learned from initiatives like the Mobile Ministry Course and others to be announced in the coming months.

Concerning these two areas, what has mobile ministry opened, closed, revealed, or challenged for you in 2012? Does it matter that the visibility of this space has grown such that these count? Or, is there something more to be done and uncovered?

That’s just two of five. Stay tuned as we look to point out what we’ve done with the other 2012 resolutions in the next article.

From all of those who’ve contributed to keeping Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM) going for the past year, we just want to say thank you and Merry Christmas to you all. Its been a hard year in many respects, but, we are still seeing God come through in so many ways. Thank you for your reading, sharing, pinning, and attention.

Apologies for how tight this is if you are viewing this in a browser on the site; the template didn’t take to this table so nicely on all the pages. Click here to just view the table.

One of the things that marketers, advertisers, and content producers are beginning to come to grips with in viewing mobile is that not everything that happens on these devices happens when people are in motion. It happens on a mobile device, just not in motion. More often than not, the attention required by what’s happening on the screen puts people in stationary states, and therefore what becomes mobile isn’t the device or the person watching it, but the channel or the content has its being shared from one person or entity to another. From that viewpoint, it makes it seem as if mobile is nothing more than a portable, on-demand TV – and if you were to take the approach that many have taken so far in terms of being a content provider, that’s pretty much all mobile is to them.

But, what if mobile and broadcast media took more advantage of not only a state of mobility (the device, the context, etc.), but also the needs of the marketers, advertisers, and existing media producers that have audiences, but not necessarily the digital savvy to make it work great. Could it look something like this:

Glorystone.TV is a different, and in my opinion better take, on the idea of a media platform. Essentially, its a platform of tools and services that enables consumers to find relevant Christian media, marketers to understand and target markets with the best product, and content producers to better find and reach areas of opportunity for their content. All in all, its not like much else out there.

With research coming out saying that over 60% of folks who view videos on their mobile/tablet devices, do so when at home, you’ve got something of an opportunity if you are in the space of creating content. And at the same time, traditional models of broadcasting don’t do a decent job of helping you better target and understand your audience. If this sounds like something you/your ministry could get involved with, get in touch with Glorystone.TV and see what a realized digital solution looks like.

Disclaimer: Antoine is one of the members of Glorystone.TV’s advisory board.

Some weeks ago, probably a month ago now, I made a phone trade with a friend of mine. In the trade, I acquired the not-for-sale Nokia N950. I’ve been wanting to get an extended play with this device for sometime. Besides the user interface experience being like nothing else (except the for-sale N9 that’s hard to get my hands on as well), there are no other mobile devices out there with the pedigree of a Nokia and the openness of a full Linux distro (Maemo/MeeGo) under the hood. For a tinker-er like me, this is just like letting me loose in a candy story, when my teeth are coming in.

During this time, I’ve been going back and forth between the N950 and my N8. Back and forth between MeeGo and Symbian. Learning a bit of what Nokia understood, and a bit more of what some developers/service providers have felt. There’s been something of an enjoyment when it came to setting up multiple Google accounts (without needing Exchange ActiveSync to get my calendars), Dropbox, Evernote, and several other services. There’s been some mild frustrations as in when I unintentionally duplicated the contacts on both devices because I made edits on both and it didn’t reconcile properly. And there’s been some joy moments like in finding a drawing app that felt a lot like when I used Adobe Ideas on the iPad (simple, zooming, and easy to push wherever). Its been enlightening, and aside from the old battery, useful.

That said, the other night, when I should have been getting some sleep before a few meetings the next day, I was captured into reading Chasing the Cicada over at Metal Floss. It reads like a spy/crime novel, but is mainly about the depths of the Internet that we usually don’t see. Per my usual when a rabbit hole like that reveals itself, I start searching out things that stuck out in the article, one of which being the Tor Project. I’d forgotten about the Tor Project. At one point I was even looking at the Android port of aspects of the Tor Project called Orbot (really, if you use Android, this is a no-brainer direction you should take your platform usage). It then hit me to connect with some friends and rekindle the conversation about the N950 and making something useful out of this “dead platform” for a few ministry efforts.

It was at that point that I remembered why I had the N950 to begin with.

You see, I’d wanted the N950 not for myself, but because it would position my use of mobile into a few directed areas:

• 1st, I’d be using a platform that would be getting attention for a specific mobile ministry project (or two)
• 2nd, I’d be working with others who not only knew the platform better, but could expand my knowledge of specific mobile ministry applications that don’t usually get the light of day
• 3rd, there would again be this experimental aspect to MMM – that kind of thing excites me and keeps me going in this space when times like the holidays roll around and everything slows down

In a real sense, I had to re-own the fact that to have the N950 in my possession could not be about my enjoying a new platform or having a new phone to play with, but it was to reignite the reasons why MMM is directed the way that it is – to ask questions, present approaches, and experiment around those ideas and activities that happen at the intersection of faith and mobile technology. Nothing about keeping this mobile in my hands, double-tapping the screen just to wake it up, pushed that purpose forward. If its in my hand, it has to be pushing this faith forward, and I already had the opportunity, I just needed to be kicked in the pants.

We sometimes get lost in the course of getting something new, or finding out that what we have in our hands is a lot more impressive than we thought. That same night that I realized this, I talked to a guy who had the new Google Nexus 4 for just about a week, but uses it no differently than a feature phone. I asked him of all of the unique features of the Nexus 4 and how he planned on using them and his reply was more like “I didn’t plan on doing that” rather than “let me explore how that feature could enhance how I view and do mobile.” To his credit, he also did remark that he’d not considered mobile on the kind of level towards the questions that I asked either. I know that I think a bit deeper about these things than some other folks.

Still, mobile is a very present avenue for all of us to take note as to the mission that we have in front of us. For some, the mobile is a siren call towards the kinds of security that you must keep up for those whom you are connected to. For some, mobile is a call to accountability in media, as well as relationships. And for others still, mobile is a beacon that there’s potential for something more than just reaching out and touching someone – even if all we needed to do at all is just touch them I get it. And I hope that you do as well.

So the kick happened. And I’m waiting to hear from a few folks who have a similar idea about the N950 and a few directions that we can take things. I remember the reason that I’ve got this device in hand. And I hope that you remember the reason why you have one in yours. Remember the purpose… then walk in it.

It has been a while since getting a request here for the availability of a Bible in a specific language or on a specific mobile platform (I think the last one was Telugu for feature phones), but that’s just the thing that happened a week ago. A reader who had combed through the listings on our Bible Apps page didn’t find what they were looking for, and asked if we could help in finding (or lead to the development of) a Mien/Yao Bible.

Unfortunately, the two sites that the requester pointed us to in terms of resources (Site 1, Site 2) have some issues either with their content sources, or with the character encodings. This isn’t an unfamiliar issue when it comes to mobile-friendly biblical data sources.

The other issue that presents itself with this request the the platform choice. As we’ve talked about before, its not about the sales that you pay attention to when it comes to mobiles, but what it is that people have in their hands. The two largest owned mobile platforms (at least from a smartphone perspective) are Android and Symbian. Its for these two platforms that a Mien/Yao Bible is being asked for.

So here’s the request (and possibly the challenge): to those of you whom are developers looking to scratch and itch or sharpen your skills, the Mien/Yao audience need a Bible for Android and Symbian devices. Are you up for it? Or, if you are a content provider, and have already started making available content for the Mien/Yao audience, would you be willing to make it available offline and in the .SIS/.SISX and .APK formats for this audience?

Get in touch with us and we’ll help coordinate the efforts in making this happen.