Mobile Ministry Magazine

The Nokia Conversations blog has highlighted an article and its source post speaking about internet etiquette education in [South] Korea. Being that mobile and internet use is very high in terms of use and lifestyle in [South] Korea, its almost appropriate that they would be one of the first to take a whole sale approach to addressing use and ethics for parents, youth, and culture.

This quote speaks to why this matters and why as a Body we need to jump in and learn/apply these same lessons:

...many children including myself go through the phase when they relate their identity to imaginary or fictional characters. i am no expert in this area so i do wonder how future children would discover and exploit the fact that they can be the imaginary character to a certain extent if they want to, aided by other ‘people’ in the digital world, not just by their own imagination while they are going through the blossoming age of developing their social perception and individual identity. it is up to whether the child will be able to master the delicate skill set of constructing and maintaining the perception of a world in a non-physical form...

This is a subject that begs discussion on so many levels, not the least of which is because the technology moves so fast that education can sometimes be seen as a chore and something that holds it back. I disagree with this notion, and therefore discussions and policies like these are needed so that we don't end up with a culture that has a jaded sense of what is real versus what is virtual - or in other words find their identity in more than just the social programs they are engaged in.

Check out the posts at Nokia Conversations and Nokia Design Researcher Younghee Jung, and then the original Korean article (its in Korean) speaking about these policies for more insight and backstory on this.

As leaders and parents, how do you teach ethics, while allowing the technology to be a place where imaginations can form maturely?

Labels: children, church, communication, community, computer, education, parenting, teaching, tech, teens

Over at the Digital Sanctuary, a post and conversation has been going on entitled 10 Challenges facing the Church in Cyberspace. Now, I'll not take her points and just reiterate them here. Its better (for our needs) to look at these challenges within the lens of mobile technology and see where challenges and solutions might be a bit more of a behavior change than a technological one.

(1) Accept the Virtual World's significance:
Its not just virtual, its mobile and virtual. Content is not respective of the tool anymore, and therefore the church's response needs to accont for this. Not just a mobile version of a website either, integrating SMS/MMS, and teaching about security and safety online needs to be areas where the church steps into and innovates.

(2) View online expressions of Christianity as valuable extensions of real world faith:
Take this how you want to, but frankly speaking the current and next generations of Internet users are not living two lives (online and offline). The two intermingle and therefore what they do online with faith has just as much importance as what they do offline. In other words, get on their phone and see what they are living out from what you are/aren't teaching.

(3) Embrace the opportunity for Church without borders:
This should go without saying on a mobile site, but think about it. If you are mobile, time and geography are only contexts, they are not content. Learn to get out of the idea of content and context (in terms of location) being the same and see how the Church can and should engage people outside of traditional locations.

(4) Welcome the presentation of God's Word in the vernacular of current culture :
Ok, so we aren't going to be using IM chat in the mist of a service (all the time), but understanding how language is changing within the context of mobile and Internet will help you decode how best to engage people with Christ.

(5) Respond to the globalization of the planet with hope:
Nuff said; its all possible. Let's just show folks how God's folks can bring the hope of the Gospel with it.

(6) Develop and maintain an online presence purposefully populating cyberspace :
How do you do this with mobile? Easy, get out of the house and create a mash up map where you let people know that they can engage you and Christ and utilize healthy boundaries (presence notifications in phones and common sense with people) to emphasize that you are reachable as well as available. Mobile allows this more than any other medium, and its getting better.

(7) Establish virtual outposts for evangelizing, preaching, equipping & training :
Ok, the cynic in me says get a Mobile Web Server and do something fun :) But this is as simple as just making sure that your mobile tools are not just tools for being productive but also an outlet to teach. Our best reference is Inner-Linked; taking what we've learned from using the tech and making a place to teach usability and accountability in the forfront of that use.

(8) Create interactive portals for experiencing Church (streaming media):
This is the same as #6 in terms of mobile. Everything about being mobile is interactive, take advantage of it (as the kids with the PSPs and DS Lites how to do it if you aren't sure).

(9) Practice spiritual disciplines in the global online conversation :
You are not immune from laws, nor can you claim that ignorance is a calling card. From end-user-license agreements, to service agreements, to warranties, to local and international laws, we are responsible for upholding those things that God has allowed rulers to establish. And from there, we find innovative ways to address Christ-less-ness in areas where those laws curtail the freedom to believe on Him. This also includes personal boundaries towards use and being connected; learn how to disconnect and make engaging people the point of mobile tech, not just falling in love with the shiny-shiny.

(10) Encourage strategic investment in the iGeneration:
Donate, set up scholarships for execllence, teach, develop programs, work alongside those that already have programs, or simply just connect with people and families in need to knowing that digital is life-next.

Now, its your turn. Go and teach all, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You've got mail to deliever.

Labels: children, church, community, computer, content, culture, Internet, mobile, mobility, stewardship, sustainability, website

This year, one of my biggest struggles with just about everything has been to remember that there's a good bit of relevance that must be undertaken with everything. And especially in the field of mobile technology where things just move faster than people want to even write about, its important to remember something I've been told often, technology is only relevant when it is personal. Some recent thinkings have put me in a position though where I realize that I have to do a lot more evangelism than just using this stuff in order to make this point clear.

I can start with the example of my use of Nokia's Mobile Web Server. Frankly speaking, this is probably one of the most far out things that I use and one of those things that people go "ooh" about, but just don't understand. Without repeating the entire post that I wrote up on my personal website, I will say it like this: using a web server on your mobile phone, or even just the idea of having a web server in your home gives YOU control of the information that you put on the net. Not Google, not Nokia, not anyone. You administer it, and you say how it gets anywhere, if it goes out at all.

The mobile device that's that and adds the ability to associate that personal information with the context of your environment. Its not just an IP address, its an IP address that's attached to a photo of a place or a contact person or a a mesh of all of those and more. That's not the web virtual, that's a literal web. And its already something in your hands. Imagine knitting the Body together with that kinda stuff.

Or about about mobile devices in general? Most would say that while they are enabling, that they offer no real benefit over other computing situations. That might be right, until you consider the cost of powering devices. The wastefulness that we display as a computing culture is crazy. Slimming down to the bare essentials should allow us the time to develop more accessible and renewable solutions, while making all of those previously stated connections all the more fruitful.

Connecting: I want to be the kind of parent who has the "key" for allowing his household to be online. If you will, I'd like my mobile device to be the gateway for my family. This way I can see and interact with what my kids are doing, and my wife has an accessible and open means to keep me accountable. Far reaching? Nope. Using something like this soon to come software and a solid smartphone this is not just possible, but probably advisable.

Look. I am not saying that we have to do this. I am saying that the technology is relevant if we look at it as being so. I still think that a partnership between churches and developing nations could do more for increasing technical competencies for both sides than just doing nothing. I still feel that solutions like Earthcomber should be used by more urban missionaries to share and live the Gospel. I still see the need for people to put these devices down and interact with one another being an important part of using these devices. I just have a problem with just letting it sit here. I'm made in God's image. I'd like to believe that somewhere in me beats the ability to be relevant with whatever is in my hands and life.

For me, it just happens to be mobile tech and its various applications, intersecting with my faith, in a way that just happens to push the green light out a bit longer.

Labels: accessiblity, Bible, children, church, community, computer, environment, innovation, Internet, Mobile Web Server, mobility, networking, OLPC, smartphone, software

One of the things that I've tried to do, even before starting Mobile Ministry Magazine, has been to reduce my computing needs to the bare essentials as much as possible. A big reason for doing so is because I've been one to travel a good bit and besides taking long trips, I tend to have taken many trips. Ironically, this weekend, I hit 100,000 miles in my 3yr old Civic.

Knowing what I can do with as few physical materials as possible is something that is a bit of an aim of being mobile. To skillfully and effective utilize the environment and services offered so that one can get a job done and connect. Andy Abramson, CEO of Comunicano, Inc. (an advertising, marketing and public relations agency based in Del Mar, CA), tends to do writes a blog called Working Anywhere and in a recent post talks about some of the tools that he uses as a global nomad.

...Basically, I've built the company (and am now rebuilding my house) by being the executive who works anywhere but the traditional office, allowing for a business lifestyle that is highly productive, and mostly more effortless than many people would ever imagine. For example right now I'm in Europe, floating between Lisbon, Portugal, Barcelona, Paris and London over a two-week period. After that I’ll be on the East Coast, the West Coast, back to the East Coast, into the Midwest, all before August 9, when I finally move back into my house. Along the way I’m staying in very business executive work-friendly and amazingly artistic, modern and well run hotels, all of which offer very high-quality Internet and many of the comforts and services a business traveler needs...

That's a good deal of traveling and the really good thing about this post is that while many of us might not have his resources, we can utilize some of the behaviors and services in our own capacities to make traveling less of an issue, or in the case of missions work, less a chore of logistics and more of just going and serving.

Check out the rest of the post The Tools of The Global Nomad at Working Everywhere and let's chat about some of the tools or behaviors that you have found sufficient in those times when you've been more nomad than settler.

Disclosure: Comunicano has worked with MMM in the past through the Nokia Blogger Relations program to provide devices and notification of services that may or may not be relevant to our community.

Labels: communication, community, computer, data, devices, environment, flexibility, mobile, mobile accessories, mobility, Nokia, resources, stewardship, sustainability, tools, usability

Basing this question of an article of a similar title (Is Web Work Really Going to My Mobile Device?); what about fellowship and study makes them really conductive to using mobile devices, and what about those two makes mobile devices a non-issue?

Speaking on one side as a person who has forced a good bit of mobility into his studies, there is certainly an advantage of being able to study anytime and anywhere. Also, its made me less reliant on notes as more things have had to sit in my head for retrevial since software isn't as great as I would like it to be.

But for those whom I know don't like the idea of mobile devices being a part of a study, they cite cost of the deivce, device fraility, service availability, software, and a slew of other reasons (excuses). I understand them all, and encounter a good deal of them. I guess I am just the kind of person who would walk thru those issues rather than let them be a determent.

So what about you and your friends and family? For every one of you who can go mobile, there are those near to you who do not. What are some of those perspectives and what does that say about the ability to use mobile tech as agents within fellowship and study?

Labels: Bible, community, computer, Hardware, Laptop, mobile, mobility, smartphone, software, study

Simple question: do you see mobile and Internet Technology as a time enhancer?

There is an article at Scripps News talking entitled Ministers Find Online Word Time Consuming which looks at the bergoning nature of the Internet and asks if it is just something that is too much for ministers to handle.

This is my comment on the matter. Check out the article and let's discource some.

I doubt this will be an issue as the generation of users who have grown up with this tech are adept at balancing online and offline actions. I say this as one who does.

I've stated this on Mobile Ministry Magazine several times, but it begs to be said again: when the Internet and its associated technologies are a layer on top of what you do, it will be harder to stay on top of it. Its only when those technologies become lifestyle choices do they work seemlessly. Its easy to learn something new when it is a part of your nature - that is, you are predeposed to learning and applying technology as a sign of the times.

The other issue, the one that is alluded to but not really expounded on in this piece is that of prioritization. Yes, web and mobile technologies are here to be learned and adopted. However they must be done in light of making sure that balance in the needed things are kept. When ministers act out of balance for the sake of keeping up, then articles like these outlining the 'time consuming' instead of 'time enhancing' nature of tech becomes louder spoken.

Its not that hard of an issue. Use what you are designed to use best, and foster maturity in your approach as you execute on the Great Commission.

Labels: community, computer, minister, mission, tech