We’ve poked at this kind of a point a few times already (being part of a movement as well as being a digital advocate). So it only makes some sense to point towards yet another stream in this discussion, the question of whether a person can be called as a techie missionary.

There’s an article that broaches this subject, so we won’t go too far into restating what they have stated. Here’s a snippet of that piece:

…If you asked many Christians what a missionary was, you’d probably get an answer talking about someone who travelled out of the UK and into some foreign clime, either to preach the gospel or work in a medical or community capacity.  So why does Mick Leggett call himself a missionary, when he spends most of his time working in the UK, and often works behind a computer screen when he does? Inspire asked him about his mission role …

Read the rest of Is God Calling You to be A Techie Missionary at Inspire Maagazine

That’s indeed something to think about. I do think that its worth exploring the question. Here are a few questions that came to mind in reflecting on this article (and the subject of theological/spiritual implications to mobile technology):

• Is the skillful use of computing technologies a gift of God or a learned branch of (modern) culture?
• Is there something unique that is transferred by the use of or service of information technology that demonstrates understood characteristics of the Christian faith?
• Are there abuses of information technology that diminish the providence of God on the lives of the faithful or the faithless?
• What does it mean to be a missionary?
• Is digital a destination to be evangelized, domesticated, or redeemed?

That’s a lot to think about. And honestly, it probably puts at a pause some of what we might have been doing as minsitry in order to think and act more carefully in this wise.

One of the examples that I give when talking about MMM is that of the design of the tabernacle in Exodus (25 or 31 or thereabouts). God didn’t just ask for Moses to commission a tabernacle, but one that communicated the magesty of God and his ability to go anywhere with the people. While He is indeed Most High, I kept seeing the with us nature of God just as important to the development of faith and technology practices.

If you are a techie missionary, is this what you consider? Or, is it merely that techies are craftsmen for the priests who do the minstering (yup, totally throwing the whole “we are kings and priests” contexts under the bus)? Let’s hear from you. Is this a calling worthy of our attention?

A case study on teens, text messaging, and campaign effectiveness has been published over at Mobile Cause. Here’s a snippet:

Florida Church Reaches Youth
RPM: Revolutionary Passionate Ministry — a youth movement of First Baptist Church Eustis — has creatively and strategically implemented mobile tools into their ministry this past year. Here’s what happened when pastors Daniel and JP decided to go mobile:

Weekly attendance before SMS=40-60 kids
After implementing SMS=70-90 kids

Event attendance before SMS=20 kids
After implementing SMS=60 kids

Read the rest of this case study at Mobile Cause (post, PDF).

For additional case stuides, see our Case Studies and Resources page.

For a number of years now, we’ve been talking about redesigning MMM. This has been a much harder process than I would have thought because of changes in the general organization of site assets, as well as other tasks relating to making a living out of this endeavor. That said, things have been happening on that front and I’m ready to put forward something of a beta to what would/could be a new iteration of MMM.

View the Alternate/Redesigned MMM (for those viewing this on their mobile device, see the note at the bottom of this posting for an additional step to see this)

This is following inline with some of the 2012 resolutions we’ve posted so far (practicing what we preach). This is also an evolution in the philosophy behind MMM in being more than simply a destination towards information, but a collection of those stories presented in a way that accents the use of mobile towards addressing those questions and implications of using mobile in faith-based contexts.

Goals of the Redesign
Of the comments most heard about MMM, one of the loudest has been in the findability of information on the site. Indeed, its an issue. This site has been in existence since 2005 and there’s over 3000 posts full of content. In addition to just having those posts, there’s been several themes that have run throughout the site, making it harder still to simply use a search box to figure a direction to find things. This design seeks to make the entry point to the content better (behind the scenes, content is literally being reorganized to fit a consistent paradigm).

The other goal of this redesign is to reflect the overall user experience (UX) goal we’d have for mobile applications. There are a few mobile applications that we’ve published to date, yet none of them were able to capture exactly the kind of reading, searching, and interactive experience that we’vev been after. After careful consideration of the options (using one or more content management services, developing several native applications, etc.), it was decided that to create a single webpage that had most of the features in a mobile-first role would be the direction. This would be incomplete without redoing the entire WordPress template, so this initial design was completed in order to test the feasability of moving forward.

Issues in This Redesign
Its one thing to go mobile-first, its another to meet each mobile device that comes here with the experience that’s best for their devices. This alternate landing page doesn’t address every mobile device. Its JavaScript-heavy, and has some features which would make some of our lower-end mobile devices, without a proxy-based browser such as Opera Mini, to choke on either the size or the features. Mobify is still being used to streamline the existing WordPress template’s pages for mobile viewing therefore. A complete theme would be mobile friendly (responsive web design methods) and might not need that help to do so.

Performance is also an issue. Thankfully, its a lot better than it was in initial testing (was very happy to get this onto the production server and see signifiant page loading gains). There’s going to be an issue though since there’s a JavaScript interpreter on the page rendering the Articles section, which makes for a potential bottleneck in loading for some browsers/devices. Ideally, a full WordPress template (written in PHP) would be better able to address this.

There are some more niggles. I’ll see more as time goes on. If you spot anything, let us know via Twitter (@mobileminmag). Small items will be fixed. Bigger items will be fixed in that WordPress version.

Resources to Address Issues/Goals
What’s good about this alternate homepage is that it is providing a means to relearn some JavaScript, brush up on HTML5 and its newer abilities, and finally put into practice some lessons about working with content management systems like WordPress which require not only development, but content strategy focuses. The resources to do all of this is widely available online, and is constantly tapped.

There are a number of people/groups in the Body who deal with aspects of building this which will also come in handy along the way. Web app developers, WordPress customizers, etc. have the kinds of collective wisdom that would be utilized to make this happen. If at some point the work goes beyond the time/abilities here, its possible that such a redesign project would be farmed out.

Lastly, there’s you. For those of you visiting the site daily – thank you. You coming to the site, offering feedback, or simply hitting areas (constantly) helps to direct projects like this towards completition. The more you use the site, especially this alternate version, then the better we are able to make a resource that fits your needs.

Implicaitons of This Design
There is a good chance that we will probably stick with a web-app method for delivering content from here on out. That would mean that building and maintaining apps which also publish this site’s content would only be done as a means to explore the workings of content mangement systems and publishing experiences, rather than anything strategic towards pushing this site forward.

Another, probably more jarring, implication to this design is that we would be (finally) going back to our roots in respect to being mobile-first in everything. This could mean shorter articles, but definitely means more flexibility and versatility in the data streams that make up MMM. For example, we have a “tab” which has a link to all the places we conduct conversations online. Such an item could easily become a single page stream and RSS/XML feed for those who would rather find content in those methods.

The design is using features of CSS and HTML which are more advanced. Based on some of the stats we can gather form those visiting MMM, those features are supported by those visits. However, that’s not a 100% solution. We would like to be as close to 100% mobile compliant, and not at all desktop browser compliant. We’d like to drive the desktop browser experience to primarly search and RSS versus casual browsing.

We are also going to slowly start making the shift towards getting away from email for non-collaborative tasks, and use Twitter as a means to not just be poked about items, but also conduct the initial parts of conversations. Until we do something a but broader federated (identi.ca and/or XMPP-based stuff from our server), that would help us to best triage communications and move quickly towards managing opportunities in this space.

Or you can look at it in this simple statement: we are going even more mobile and virtual and dragging you along for the ride 🙂

What’s Left?
Using it, finishing the WordPress custom theme conversion, making mobile apps match its UX… ya know, the normal 😉

Just go to http://mobileministrymagazine.com/m.html and have a go at it.

Note for Those Coming from The Mobile Site
If you are reading this from the mobile site, then on clicking this link, you will have to click the link that says Full Site on that page. That’s simply because of how links from our use of Mobify behave.

Yea, we said that we’d not do resolutions. But, we did post some articles this month which should have made for some decent resolutions for some of you whom are doing mobile ministry or aiming to increase your perspectives towards mobile ministry this year.

Here’s a rundown of what we’ve posted:

1. An App is Not A Strategy
2. Specifically Define Mobile in Education
3. Get Connected to Tech, Mobile, and Mobile Ministry Events
4. All Books Project and Mobile UX Standards and Raising the Bar on Mobile UX Standards
5. Become a Digital Faith Advocate

Those aren’t too hard, though its a high bar and might present a challenge for some of you. But that’s what a new year is for right, seeing the challenge and then taking the steps to overcome it.

How are you doing so far in your resolutions? Making progress, or needing a restart? There are 11 months to go, get crackin’.

Some time ago, the Digital Evangelism Issues blog posted an intereting question: does your church/parachurch organization have a digital advocate? This is an interesting and timely question given the streams of knowledge we now have about digital issues and how these relate to faith engagements. Here’s a piece of the description of this digital advocate that’s been offered so far:

Such a person would obviously need to be a web maven – a networker who knows a wide variety of online Christian resources/strategies and loves sharing them. They might function like this:

• be available to consult about ideas and resources
• write about digital opportunities and resources in the church newsletter
• share resources in a short focus spot from time to time during meetings
• explain how church members can use Facebook effectively, especially in relation to sharing the good news appropriately, including how to use the video-clip sharing resource YesHEIs.com
• encourage people to load online bibles and other resources on their smartphones

Read the rest of the description of a digital advocate at the Digitial Evangelism Issues blog.

And after you’ve read it, how do you feel about such a position (or even gifting) in your community? Is this something that’s already happened, but without a formal title? Or, is this something that’s needed and needs that kick in the pants in order to make it work best?

Over at ChuchTechy, there’s a post talking about something very much in the line of thinking of John 17:20-27 – unity of the brethren so that the works done points back to the Father. Its really neat, here’s a snippet:

A desire to serve the smaller Church, charity, non-profit, small business and others whom don’t have access to dedicated and / or regular support – be that via volunteer or paid basis. To see this be a vehicle to serve the Church and community so that God’s love may be seen by our actions. To see this be a vehicle that will draw together those from different backgrounds; denominations; race; creed; upbringing; etc. To see this work so that the local Church may better fulfill its own destiny.

Read the rest of A Tech Call to Arms at ChurchTechy.

We’ve been a part of initiatives like this in the past. A few of the earlier ones fizzled away, which a few others have turned into some globally-reaching moments. This seems like a great opportunity to take something again at the ground level and see it rise up into something beneficial at the level of local churches.

If it ressonates with you and your efforts, jump in on this and be a part of something that should benefit a number of local communities.

This is a guest post submitted by Craig Button (@TheProdSon)

Introduction, Quick Summary

Since most of you have no idea who I am, I suppose I should introduce myself. First and foremost I am a believer and follower of Jesus Christ. After that I’m a geek. I’ve owned just about every type of computer ever made and today work on both Mac and PCs depending on what I’m doing. I use both Pages and MS Word, prefer Excel to Numbers, and either PowerPoint or Keynote depending on what I’m doing. I’m a health care provider by profession, an educator by avocation, I’ve been clergy, (church offices on weekdays weren’t what I was expecting) and am now a grad student. I’m always looking for ways to package and present information.

I was excited when Apple announced iBook 2.0 and iBooks Author. I’m in the process of producing a couple of books/ebooks and was looking for something that would make it easier. I was hoping that iBA was going to be it.

After spending a few days playing with it (and I have to be honest and admit it was playing, not a focused systematic study/evaluation of the program) There are some conclusions that I’ve come to regarding iBooks Author which might not match your needs, but hopefully shines some light towards its strengths and weaknesses at this juncture of the application.

Summarizing the Positives and Negatives

There will be projects I’ll use iBA for. However, I won’t be using it for everyday kind of work. Not because, I don’t like it, or it’s a bad program, or even because of the EULA that says you can only sell product from iBA thought Apple. I’m accustomed to a bit more control and flexibility when creating publications, and iBA doesn’t quite meet those spot on – though its not far off.

Positives about iBA: It works, it looks good, it’s easy and it produces what it says it’s going to.

Negatives about iBA: it produces HUGE files. A test file went from 800K .txt file to 27MB (~1000K = 1MB) with a couple of pictures added. The second, and in my case the biggest thing against iBA, is it only produces a product that can be viewed on iOS devices. That means not on the Kindle, not on a Nook, not on an Android phone, not on anything unless it has been made by Apple. I’m a Mac fan boy. But, I’m about communication. Therefore, limiting my target audience isn’t good for me. My first product is to be a textbook on Critical Care for Emergency Room nurses. The second book will be first aid and health for photographers. Both topics I’m pretty passionate about (hence my issues with file sizes and limited devices).

It’s About Workflow

It’s about workflow. The term workflow is one that you hear in the digital photography world. It is the term that defines the flow of data from the camera to the final print. I think the term works well for the ePub/ebook industry as well.

My Workflow: I use a program called Scrivener. This is a Mac application, (Windows and Linux also available) that I use to produce the text of my work. It’s a combination text editor and research organizer. This is probably were 80+% of my work is done. I do all my writing within Scrivener. It also produces ePub files which can be read by nearly all computing platforms. It does have some drawbacks, with one of them being that its not easy to place tables and graphics into the output. From there, I use Adobe InDesign for layout that needs formatting and graphics. I don’t own this program; I rent it as needed since I only use it maybe 1-2 months out of the year. Using InDesign I produce a ePub, witch is a zip file that includes all the information needed for the ebook reader to read your file. It only takes a little modification for it to work on any of the readers.

How could iBA fit into this workflow? Well in my next publication, it might work for me. These books I’m publishing on health care and first aid directed at travel photographers whom are likely to have iOS devices. But, in using iBooks with plans on selling it, I’m sure the iPad market will be a bit too limiting. I will however give it a try. iBA is very easy, and I’m hoping it will allow me to easily produce the product I want. However, for anything that is text-based, or contains just a few graphics, the files produced by iBA are way to big and to limiting.

The workflow I have fits my use case, and allows me the broadest target audience. While I’m a geek, and still have a copy of the original PageMaker running on a Mac Classic, I’d like to have more control than what iBA offers. On the other hand, for someone who has never produced an ebook, iBA might be the perfect tool.

Conclusions

After writing the first few paragraphs, and sleeping on it, I came up with a few other thoughts. The first is that I’ve been through this kind of transition before. I remember when PageMaker first came out and people had lots of different fonts to use. I remember when Photoshop first came out and it was affordable to anyone to buy. People produced some horrendous publications and photos. And you’ve all probably sat through some pretty long, boring PowerPoint presentations. Just because the tools are there, doesn’t mean that everyone should use them.

I’m a Tim Taylor, not a Bob Villa, when it comes to using those hammers and screwdrivers. Like any task which needs to be done, it deserves to be done right. Use the right tool, have the right people use the tool, and spread the word.

For more information and to download (free), see the iBooks Author page on the Apple website. Note: content created with iBooks Author can only be read on devices with iBooks2 on the iOS device.

Craig is @TheProdSon on Twitter.

Some time ago, we were invited to the offices of Renew Outreach to help them shape a few initiatives they are working towards which included some understanding of mobile. We spent 2 days meeting, laughing, and scribbling over a whiteboard to some exciting directions for those projects. After that was done, and before leaving their offices, I asked David Palusky, who is the leader/visionary/main catalyst behind Renew Outreach if he’d be up for a short video/audio interview to talk some about Renew Outreach and what they are about.

About Renew Outreach
From their website:

Renew Outreach creates audio/visual presentation equipment that’s solar/battery-powered and super portable! We harness the newest technology, engineering your tools to spread the message to the most remote people groups on earth.

For more information, and especially in the case of seeing how Renew Outreach can help your misisons efforts get to the literal ends of the earth, check out their website. Here is one example of the stories to be found on their site from these efforts.

About this Video
This video goes about 16min. It was recorded using a Nokia N8 smartphone (I also used my iPad with Evernote to record an audio-only stream with which I later used to compile the video, audio, notes, and still images). And it was uploaded by LaRosa’s really fast connection (thanks bro).

*I intended to record this with Qik as we’ve done previous videos, but forgot to initialze that application and went straight to the normal camera app.

If you liked this interview, let us know in the comments. As we come across others in the Body who have an interesting story to tell towards their efforts at the intersection of faith and technology, we’ll do more of these.

Church Tech Today that we were included with five (5) other websites named as great resources in terms of church tech blogs. What’s really nice about this listing is that it covers almost all aspects of IT as it relates to the church (local, global, mobile, social media, services, etc.). Its really a great listing, and a few of these sites we’ve profiled here before:

1. PastorGear
2. Church Tech Matters
3. Church Mag
4. Church Techy
5. Church Tech Arts
6. MMM

We’d encourage you to check out all of the sites notes on the Church Tech Today post, and be sure to leave a comment there towards other resources you might know of and use online. There’s definitely a body of things happening that’s worth keeping track of.

A Refresher About MMM
Given that inclusion on the list, and some good trends happening lately towards an increasing number of visitors, this is also a good opportunity to give a quick refresher as to what MMM is and what are some of the things you can find here.

First, this is who we are:

Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM) is online magazine asking questions, presenting approaches, and experimenting around stories related to the implications of faith and mobile technologies.

There’s more on our about page including the history, notes about where we’ve been, and how MMM fits into this picture of faith and technology.

We’ve got (probably) the most comprehensive listing of Bible and religious apps, a listing of mobile web and application services for buiding your own products, and a page full of cases studies, resources, and metrics towards web and mobile tech. Beyond those items, we keep a pretty updated media page which has our issues, presentations, and experiments and another which is simply a tag cloud of all of the tags we’ve used on articles.

In terms of keeping track with MMM, there’s this website, our mobile website, a Twitter account (@mobileminmag), an RSS feed, and even an ability to get posts emailed to you via Feedburner. While we do have a few apps, these are regarded as experiments moreso than primary engagements (or content model doesn’t fit within the need for a native app), though we tend to do a number of these just to check out mobile platforms and the content management systems which bolster their use.

Its a bit much. But, its done so that you have something to build on when you want to learn more about, or advance your ministry/organization towards mobile practicies which are more respective of your faith/ethics questions than some others. If we are missing something, or you’ve got something you’d like to add, let us know. Or, like with the Church Tech Today post, just add us on your website so that others can take advantage of anything good here you’ve found, and then we’ll find you and make a reason for the Body to come together (John 17:20-27).

Earlier this month, I was reading over at the Wapple Blog and a title from one of their posts from the end of last year caught my attention: Mobile Strategy is for Life, not just Christmas. As I pondered how that title rocked me (the content of the article fills in the blanks), its struck me at how with many mobile (Internet, radio, TV) ministry efforts, the tool’s use starts and ends with evangelism. Once the person recieves Christ, essentially both the tech and the people associated with the tech go away.

In conversations about similar observations with some others, I’ve heard things like “yea, those are just tools to get them in the door, the local church needs to take over,” or, “we don’t see [mobile/web/media] technology able to facilitate the things we’d like to do in ministry relationally.” Don’t get me wrong, I get it. But, I wonder if such viewpoints constrain our ability to not just innovate with evangelistic efforts, but we end up missing the other demonstrations of life after the Gospel is preached. And not just after, we actually end up missing the places and opportunities for evangelism in what should be the most obvious of circumstances.

In what ways can mobile minsitry stick around for the lifetime of an evangelistic endeavor? I’ve heard of educational engagements where the Bible was used to teach people how to read/write/trade with other economic groups. Couldn’t the use of mobile in minsitry track along the same lines (instead of a book, we are using a mobile, and taking different steps towards language learning and interaction due to the unique characteristics of mobile)? Some groups talk about going into areas and starting their approach to evangelism with health and wellness. So why wouldn’t you take advantage of the access that some might have to a mobile device to provoke behavioral changes which keep them healthy long after the funding of your endeavors have you leave their presence?

I’m not saying that you have to skip preaching the Gospel, or even propose that you water-down the message. No. What I’m saying is that if you are bold enough to say that the tech is good enough for the season of getting someone aware of the nearness of the Kingdom of God, that you also need to be bold enough to stick around longer than the season – with that tech channel as part of your teaching/discipleship efforts. I like how the Wapple piece put it:

Those who didn’t implement a mobile strategy in time for the festive season not only missed their share of these sales but may also miss out on future sales as consumers offer their loyalty to brands who delivered them a merry mobile Christmas.

Its not just about mkaing best use of the evangelizing season. Its about preparing and being presented as ready for the implications of evangelism.