As a man, there is a considerable bias that comes to the table when the subject of mobile ministry activities come up. Not in the least because it seems [we] men are louder about mobile. We like to talk about speeds, feeds, and such. Yet, as we continually see from the numbers and literal observations around us, its the activities of women that do more to push these technologies forward.

That said, there should be a lot more talked about in respect to mobiles in ministry that relate to women. At many of the conferences that I attend, the number of women whom are interested in mobile ministry enough to come is directly related to how much their husbands are already invested into the subject. Should that be normal? Should the implications of this tech towards women-specific issues be only heard when her other half is present? And what if there is no other half and she does attend a gathering? Will it take having a Ph.D. or public relations/marketing platform in order to be heard with the same authority on the subject?

I don’t want to discount the efforts that have happened already (great listing at Mobile Active). For example, I think initiatives such as using SMS to report rape or facilitate medical needs for expectant mothers is a great thing. But, I know that there is more that we’ve not seen or heard about frankly because many women haven’t felt as if this is their arena to speak up. So, I want to throw out that challenge for the women whom are following MMM to speak up and let us know what’s a tick-box issue for you:

What about mobiles used in ministry efforts are you not hearing about enough of, or wanting to see more coverage of, that’s relevant to you?

From that point, let’s do what we should have been doing all along and making sure that we esteem each other in this tech space.

Note about the picture: the woman in this picture I saw when last at an airport. Her smile as seeing her likeness reproduced on a digital screen was encouraging; when her husband (?) returned, that smile went away, and her mobile device was no longer in her hand. There’s a lot to uncover about such an interaction that we just need to do a much better job of highlighting and speaking towards.

Analytics and metrics can sometimes be fun, and other times discouraging. Earlier this year, MMM went through this marvelous period where readership via website, mobile, and RSS just continued to pick up. It was amazing to see for a number of months, and really helped drive a lot of the content that was being generated here. And then just it flattened out a bit. Not sure what all was the reason, but we kind of got to a plateau and it was just kind of… blah. It seems like we are back on the upswing now, and it seems to be happening from different sources. One of the latest of these streams is Pinterest.

Pinterest is a social network that’s based on the cork-board-and-picture idea. You see something online that you like and then you pin it to your board to share with people who might have similar likes. Tag those items and other people can see what you’ve pinned.

What I saw the other day is that there’s a set of pins out there for items posted from MMM. There aren’t many items, but that did get me to thinking about creating a few more media assets, and making it a bit easier to link to others done previously, so that those looking at this intersection of faith and tech, but coming visually, can have a bit of something to work… er pin with.

So, with that now said, and if you are visiting from Pinterest, what kinds of graphics from MMM would you like to see so that you can pin?

Sidenote: we do publish sketchnotes from various presentations/conferences (for example, here are a few from the latest ICCM USA Conference Sketchnotes Mobile Apps BOF,Spiritual Reboot Keynote, Intro Sketches), these would be suitable for pins.

The other night, I took a late night run to McDonalds and realized that the Monopoly game was back in play there. I don’t eat there often, but when Monopoly is on deck, I do tend to make my way around various Micky D establishments just to see what kinds of game pieces that I can obtain. I’ve not gotten any of the big prizes, but, it has been pretty fun to have this mobility-infused aspect to eating out from time to time.

And it was after that last trip, when I stumbled into a piece about the ineffectiveness of ebooks at the NY Times that got me thinking again that there’s something more that we should be doing with religious texts besides text and static images on the screen. What about something that was setup as more of an adventure that included things you’d uncover as you traveled in your local, regional, and global domains? Parts of books that would open up only when you triggered some social, event, or locational context. For example, this snippet from that NY Times piece:

…They wrote a 160,000-word book and, using the iPhone for inspiration, created a “scavenger hunt” element allowing readers to see more story lines by visiting specific locations — like China and Washington, D.C. — that are outlines on a map within the app. Users can also add their own story lines.

The whole idea, Mr. Horowitz said, is finding ways for devices like the iPhone to tell a story in a way that a print book could not.

“It’s a way to create a communal reading experience, so people can experience it in a certain time span together,” Mr. Horowitz said. “What we tried to make was something that allowed for the reader to approach it in his or her way. We wanted to allow for all levels of interest and obsession.”

Read the rest of E-Books Expand Their Potential With Serialized Fiction at the NY Times Blogs

Setting this in something of a more relevant frame of reference, you have your Bible, but it only comes to you in snippets that are just 15 minutes of reading long. As you read this Bible in various areas (on your mobile/tablet device that is), there are aspects of it which open up a bit more. You are at a bus terminal when reading about the Tower of Babel and another story about the development of languages and histories of various cultures are opened up to you from the text – some in video, some in audio, and some in text. Or, you device’s calendar notes that you are at a family event like a wedding or funeral, and then when you open the Bible, you are presented a shared family tree of your family, alongside a similar listing as what could be found in Matthew or Luke.

Confused? Take a look at the iPhone/iPad ebook & app called The Silent History. This is the approach that is taken here, and its one that is getting to the poiint of leveraging some of the unique and native characteristics of mobile devices, rather than simply relying on packaging older media types into a new one.

If you will, what about infusing a bit of mobility and context to the text? In a real sense, throwing ourselves into the story so that its more than just the things we’ve kept hearing, but now – like when the 2nd generation of Israel crossed on the way to promised land – there’s a relevant marker to go along with the history that you’ve had passed down to you?

Yes, I know that some people couldn’t deal with a Bible handed to them in parts; but imagine the possibilities for actually learning the text when its not 66/83 books you are dealing with at a time, but just 15 minues of content that literally meets you right where you are?

Thoughts?

MMM (Mobile Ministry Magazine) was on the scene recently with a few members of the Mark 5 Ministries IT team. Mark 5 Ministries is a community of Christians dedicated to solving computing technology problems for missionaries. Learn more at their website

Earlier this year (and yet another conference), MMM got a chance to hear from the creators of FaithVillage about their goals for their platform and community. One of those things that you tend to find out in meetings like these are the synergies that exist between ministry efforts and there was certainly some with MMM and FaithVillage. To that end, we’ve partnered with FaithVillage to syndicate some of our content as an official Content Partner. A little more than simply adding our RSS feed to republish content, the Content Partner is more like featured articles that accent the intentionality of the FaithVillage mission and fosters a maturing community interest on a subject.

The first item published was a piece where we challenged the idea of doing mobile than a mobile app or mobile website:

Your mobile device has a camera, speaker, microphone, ability to record audio and video, compose messages in a memo or in a text/email app, receive/make voice calls, send/receive DMTF codes . . . whew. You get the drift. And, if you are like me, your mobile probably does a bit more, like HDMI or composite video output, an FM radio receiver and transmitter, a memory card slot, can attach to USB accessories like portable hard drives, memory keys, has the ability to receive files via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, or can send multimedia content (DLNA, AirPlay, etc.) to a media center device.

There is a lot happening within that little device, and you have to constantly not just consider what it is that people think is the default of what they want to do, but also consider that there are many other screens pulling on their attention spans.

If you want to be noticed then your approach has to be distinct.

You can read more of our syndicated items under the Technology section of FaithVillage’s featured articles.

If you aren’t a member of FaithVillage, and have been looking to add another quality social media stream into your life (or perhaps, you are one of many wanting to leave Facebook, but want to maintain rich connections with friends and opportunities), then I’d definitely steer you towards FaithVillage. There’s a lot within the community there, and at the very least, you know that there’s at least one familiar voice on the other end waiting there also to connect with you.

Connect with the group Mobile Ministry Interests, or connect directly with Antoine at FaithVillage

Previously posted at Mobile Advance

Several months back [Mobile Advance] was contacted by a friend in the Southern Baptist International Mission Board (IMB) and asked if [Mobile Advance] could collaborate with one of their workers who was developing a guide to mobile ministry.  I happily agreed and read through the first draft, providing feedback where I thought most helpful.  Last week, a number of months after receiving the initial draft and after working through several further drafts, I was blessed to be given the opportunity to make the first public introduction of the final edition of Mobile Ministry Made Easy: A Simple Guide to Begin or Advance Your Use of Mobiles at a missions conference I was speaking at in Europe.

I am exceedingly happy to be able to make this 40 page guide available to you today and trust that the advice and experience you find in this guide will help you in successfully implementing mobile ministries in your outreach.

Many thanks to the IMB and to “Stan” (not his real name) who put many many hours into not only getting the best information together but also putting it together and formatting it in a way that makes the guide a pleasure to read.

• Download: Mobile Ministry Made Easy: A Simple Guide to Begin or Advance Your Use of Mobiles (PDF, 1.4 MB)
• View other Case Studies and Reports relevant to mobile ministry (#mobmin) activities

When on my recent trip, there was that really neat point where you are told that you can turn on your wireless devices. As usual, I take a look at any Wi-Fi options which might be available and noticed that there as a network running that looked a bit unfamiliar. Because the flight was a long one, I stood up, looked around, and noticed a person with a blinking USB device nearby on their tray. I asked him what it was and was (re)introduced to the AirStash – a wireless flash drive that is also a pocket media server and SD card adapter. In a literal sense, you would be carrying a pocket media server, able to stream or download up to 32GB of content, to anyone who has a WiFi-enabled device.

I will admit, because I use a Nokia N8 and 1st gen iPad, I started to get some ideas. But, I’m already able to duplicate what the AirStash does using my N8 and JoikuSpot (am a special case, I know).

AirStash does have a neat ability though for many folks who might be moving to a mobile device that doesn’t have a lot of internal space, or from a device that has a memory card to one that doesn’t. You end up with a place to archive the old content, and a means to share it for others no matter their device. AirStash as not just a personal media folder, but one that could easily come in handy during family and community gatherings.

During my recent trip to Helsinki, one of my friends asked me if it really is possible that someone could do all of their necessary computing (re: live) from just their phone. They cited things like needing a larger screen for movies or games, and just the general discomfort of having much of what they interact with happening on a 3-5in screen.

Well, you kind of know my answer to this line of questioning. But, I wanted to open it up here as there was a conversation on another website which also brought this topic to light that reentered my view.

The perspective of computing where I am from (USA and middle class) is that there are more and better screened options to do various types of computing. There’s the automotive dashboard or cylcing computer for transportation. There’s the TV for home media viewing. There’s the mobile and tablet for personal media viewing, gaming, and creation. There are tablets made for collaboration. And other examples. Given all of those available screens, it is easily the assumed practice to master each of those interfaces within their specific domain because they are available to you. When you don’t have (or want) a TV, you morph the smaller screen of a mobile, understanding its limitations and using a few of its benefits (sitting in bed with your favorite programming on-demand-style).

However, I chose to go about computing differently, and hence the question from my friend. Clearly, they were impressed that I could do so much from a mobile and tablet. But, they had very little context of what it meant to go about computing when the mobile was the primary or only means of doing life-by-PC. One of our friends on the trip was from an area where the majority of people didn’t have access to much more than a mobile and perhaps a radio or community TV. They could see how my lifestyle choice lent me a perspective into how they lived a bit more than some other commentators on mobile. And that’s really where this article, and conversation topic comes from. They said simply, if I had the choice to live mobile-only, but there was more, most people would chose the more instead of the only. With many not able to make that choice, sometimes, we have to consider our brothers and do our best to see through their eyes – was my response to these.

And so I’ll put the question to you as it was put to me. Could you see a situation where you had a mobile or tablet as your primary computer? If so, what challenges would you run into personally, professionally, spiritually, etc.?

One of the questions that I have entertained in the past year has been what comes after mobile. Not that everyone is getting in deep with mobile, but because some feel they have missed the boat and want to make sure that for the next thing, they are ahead of the curve. Well, I will give you one hint as to what will come next:

AR (Augmented Reality)

Those people who study media and communications have determined that there are 7 iterations of mass media communications which has occurred already in the course of human history. The 7th of these is mobile, the 8th was discovered not too long ago, and Tomi Ahonen describes it nicely.

AR is something that is coming. You can be forgiven in part for holding off on it before looking at getting into it with products such as Layar, Vuforia, and Aurasma. Or, you could be on the list for Google’s Project Glass, just waiting for it to get into your hands before you figure out what exactly it is that you can do with it in order to point people to some aspect of the Gospel that you expressly engage this world.

But, if you wait until it gets here, how do you react to a situation such as the one proposed in the concept video Sight. If social situations could be attended to like a game, or intuition and social savvy reduced to how much someone is willing to share or dig up from a database, or that life’s art and decoration are nothing more than something in our singular eyes alone… could you stand to wait until it gets here before you begin addressing the core components of its implications?

I wonder what an AR-enabled Mobile Ministry Video will look like… or rather, will I just go create it and see what happens.

A few years ago, we ran an article looking the future of bible publishing thru the lens of a new commentary series Logos introduced:

…Or, will this have the negative effect of leaving access to content only to those who could afford it (device, data connection, subscription to Logos, access to commentary)? Will denominational affiliations curb the use and promotion of such content because while the content is malleable, people aren’t being taught how to critically think and compare in the midst of it?

There are a number of questions that this move to a digital-first offering brings. But, we’d be remiss to not pay attention to the paradigm shift. The Evangelical Exegetical Commentary and Logos are taking a huge step in doing this, and in my opinion, this should eventually be creditable for all. There are questions to be answered, but these are better met head-on, rather than in reaction to the change that’s already happened…

When you think about where we are now with Kindles, self-publishing services, iBooks, and such, its one part amazing, and another part unsettling isn’t it?