Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM)

“…to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.”

To any fans of Star Trek, this phrase will ring very familiar. And to those who prescribe to missional and evangelitical contexts within the Christian fiath, this is pretty much your DNA and way of life.

And now there’s another veichle. One where communication and media travels faster than the attention that it deserves. One where its just as easy to connect spiritually as it is to disconnect socially. One where its a matter of several systems working together properly, not the least of which is the wallet to fund its relevancy.

I speak of mobility – not (just) Internet. And the purpose behind mobile is just as clear as it is within other forms of media and communication – connecting people to what matters most to them most, and sharing that value with others as an purposeful behavior, not a compelled one.

Depending on the perspective of who is reading this, you might also say the same for the Internet. But, I will caution you – its not the same journey. It is, in fact, accented by the gains made on the Internet, but punctuated by the gains made in access. The Internet isn’t everywhere. As a matter of fact, its not even everywhere in places that esposue to be connected more than others – for example, one county over from Silicon Valley boasts some impressively miniscule computer and broadband adoption raters. Mobile, on the other hand, sees nearly 4 billion unique eyes (and several million more machine eyes), and this number is still increasing at a high rate. Another example, in several countries, the number of mobile phone subscriptions is greater than the total population of that country. The Internet isn’t on that scale in any country at this time.

And yet mobile is added to the pie of communication that the Internet is also a part of. A pie that’s not finished baking if you as many who study and analyize the Internet do understand and forward. It’s not that the Internet is half-baked, but it – like media that has gone before it – undergoes continual change – the latest being the social web, or commonly called Web 2.0.

Mobile, or mobile access, can be argued as the most disruptive of these changes. It still in the adoption phase (6.5-7 billion people in the world, 4 billion mobile cellular subscriptions and growing; hunderds to 4 billion in 25 years, etc.). The idea of connectivity on a mobile is in its 3^rd generation (3G = voice and data, with the ability to deliever broadband-like services, security, and monetization optimizations, mainstream acceptance, etc.). And the best is yet to come (augmented reality, unified communications, etc.). Mobile is a personal communication’s channel, enterprise/web testing bed, and a largely unexplored nebula of interpersonal and inter-communal interactions.

Mobile is a personal warp engine to reality. It doesn’t just invite you to use computing to connect, it compels you to get out in the real world and connect. Mobile isn’t just simply refactoring the behaviors of broadcast media,* it invites the receiver to be a participant in shaping the message narrow-casting that message to others.

*Broadcast media is normally defined as commercial media sent to a large group of persons, receivable by a hardware commodity which may or may not be subsidized by the media entity, but does follow specific governmatal and commerce regulations in order to disemenate information. Its not voluntary accept in the fact that you have your choice of channel, not message context.

One of the many questions asked about adding a mobile and social component within ministries misses this key point. Mobile isn’t about what you can push to others, its about what you can do to get them to participate within the story you wish for them to subscribe to.

A question posted today on Twitter by the Ideas Project points to this incoming change in the way we understand and use information. It’s not that the learning, or even the information has changed. What mobile (and social Internet) has invited is this idea that there can and should be more participants crafting and dissemenating the story narriative. Mobile invites response by its very nature. And as mobile marketing analysists have investigated, the response time for communication to mobile devices can be 3-10X greater (in numbers) and measured in minutes (in respect to hours, days) to other media.

It’s therefore easy to say “go mobile,” or “let’s develop a mobile strategy that will put us in the minds (hands) of newer generations of communicators.” However, that might be the wrong approach. Its been seen time and time again on the educational side that learning happens best when students are a part of crafting the message. It was one thing when Jesus was the person visiting the sick and delievering hearts from oppression (Luke 4:18-19), it was another thing entirely when the people he taught to do (live) the same put on such clothing (Acts 2:40-47).

I’d argue that mobile invites us (the Body) to embed into others the ability to craft this story of our faith. Not that previous media or methods couldn’t, but because mobile is so close to the storyteller, that is makes sense to develop and enable others to do so.

What say you? Is this a part of what we’ve been endowed to do (Acts 1:8)? If you will, mobile/mobility inviting a literal practicing of the life we will eventually live (Revelation 1:6; 20:6)?