Mobile Ministry Magazine

One of the things that I've liked about the N95 is that its let me get back into just browsing the Net, not just reading info. Granted, browsing is fun when there is nothing to do of dire importance and there is just loose time. So what did my rabbit hole bring tonite...

- I started at Jaiku. I wanted to see what some of my contacts were up to. I still think that an Opera widget and a mobile client for every other phone would make this an awesome application for a lot of folks.

- I peeked in on Darla Mack's blog via her Jaiku channel when I saw a post about Nokia's mobile web server. Now this got me thinking that I should move to a Symbian device, and then host MMM on the device. Besides accessible as all get out, it would really kick the mobile notch up a good bit.

- Continued on Jaiku and saw that there is a TUAW channel (for the Apple fans, they should know that site).

- Clicked there and read Robert Scoble talk about giving up the N95 and appreciating the iPhone.

- had another tab open stil to TUAW's Jaiku and got the idea via ijustine and The Remix of Children's Ministry (found via Robert Scoble's site) that its not the tech nor the availabilty that is the issue, just how we want to imagine using it to reach an audience and just going there.

- I managed to come out of the hole though to reinitate the full posts in RSS feeds, and at take a bit more of a thought to moving MMM completly mobile. If the right Nokia device were to come along (the N95's battery and memory issues are the only real hold up for this one), I'd probably do it; which would make that whole planning for MMM to be reinvented in MT4 go to waste a bit...sorry LJ.

- There's not much else that I can say other that since moving to Charlotte God's been heavy. God's been just moving a whole lot, from temporary residency to a job to a possible apartment. God's been extremely gracious and hence my heart being heavy for doing well with MMM. There's a whole lot out there, and God's saw fit to lead me this far - lead YOU this far. It's not like we deserve this, but He's so, so gracious. A few friends can testify to the fact that today I've never been more in awe, thankful, gracious of God's hands in my life. He says, "I know the plans I have for you." I've been walking towards Charlotte and more for 8+ years... there's just a whole lot that just browsing doesn't capture....things that God hands and flow just happen to roll with. I am so not ready for this IMO, but God has saw fit to just dump some grace notes on me. Heavy stuff.

Labels: accessiblity, children, devotion, iPhone, Jaiku, mobiles, N95, usablity

One of the things that I've noticed in a good deal of the chruches that I've visited is that there is very little in terms of tracking that is done in the child-care areas. Either there is a rotating set of people looking at a paper clipboard, or there is nothing at all except parents bringing kids in and out without anything more than facial recognition to know who goes and does what. Many places would do well to have an electornic sign-in component that is a part of the registration process for child-care. Besides providing accountability to the organization, there is also a chance to use that data to better make use of volunteers and other support workers.

Of course, using a sign-in based component to navigating child-care in ministry settings is not the only way, but can be a very effective one -- especially in larger churches with multiple age groups. Expanding this idea to using the handheld component to also facilitate this growing population group in churches can make a more interactive process out of this, and facilitate the already existing human connections that we make when child-care ministry is used.

What This Could Look Like
The idea would be a set of shared handhelds (for the sake of demonstration I'll just use the Palm Tungsten E2) which are synced to a central server by the child-care admin. A database application would be created for use on the handhelds that mirrors the already existing paper forms. However, the database would be the just the adminstrator's means of checking what child was where, who dropped off/picked up, and when. The administrators would carry these single purpose handhelds with them at all times, making sure to check with child-care workers as to who is where. In larger groups this could be expanded to a person(s) assigned over a particular age group but who also floats room to room during the child-care time.

Other Possiblities
A system like this could also be adapted to taking pictures of the children and saving them into that same database so that there is some sort of recognition accountablity that is able to be kept.

Advancing this further would be specific check-in handhelds where parents would sign their children in on the handheld, and then signature capture, along with photo capture, would be used to idenitfy what children are where and when they were there.

Just An Idea, But Could It Also Be A Need?
This is just an idea to show other areas where mobile tech can be integrated into ministry settings, Church Tech Matters had done a whole series on check-in software -- which is where this thought comes from -- and its really good to know what is available out there that hasn't been thought of or used just yet.

Seeing that budgets to do more elaborate systems are not there, I've proposed something that would take less in terms of setting up, but would be scalable to something more robust -- unless something like this already exists. How would your church or organization respond to a system like this? And is such a system even necessary in such intimate settings?

Labels: children, community, mobile