I was recently exposed to some information that has me looking a bit more circumspectly around the aims and demonstrations of mobile ministry. That information, though confidental in orgin and application, does open a point that is a bit more openly talked about – the need for something beyond missional evangelism as methods of engaging and maintaining faith communities.
Beyond missional evangelism? Yes. Beyond simply reaching outward with messages of salvation. Where are those efforts that reach into the fabric of lifestyles, usually lifestyles which leave little room or consideration for finishing the thought, “what are the ethical and spiritual implications of this course of life I’ve chosen?”
Some of us have heard of efforts such as Business as Mission (BAM), where the aims are to transform the economic fortunes of a community by using the Gospel as a foundational method for training, apprentiseship, and business sustainability. What happens when mobile ministry applies some of the same constructs towards its efforts? I think that we get something that looks like an extension of the experience layers that compose Mobile in Education/Discipleship, Mobile in Media, Mobile in Analytics/Development/Marketing, and Mobile in Missions/Evangelism (read our previous discussion on these areas of mobile ministry).
If you will, instead of starting with “let me give you this religious application,” we go the route of “let me train you will this skill that will enable you to share your life, while displaying a lifestyle that mimics Christ’s.” This can look like creating software developers, but I think that it also looks like multi-linugal teachers. It looks like the person who build the nets for fishing who is learning on the side how to create classes on how to manage issues with his family as a community counselor. It looks like the oral story teller who is learning how to record themselves on video for younger age groups. Or… well, what does it look like?
That document that was shared with me asks that missions takes out of its head this idea that there’s a funded group of persons for short and long term engagements and exchanges that for persons capable of starting and maintining businesses which speak to the need for economic and spiritual enablement in those areas. Given what I’ve seen from rural, urban, and international missional engagements, I think there’s a good chance for spiritually-driven entreprenurs to pull this off. For mobile ministry, this might be the best course of sustainability.
Your thoughts?
Caught this a little bit ago from The Living Labs Global Mobility Report:
Tech Exposing Communuty Gaps
Thursday, September 30th, 2010In a recent conversation with a local university chair, we talked a good bit about the motivations behind an initiative like MMM and its eventual aims. One of these aims is to fill in some of the gaps that other areas of our various societies commonly find need. In context to that college, one of those gaps is within education.
Education is one part learning the necessary skills to succeed in the current environment, and another enabling the skillets to sustain life in future environments. As one educational professional put it (paraphrase) we don’t teach kids today to deal with our technology challenges, but the ones they will encounter when they enter the workforce/adult world in 2025.
This means that we aren’t advocating digital learning methods or multimedia communication channels because they are the hip thing to do, but because in the context of the world that is developing, these will be the primary (or only) channels, and our ability to both see the current and develop for the future is key to growth.
Our opinion here is that there’s a lot of creative and intellectual capital in churches that can and should be used for this. Not just in the respect of making Bibles available, or putting our message on every communication channel possible – but we have the potential to fill in gaps where policy or traditional methods are failing or aren’t sufficient.
My friend, in our conversation yesterday, pointed to a simple but profound question: if school districts can no longer afford social and creative educational programming, why wouldn’t the local church seek to fill that need because they have the need of trained producers for such efforts? If there is a problem with the reading and comprehension levels of students in some socio-economic classes, yet there are several churches in the community, why wouldn’t they band together to create the learning and elearning curriculums and resources to feed the need?
If you will, the technology in our hands allows us to be mortar to some of the walls that badly need attention around us. What is stopping us from addressing the gaps, or rather, what do we need to develop within our contexts to become the mortar to the walls around us?
Tags: community, community development, education, resources, students
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