This is Part 5 (and the final piece) of a series proposing a methodology towards implementing and understanding the implications of mobile tool-sets within ministries. It is deliberately shortened, and at the same time, should assist the understanding behind MMM’s specific expertise offerings.
Defining Mobile Strategies
While it is many times helpful to look to other industries to define and implement strategies around new technologies, mobile is one of those clear areas where everyone is still trying to develop a sense of what works and how. MMM is one of many groups at the front of this intersection between faith and mobile, and proposes a framework which might assist many of you towards not just seeing the value of mobile (devices, services, etc.) and discerning the impacts personally, locally, and globally.
Mobile as Cohesion
As a part or driver of faith engagements, mobile ministry strategies begin and end with the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20):
…Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Specifically, all things that we do in any ministry context either have the ability to affirm or deny the prayer of Jesus recorded in John 17 (quoted here in part; v20-24):
…I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me(R) before the foundation of the world.
This is stating simply that the short-term goal has to mesh with this long-term reality – all things defined under the content of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit and defined within their context (that is, salvation, evangelism and discipleship), have to cross-reference at the end of the day with the reality (creed) of being an example of God’s Spirit threading Himself amongst us for His glory.
It can be easy to see mobile, and produce something with it that might have fanfare and draw people to the technology or us. Be mindful of your methods when diving into a mobile ministry endeavor (whether mobile is primary or accessory), because as a ministry, your effectiveness isn’t just being judged on how well you use the technology at hand, but how much it connected us to one another to display the Father’s love to all. The mobile ministry strategy must have an overreaching eternal focus inline with and affirmed by Scripture.
To talk more MMM on how to establish or refine your mobile strategy, or to firm up one of the areas spoken about in this series, connect with us and let’s make something great happen.
