Mobile Ministry Magazine

My best friend keeps telling me that it only takes one phone call, and I think he was (again) spot-on with this.

Last week, MMM was contacted by Jamillah Knowles who is part of the team that does the BBC's Pods and Blogs. This week's topic is Religion, Art, Time, and Space and I (Antoine) was interviewed to talk about Mobile Ministry Magazine.

Suffice to say, it was fun being interviewed, and even more to get a bit more word-of-mouth-and-mobile out about the site. MMM comes in at about the 12min mark, but you really don't want to skip as the two others profiled before MMM have some great approaches of their own.

Here's the direct link (MP3) to the podcast. Check it out and let me know what you think.

UPDATED: The direct MP3 link now points to the file here at MMM. You'd have to download and listen since we aren't doing streaming media here (yet?).

Labels: BBC, interview, media, podcast

In contrast to yesterday's post, here a bit about a church using a moblie service to encourage the soul (from Trendhunter via Textually):

An Anglican Parish Church has joined with voice-to-text company SpinVox to change the way they reach their community: by delivering sermons directly to parishioners' email inboxes, live.

The world's first voice-to-text Sunday service will take place Sunday November, 30th the first Advent. It will be given by the Reverend John Kronenberg, Vicar of Hinchley Wood, Esher, Surrey, at St Christopher’s Church.

As he delivers his sermon to the congregation seated in the Church, his words will be automatically converted by SpinVox and sent directly to subscribers' inboxes, in a matter of moments. 100 members of St Christopher's church will receive the sermon this Sunday...

Read the rest of this post at Trendhunter.

A bit of a side note about this post. This Sunday, my pastor showed me that he recently purchased an iPod Touch 8GB. He showed me his amazement about how he could do so much from that little screen; from podcasts, to browsing, to checking email. Being that we are a church that uses web services to do a lot of admin work, this is nearly a perfect solution for him. I mentioned to him that it would be a perfect delivery mechanism for his sermons. He looked at me as if I went a bit too far. Just a note to me that not everything can be done at once. But change is comin' ;)

Labels: email, mobility, podcast, speech, SpinVox, voice

Interesting story in USAToday (via Switched), speaking about the popularity of religious podcasts. Here's a snippet:

Podcasting also is an inexpensive way for pastors to extend the reach of their teaching beyond the walls of their own place of worship.

Walker pays $29.99 a month to a company called SermonAudio.com, which allows him to upload as much audio for podcasts as he wants.

More than 1 million sermons are accessed each month from the site. It's owned and operated by Steven Lee, a Korean-born graduate of Bob Jones University.

"We definitely try to bill ourselves as an economical way to reach a large number of people," says Lee, a computer programmer and graphic designer who runs his site from an upstairs room in his home in Simpsonville, S.C.

Read the rest at USAToday.

What are some of the podcasts that you listen to in order to continue to engage God or the community of believers? And if you are a pastor or layperson who podcasts, how do you get the word out about your offerings? How can MMM help you in that endavor?

Labels: music, news, podcast

Cynthia Ware has taken a look look at how Christian missionaries are using new media as parts of their efforts to connect and share news of their connections when away from their "roots." Here's a snippet:

...Today's missionaries are using blogs, facebook, shutterfly and other social media to extend their connectedness, reward their supporters and create archived memories of their unique adventures. Whether missionaries are serving on short term teams or serving in long term posts, they need no longer be disconnected from their points of origin, hometowns, partners, sending churches, extended families, etc. In fact, if they have internet access, there's virtually (no pun intended) no reason they can't be very connected...

Read the rest at Digital.Leadnet and also check out Cynthia's site Digital Sanctuary for more views on ministry, media, and their convergance.

Labels: accessiblity, Bible, church, community, email, gospel, mission, mobile, mobile accessories, mobiles, networking, phone, podcast, software, tech, usability, worship

Confession: I do this thing online where i begin reading on sites that I usually read, and then start clicking on links that look interesting and begin reading more and more. And clicking more and more. I end up with this long history view of my browsing that spans hours and several pages (and I am usually reading multiple pages at once on tabbed browsers) and it becomes this rabbit hole. At some point in my reading, I always come back to MMM and find something that I posted that I want to see what else was posted about. This time it was that recent posting on God's iPhone. I wanted to know what else has been written about the Word on the iPhone and this is what happened...

...a Google search on iPhone and saw in one of the listings that a comany called 3onesix has made a Bible notes program called Elohiem Notes that should work on other Internet Tablet and PDA devices with a nice sized screen. Check out their website (very well done) and the other ministry products they offer.

Of couse, my usual web finds don't come that way. In that rabbit trail, I ran across a podcasting site called Geeks & God that talks about tech in Chrisitan ministries. When I get some time at my new job (praise God) I'll be listening in on the podcasts and getting some extra input from the other parts of the blogsphere of those things that meet at the intersection of faith an tech.

Ooh, I just noticed that the Geeks & God site has a forum about the Drupal content management system (CMS). Neat.

jumping out of the rabbit hole to continue this discussion some

For me, seeing what God is doing online is about me getting out there and just seeing through all of the holes and plains of content what has been planted out there, or what is about to come up. Too often, this web can seem like a place so big and so mainstream. But in every link there is the potential to find a gem that you would have not seen before. I look for those, in the hopes that meeting with others in the ministry that we make the web more than a slew of pictures, videos and links, but a tie that helps create avenues for a bit more than normal community interactions.

Plus, in all the hoopla about the iPhone catching the name of 'Jesus phone,' its good to know that some of the good content will come out on top that will really edify Him and not the tech that tries to be everything like Him.

Labels: community, iPhone, mobile, podcast