Again with one of those moments where perspective and expectations are clearly much different than cultural norms… its ok, there’s a point to this (too).

One of the tasks that’s taken about within MMM is to visit with other churches to connect and get a better sense of how they deal with communications in light of mobile, web, and other channels. To this end, visiting with a community is one part enjoying the time connecting, and another part looking at behaviors. For example, the welcoming of visitors is a pretty common function within church services, but, its also one that’s continually stayed low-tech.

Example (based on past many churches visited):

Break in the singing period for announcements (and a chance to catch one’s breath). At the end of announcements is a time to welcome those visiting. Visitors are asked to somehow identify themselves (raised hand, standing, or being sought out by regular visitors), and then handed by ushers a card with which would be filled out and placed into the offering basket.

After filling out the card and placing it into an offering basket, an administrator/secretary is tasked with entering the visitor’s information into some contacts system (anything from church database, to Outlook Contact Manager, to filed in a manilla folder). The visitor is then contacted by email and/or snail (postal) mail, thanking them for their visit, offering them to come back again, and given some sense of community activities with which to connect to that community again with.

The only acknowledgement of that message being received is them appearing again to some fellowship activity, usually at this point engaging in some face-to-face communication with someone a bit higher in authority than a layperson. Communications failures are (sometimes) logged – that is, the email is no good, or the address given comes back as undeliverable. Very rarely is there a feedback channel connected to that outreach communication. Therefore we end up with the appearance of welcoming persons, but really only more concerned that we broadcast a welcome, rather than actually meaning to connect with the visitor, or them with us in a manner that doesn’t look like consistent attendance or membership.

Could this be done better? Yup. Here’s what came to mind the last times I was given a visitor card:

• I wonder why they didn’t put a text message code (shortcode) on the screen for me to submit my visitor status, questions about the sermon, or receive updates about *that* event that I was interested in that they briefly mentioned (in voice and paper announcement)
• Is there a Twitter handle or Facebook page URL where I could respond more directly to the general community?

The text messaging piece poked me more than anything else. You see, I’m already sitting in that community seeing more than half of the attendees pulling out a mobile device when its time for reading/sermon-speak. I’m not even caring about the Bible version – I’m assuming that YouVersion and/or Olive Tree are already firmly entrenched. I’m actually willing to learn more about your community, just not by re-transcribing information that’s in your announcements document into my notes/calendar/contacts. Therefore, I’m looking for that community to take advantage of those characteristics of mobile – especially: personal, audience measurement, and point of creative inspiration – as a means of literally making me want to know more about them.

What Could It Look Like
I’d honestly prefer to hear a church say something like “here’s the shortcode to sign up for updates from our community. Or, if you are giving electronically, text “TITHE” and the whole number amount of your gift to the same shortcode. Remember, type “STOP” anytime you want to discontinue these updates. Or, “EMAIL” if you’d like these alerts to also come to the  email address that we have on file for you. For those preferring paper, that can be found in our foyer.”

Yes, that’s thinking (a) digital first, and (b) mobile first. And its about time that many of you who have $40K sound systems, multiple-access point WLANs, multiple campuses, and a means to pay for streaming your sermon in real time to do something like this a good bit closer to the immediate and traceable activities of the moments that are nearest to people.

Organizational Communications Bias
If you look again at the example, its not simply just a matter of the communication method, but the impression that it gives off. I’m biased having dealings with organizational communications on a continual basis professionally. Input mechanisms always point to workflow behaviors which may or may not be optimized for that input point. These organizational communications insights also bend into those things that happen after the message is received (how long between the end of service and receiving an email/snail mail communicaton thanking me for a visit for example). As a visitor, I look at the surrounding investments into media, infrastructure, and even clothing of leadership and ask if in that paper solution that the same investments are being made. It is indeed a bias, I won’t shy from that. Hence the article and question.

Potential, Possibilities, and Present Services
For those without those extravagent systems, and see this as a decent idea, take a look at some of the SMS types of services out there and experiment. The immediacy of mobile, and its nature to be very accurate as a means of audience measurement, means that you can much faster get your finger on the pulse of events and moments like visitors.

No, its not normal. And I’m not making concessions to those who don’t have those mobile tools that could use this. That’s not the point here. You should – especially if you already see some mass of people using mobile in the midst of services – have some idea of the penetration rates of mobile/social web in your communities. If you don’t, that’s another matter entirely. Because if you are anything near the example given above, you’ve got to get a handle on that before you can even think to go this route.

One of the kinks that you tend to run into when you have a Sunday schedule like ours (i.e., visiting many churches/fellowships per month), is that of the holiday season. You have some groups which do a great job of trying to center their communities on the “holy” part of the holidays. Then, you have others who seem like they are doing everything they can to get rid of that materialistic mentality all-to-common for this time of year. IMO, if every church simply observed Advent, that might not be so hard to do.

So, one of the many items that I’ve kept my ears to the ground for in non-Catholic/Orthodox/Lutherian churches is how they go about Advent. Unfortunately, there’s not much of a mention of it. So, how about we help that out a bit?

Here are a few that I’ve found:

• Advent App (German)
• xt3’s Advent Calendar (seems Android only)
• Waiting in Joyful Hope (iOS, Android)

Now, you could simply just be publishing an Advent calendar via Google Calendar (hint, hint) and showing your community how to add this to their mobile devices, but these apps might make it a bit easier.

What are some of the applications or calendars that you folks are using for Advent to keep Christ’s evenutal coming in the front of the eyes of your communities?

The bar has been raised. If he can do it, and this kid is self-motivated and has a family/community supporting his efforts, what is stopping you or your church from investing in youth of this age to produce similar results?

As long as they learn a skill that advances what they will be able to do later, what they build isn’t as important as them getting the chance to learn how to build.

If you, or your church, has been doing similar, point us to the projects/results. We’d love to share in commending youth (or seniors) in these efforts.

~ via iPad Creative

In 2012, Internet Evangelism Day will be on Sunday 29 April – as the culmination of the entire month of April, which we have again designated Digital Outreach Month: Read more about IE Day 2012

We hope to have another ebook giveaway during April 2012, as we did this year. Suggestions for ebooks, and other free resources that we might offer, will be gratefully received. They should broadly relate to evangelism, effective communication, or digital media, rather than wider areas of discipleship.

We are also running a book competition this month to celebrate 200 issues of the email newsletter Web Evangelism Bulletin. 28 great books are on offer. Enter by blogging, Facebooking or Tweeting about the competition page

How Can We Best Help Churches and Individuals?

We need your feedback on what would most help you, as a church, ministry or individual Christian, to investigate or use the growing opportunities for online evangelism. What do you think holds people back from considering these options? And do you have stories of digital evangelism that might inspire and encourage others?

You may also recall that we have a panel of potential speakers available for conferences or bible colleges, available to address various digital evangelism topics.

Please share your thoughts and let others know of the abundant resources made available at the IE Day website.

Some of us are celebrating Thanksgiving today (USA holiday). And as such, many sermons/commentaries have been rendered today and this week to put us in rembrance of what we are thankful for. And certainly, there’s a level of thanks to God that should be rendered for being able to live, eat, and have provision to improve our lives and communities. I just feel that there is a better story that describes the source of thanks this day. Here’s a snippet of the first part of that story:

It was only a 30 second clip. But that was all that we needed to see. There he was, I think. In the face it looked like him, but the body was badily bruised. He had something on his head, but I couldn’t tell – I’ve got a simple mobile without a good screen. It looked like he nearly fell with some beam on his back, but then some other guy grabs the beam from him and then the scene cuts. We all looked at one another terrified. We knew what was next. This kind of message only comes out for certain kinds of capital punishments.

And here’s a snippet of the second part of that story:

The plans came along quickly. This was much different than in times past. It seemed like this time that we just wanted to be on one accord. Some of us reclined in our seats to breathe, some had been on the run a lot longer than just the past three days. Then something strange happened. The mobiles in the center of the table turned on at the same time, then vibrated, then turned off. That was weird, and we all seemed to see it at the same time. It got quiet, really quiet. Then, near the doorway, there was this voice, “Peace be with you.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. The face was right, and the body didn’t look anything like that battered person we saw on the official clip before the crucifixion.

I don’t know about you. But, my motivations for being thankful are founded in a bit more than just eating my fill. Even in my hues of tech and cycling, there’s just a bit more to be thankful for ya know?

Honestly, after reading Operation AJAX, I’m less wanting to be thankful for some histories more than others. Thanks be to God through Christ Jesus that there’s a better history for us when our names have been written into the better book.

When I speak with people about MMM, some people ask about Bible and religious-based applications. What’s always neat is when after offering their opinion about what it is they are/aren’t using, I ask them what would be their ideal application. Interestingly enough, the answer to this always sounds like some aspect of faith digitally applied rather than faith-knkowledge retreived from somewhere (the paradigm of Bible apps).

What are some of those apps? Here are a few:

• An application (service) that would help people connect church announcements with their device’s calednar
• An app that would facilitate the sharing of prayers with a small group
• An app that would invite financial and psychological support to missionaries whom are abroad
• An applicaiton that would help you investigate events and locations in the Scriptures interactively
• (And my personal favorite) A notepad that when I write a Scripture verse to my notes that it automatically links to BibleGateway or the (preferred) app on my device

Look again at these. There’s not a throwing away of the Scripture, but an asking of digital tools to enhance behaviors that are already happening, and in some cases would happen better if mobile/web was in the midst of the behavior.

We see something like this happening with the popularity of reading plans with YouVersion. Why is a reading plan effective? It doesn’t try to give you the entire Bible at once. There’s a flow to the use (each day/week/month you open it, you see some progress). There’s an invitation to connect your progress to an online community (catering to encouragement and esteem). Note the mix – literally Joshua 1:8 and Deuteronomy 6:6-9 happening in practice. Reading plans, as YouVersion has enabled them, allows the believer to keep enough of the contents of the Bible in front of their routine that it is almost a compulsion to live what you are reading and meditating on.

What does this look like then beyond reading plans? Look at the applicaitions mentioned above (I know, lots of looking back), engage with a piece of Scripture and then persuade the person engaged to go “heads-up” (to steal a page from Microsoft’s Windows Phone marketing message).

Something interesting happened when I updated my iPad to iOS5 – I didn’t reload any Bible applications. Not a one. And not because I don’t like them (ok, I have my moments), but because I’ve found the use of this iPad to be such a blank canvas for creation and computing that I’ve modeled my use of it to consume and produce that which looks like the text that my immediate communities are already familiar with. That means I’m drawing, I’m creating tools to teach, I’m coding, etc. I’m developing a behavior of digital living where the Bible has to be applied in order for the tool to demonstrate appropriate use. That doesn’t mean that my use of ESPN Scorecenter will always look like any of the characteristics of the church, crucifixion/resurrection, or even judgement. But, it does mean that even in that app, I’m subjugating the entire digital experience under the same mandate that was given to the rest of creation (Genesis 1:28-30).

When we move to that paradigm – this idea of the Bible as applied to digital spaces – what then are the more notable effects to those things online and offline can we see? Well, when your small groups start talking about their prayer chains and the testimonies from them, let me know 😉

A few years back, OliveTree and others showed very well that while they might not always be the preferred tool for creating sermons and studies, they were no less capable than “full” software packages commonly found on pastor’s desktops and laptops. This year’s SBL Bible Software Shootout reintroduces the mobile component – especially because of the popularity of the iPad – and gets an additional curveball in some responses towards using this software not from a company’s perspective, but from an instructor’s perspective.

From this year’s SBL Bible Software Shootout 2: Revenge of the Teachers, Biblical Studies and Technological Tools offers some commentary towards these presentations:

Logos: Two professors from Calvin College, Dean Deppe and Carl Bosma, presented on their use of Logos in their classrooms. Calvin College has a 2 week gateway course that is a required part of the curriculum to introduce Logos to the students. An important aspect of the instruction is both learning how to use the program and to start the process of using it to take notes.

• A 1 hour introduction
• Four 2 hour sessions explaining features with MDiv students
• Three 3 hours sessions with MA students.

Deppe showed examples of how he has used Logos. (Cf. Deppe’s All Roads Lead to the Text: Eight Methods of Inquiry into the Bible for his work on using Logos for exegetical examples. I have now acquired the book and will provide a review here, hopefully before the new year.) He demonstrated how he thinks in terms of various lenses for viewing the texts using various Logos tools: Personal Book Builder to collect notes, Collections for searching, Passage Analysis, highlighting, layouts, visual filters including sympathetic highlighting, tools that can be used for students who don’t know Greek or Hebrew, etc. He showed an interesting example of highlighting of verb tenses in Romans 7 along with quite a number of layouts he has created for working with grammatical, exegetical, background, related texts (e.g., DSS, Josephus, Pseudepigrapha).

Bosma showed how he used Logos for notetaking and linking to local and web resources.

Again, there’s nothing radically new here, unless you look a bit deeper into what’s happening. The SBL Shootout is usually composed of companies skilled to develop towards the tnedencies of academics, not necessarly the most mobile-friendly audiences, and definitley one with a different paradigm towards teaching emthods. There was a heavier emphasis on the presenters here to be led towards applying the text of Scripture, but also demonstrating their methods towards dissecting and interpreting the meaning of the text based on what’s worked in instructor-led settings (languages, cultures, etc.). If you will, you are getting an opinion out of the actual use of the product, not simply the features that the developer wants to most demonstrate (biased towards their marketing/compitence). When you get the presentation of the capability of the software from the perspective of the teacher, you begin to see a bit more how this is used in such settings (wealth and warts) and can start to discern a bit more contexually the strengths of the software versus the stregths of the teacher.

What’s not clear from the commentary is how the reception was from students who engaged instructors that prepared these materials. Were the classes better managed? Or, where there additional challenges getting (some/most) students information in a manner that didn’t just work best for teaching the concepts, but also their devices? Clearly, the software is in a better place. And now hearing the academicly-tuned Biblical/religious community share their lessons-learned is great. The question is how can these persectives be rolled up into something of a working document for best practices for others who wish to have some insight or clarity towards instructing to this depth from a mobile device, connected software, and theological perspective.

I like some of the discussion here about the utilization of Apple’s iCloud. In some conversations with ministers recently, iCloud has come up as something they very much liked because it meant that they were better able to take what they needed from a laptop setting and have that on their mobile or tablet as they went. Again, this isn’t a radical change from what we’ve demonstrated and talked about here (its really syncing, though more than just calendar/contact data as many of you have done via Exchange, PalmSync, etc., without the fun of pushing a button to say so), but the acceptance of the behavior to prepare and be ready to teach a lesson is something to note. On our end, products such as Dropbox and Idea Flight have been quite useful towards instructor-led engagements. Though, simply putting your items on a server and then provoking interaction from that point has also been quite demonstrative.

Read the rest of the commentary about the SBL Shootout 2 from Biblical Studies and Technological Tools and then consider how you are leveraging these technologies to teach clearer or better. It might be that you create something similar to a traditional lecture-based course, or, that you might make something more along the lines of the Cybermission’s Mobile Ministry Training Course which goes towards a different direction of technical competence for instructors. In either respect, going mobile isn’t an excuse for not being able to handle teaching a lesson – the tools are there, are your teaching chops and students up for the rest?

A friend and I were talking about a project he and his company were working on and while it was great that they were working on it, I had to be direct and ask him, “why are you building another Bible applicaiton?” According to he and his team, having a Bible application would put them on equal footing with other companies in this space who have applications and have (apparently) made the successful transition from a PC-based product model to a mobile/web-based one.

I shook my head at his flawed logic. “You don’t run to where the puck is, you run to where it would be,” I told him (quoting Wayne Gretzky). The problem with their approach, and many within this mobile ministry (#mobmin) space who are looking for their innovative solution to take the religious world/church/tech world by storm, is that they keep looking to copying current products in order to make a dent or shift in perception. That’s just not how this works.

For this group, I asked why didn’t they go the route that other Bible applicaiton companies haven’t gone, but that very few secular companies would dare go: the Boston Globe/Boston responsive web, subscription web approach (several articles talked about this)? He looked at me with disdain, as he heard some about that project, but didn’t know how far reaching that it went. You see, their team is savy enough to build something like that, but their company isn’t visionary enough to figure out why that works.

Hence the title of this article: the age of bible applications is over; it is now the age of bible as applied in digital spaces.

Am I saying that there is no need for any company to create, recreate, or innovate on top of the paradigm of reading, searching, bookmarking, and collections with Bible apps? No. But, I am saying that if you are a content publisher who bases your content on any of those Bible app paradigms, then you are better off pushing your energies towards developing a product somewhere else besides “let start with a Bible app.”

Antoine: you aren’t even a developer, how can you say such things?

Easy actually. Go have a conversation with someone. Tell me, did you start in the Bible or was the conversation dipping in and out of the Bible at various points with other contexts as the backbone to the conversation? I’ll address a recent conversation from a coffeeshop. The pastor/missionary and I started talking because I asked about his wide-margin NASB that he was carrying. The conversation went into church history quickly from that, then into cultural perspectives of various regions of the USA. Would a Bible app have helped there, or an application that was able to search on topics related to church history which also referenced Bible verses, noted authors, theological paradigms, and denominational statements of faith that added context to the situation. Of course, innovation here would be turning on said app while in the conversation and as it “listened” it would pull a Google/Britiannica/Wikipedia/Wolfgram Alpha and search then display all of the relevant content streams, statistics, and opinions available online or in accessible scholarly collections. If you will a Shazamm for Biblical conversations.

It prbably makes sense why I can say that you can bend beyond Bible applications when I phrase the context like that right? But that’s called research and analysis, specifically, anlaysis of cultural behaviors of communication that rarely go into the development of these kinds of applications (this is how reports like Mobile Lens 2011 were framed). And that’s why we end up with a situation such as what I described with my friend at the start of this article. If you want your product(s) to be of earthly good, then you have to move beyond the age of simply offering just the text. Develop an app that engages the application of Biblical (religious) knowledge first, and then grounds the user in a growing (maturing) understanding of Scripture, church history, and culture as they grow in faith and knowledge.

Anyone want to bet on “Bible as Applied” being the space in which faith-based/religious apps show the most potential for growth in the coming years against simply offering the text in increasingly siloed services?

Read this quote the other week, but instead of putting a commentary to it, I’ve got a question to pose to you. First the quote:

“Where are the men who will make dents with the hammers of grace and truth, not technology.?” – Jorge Mendoza

Then the question:

How are grace and truth part of your tech toolkit?

Now you’re up. Post your responses here or reply to us (@mobileminmag) on Twitter.

Came across this the other week. Here’s a snippet:

…Since I’m not writing as an expert, I need your help. I want you to shape the final content of the eBook. I need your insights and ideas, your experiences and stories, your questions and critiques.

Each post will be designed to generate discussion and I’m inviting you to join the conversation! I’m asking experienced disciple-making disciples and scared-to-share-the-Gospel-to-my-best-friend disciples to participate.

The final result will be a practical collaborative eBook on disciple making that can be used by students, regular church members, pastors and missionaries. But more importantly, as we intentionally focus our attention on the mission Jesus has given us, I am convinced that we will make disciples who make disciples…

Read the rest of You Don’t Have to Be A Super-Christian to Make Disciples

Nathan Creitz makes two great points with this, collaborative voices and collective opportunities. This would be a great effort for those of you looking to create discipleship materials for your mobile ministry (#mobmin) efforts. This kind of content would easily flow into content collections from Door 43, Open Church, and Kiosk Evangelism so that it can be made available for extended audiences. Even if not into those efforts, to have such a usable manual that has had skilled, experienced hands would be great for small groups, missionaries, and churches.

We’ve proposed similar with the 5Cs and will add that to the effort, come on in and join this obvious application of John 17:20-26.