Mobile Ministry Magazine

One of the prevailing themes with mobile technology, whether we are talking of devices, software, or usage, has to do with control. Unfortunately, we don't always get an understanding early in our faith with God that we don't have a lot of control over things in our lives; that's something that comes later. As we grow and mature in the faith we do understand more than the control over life that we do have is something very small in terms of the scope of things, though has very large reprocussions. I am speaking about controlling how we react to life around us.

A lot of the exhortation found in the New Testament about us and control has a lot to do with reacting to life after we now have our framework in the life of Christ. From Jesus telling the young ruler to sell all he has and follow Him, to Paul exhorting the church of Corinth to be mature in their use of spiritual gifts, to the many exortations to simply rein in the sensual desires in order to be better presented holy; control is a theme we see that weaves in and out of other areas. However, many of us struggle with control because of lack of maturity, or willful ignorance.

I find that a lot of the struggle that people have these days with mobile technology have to do with control and access. Control from the perspective of how/when to use it, what can I do with it legally/illegally, and how should what I want to do be governed by what I believe.

So how do we address control? No, not how should the devices and services help us address it, but how do we take personal responsibility towards these issues of control?

Here are some things to think about:

• How does your use of mobile devices or your preferred mobile software demonstrate healthy control with work, ministry, and personal relationships?
• When do you find that using a mobile device is harder not to do than other moments? Is it profitable?
• Do you get positive value in using your mobile device or service in its prescribed functions, or do you prefer tweaking it (legally or illegally) to get that value?
• Based on what you know about the life and times of Jesus and the disciples, how would they respond to the same technology in repect to increasing the reputation/light of Christ to those inside and outside of the faith?

Take the time to chew on this. Accountability and responsibility has its roots in control. Good control is a model of God's hands working effectively, bad control casts a tainted light to the name by which we are called.

Labels: accountability, discipliship

One of the comments and observations that I get around these days is that people do not look at discipliship (apprenticeship) as they used to. Part of that is indeed due to the speed of life and the technology that has gone along with it. However, I'm the last person to say ditch the tech because we cannot do things the way we used to; there's a response to being more successful in the context of discipliship given these days and times. It's up to us to figure that out, and then make sure that people don't miss Christ, no matter how fast they are able to SMS.

Identifying the issue means only that we know what the problem is - how do we effectively disciple one another in a culture where instant information and communication leaves little room for patient wisdom to take root? Thankfully, there are some examples of things we can do, and the tech that we have is a good tool to facilitate it.

The personal approach (John 4:1-42):

We are indeed familiar with the story of the Samaritian woman at the well. But unlike those times, we are apt to catch people in all manners of uncomfortable times. Here we take a slow yet open approach to discipliship: confront with the truth, speak slowly, and then before the person leaves your presence give contact information (phone, email, IM, blog, etc.) that will enable them to keep that point of contact with what you have given them. No, there's not much you can do until they reach back out to you, but in this kind of in-and-out engagement, the approach is to keep it personal and not push the person towards anything but the truth of the Gospel. Use the tech in order for them to have a teather towards affirming your works as on Jesus' team.

The Community Approach (Exodus 18)

This story also remarks of being familiar, however one of those questions do tend to remain to those who might not have studied this text throughly - how did Moses keep up with the smaller group of folks that he assigned as managers? In this case the tools of phone, email, and SMS would come in handy. However, it would also be smart to be like a cartographer and get a map mashup of those areas that are in play so that in terms of a physical understanding of the scope of ministry that one doesn't lose heart with the boundaries and the aims.

The other aspect of that map mashup comes in play for those being led, they can see the scope and followup from the inside with issues that might not be as aparent from your top-down view.

These are just a few applications of where modern tech doesn't mitigate the responsiblity of disciplship, it makes it more granular. We can utilize mobile and internet services and devices in order to facilitate communications in the way that they were designed to do. And at the same time, understand that we don't have to know everything. The models of discipliship that we used to use still stand, we just have more avenues towards making sure we don't miss something.

Labels: communication, community, culture, discipliship, people, tech