Two contexts here. The night before writing this, I was at a Bible study where we went over the story of Zaccehaeus in Luke 12. My notes were… different. Then there was this post from our friends at Church Tech Today talking about apps which you can use on your smartphone for Bible studies. Good stuff right? Well, let’s just push this a bit. Let’s actually study the text and speak towards those with different types of learning styles at the same time – with mobile and tablets in the midst of the solution.

Things started when we got the assignment beforehand to read Luke 19:1-12 and have something ready to talk about during the study. Had the thought to draw the text, not just write notes. So, that’s what I did:

• Adobe Ideas
• Penultimate
• All Books

All Books is the Bible reader that I’m using these days on my Nokia N8. Having that open, I drew three of the four scenes happening in that section of the Gospel on my iPad. Once I was finished drawing, I imported the image into Penultimate. I then started scribbling notes about the text in subsequent pages on a Penultimate notebook dedicated to just this study.

Thing was, I started thinking and writing a ton. I needed more than just the notes from the NET Bible that I was using. So, I fired up the web browser and went to Wikipedia. Learning more about the text meant that I needed to learn more about Jericho. That’s where I went next.

• NET Bible (open licensed Biblical texts)
• Wikipedia (Safari Mobile or any web browser)

My notes became more and more about the sketch and scribbles. But, there was also the study to be had. How does such this approach with a mobile, tablet, sketches, a browser, and a collection of info into a ink-based notebook work out once I get into a group setting?

Pretty well actually. Because I had this nice mix of linear facts and scribbles, I was able to keep with the various points of the discussion, and even added a few more pages to the Penultimate notebook noting some additional facts, comments, and questions stated throughout. As I listened and scribbled, I noticed something, one of the younger participants in the study was more interested in my scribbling than in what was being talked about. It seemed (later confirmed) that she understood the pictures moreso than the amount of words we were spouting out. That got me thinking about mobiles and learning styles.

You see. We are really used to sprinting towards some aspect of literacy and comprehension. Don’t sell this point short, our sermons, lectures, and studies all start from the point that people want to read and have the capacity to understand the text and the resulting discussions. But, what I saw in that small exchange with that younger study participant was something different. She was enamored with the fact that I was doing more than listening, I was drawing what I understood. 

Remember the statistic about literacy we quoted from the Orality Network some time back. 60% of the world is or chooses to be non-verbal. We do a great job in making sure that people can read a Bible, or even share the textual understandings we get. But, with mobile we can do more. Reimagine the Scriptures by taking account of what mobile environments can do. Go beyond linking text resources to text resources. Heck, go beyond just reading. 

No, everyone isn’t an artist. Some people might take this and run with creating video snippets using their mobile and want to learn how to stitch those together. Some folks just might need smaller snippets of text. I’ve got this statement that’s been sticking around for a number of weeks now:

Shouldn’t biblical literacy also mean that we can build our own bibles

Not just building your own bibles. Understanding and being able to teach that wisdom to someone else. Going mobile with your Bible studies, lectures, and sermons can go further than just lookups, collections, and reading plans. That’s not to say these aren’t good enough, but that we can do more. This is how I’m pressing the pedal. Do you push things the same in your communities, or, are you just getting around to the apps that do things the same way you’ve always done them?

We’ve recently added a new resource to our Case Studies/Resources page titled Evangelism in the Digital Age: Media Case Studies Vol. 1 (Dan Henrich, 2012). Here’s a small snippet of what to expect from this resource:

This is a series of case studies that will help novice and professional alike learn how to use all forms of media in the evangelism process. These case studies come from Africa, Asia and Latin America and most have discussion questions to help the reader grasp the key parts of these examples from radio, television/film, mobile/Internet media.

To download this resource, including information on upcoming versions, visit Dan Henrich’s website.

Last week, or so, I wrote over on my personal site (Blog.AntoineRJWright) a post talking about this idea of spatial interfaces and how the concept of such a means of navigation intersects directly with the thoughts I’ve been having about theological (more specifically, biblical) literacy and what that means we should be enabling given this age of connectivity, productivty, and access to tools of publishing (re: internet). Here’s a snippet:

As I was just going through Twitter and seeing what all people have been posting about today. I came across a neat Biblical visualization from Tim Challies. Seeing this reminded me that I’ve not done much of an update here (or MMM) about the All Books Project that I’ve been working on. So, let’s talk spatial interfaces (a topic seen in a recent meetup I attended) and theological literacy – and why these merge nicely.

Read of the rest of Spatial Interfaces, Theological Literacy at Blog.AntoineRJWright

I make some bold claims in that piece (“theological literacy isn’t just reading/comprehension, but its able to (re)create the Word contextually” for example). What are your thoughts? Especially for those of you whom are teachers/pastors, can you teach to this level? And if not, are you misapplying the term literacy in light of the command in Matthew 28:18-20?

We’ve talked a good bit about religious software going beyond Bibles and commentaries and here we’ve got an example of one that pushes the context on prayer and community.

Shoebox Prayers is a mobile and desktop app (web-based) which a person can use to send and recieve prayer requests from all around the world. Here are some of the sailent points about Shoebox Prayers:

Shoebox Prayers is built in 15 languages with auto-translation. After choosing your language, everything sent and received within the app will be in that language (custom language translation engine has been developed for this app). Languages include German, Spanish, French, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, Russian, two in Chinese, Japanese, Haitian Creole, Italian, Portuguese and Hindi along with English.

After creating an account and logging in the user will be taken to their own Dashboard and personal Prayer Board. Personal prayer reminders can be set (which are sent from the app to any device registered with the Shoebox Prayers account). This Prayer Board also includes the ability to join and/or create private prayer circles, one-on-one accountability relationships, and open (public) prayer circles where prayer can occur with people from all over the world. Posting a direct link to Facebook to invite FB friends to join only takes one click on the app. Tutorials are available to help assist in understanding how to maximize the features of the Shoebox Prayers.

The desktop and mobile app will work across all platforms (Apple, Android, Blackberry) and is web based. It is a cost/premium serivce ($4.99/year). However, you can download the app to any device(s) you own by simply going to the Shoebox Prayers website.

We get statements often when talking about MMM that people just don’t look at mobile in this light, but that it’s one that now they have to consider. You can’t blame this approach, much of our time is spent amongst people who live in such a way that faith and ethics plays an active role into most areas of their lives. That said, organizations always move slower than individuals, and so making a perception change on that level is a bit harder to broker. Then again, we do have folks like Tomi Ahonen, who tends to speak right to the heart of the matter for organizations:

…Despite the growing prevalence of mobile devices, Ahonen warns that the future isn’t going to be about mobile only, but about its role in cross-platform interactions. He says television, radio and other media won’t die, but that mobile will continue to grow as a complementary media channel that does other things like payments.

“US jewellers Tiffany’s e-commerce website wasn’t optimised for mobile. After optimising it, sales grew 125% from the website,” says Ahonen. He says this proves there isn’t going to be “one Internet”.

“The PC Web needs to be PC-optimised, the mobile needs to be mobile-optimised.”

Ahonen says in Japan all websites are designed for mobile first and that it should be the same in Africa.

In another example of the potential of mobile, Ahonen says in China mobile newspapers have converted 39% of their readers to pay for MMS news headlines. “’Tomorrow’s headlines today’ is the selling point.” China Mobile has 40m paying users on SMS- and MMS-based twice-daily headline services of branded newspapers’ headlines…

Kind of blunt, and frankly speaking, probably a bit further out there than most want to plan and work towards. Still, the facts about mobile are clear, and the implications of such a change on several aspects of society just can’t be ignored. We either see mobile for what it is, and what it will be; or, we wither under it hoping for some other kind of savior to communications and opportunity to live this faith we espouse towards.

Last year, literally a year ago, we put forth a list of recommended mobile and tablet apps and web services for pastors. This year, let’s hear from you:

What are your top mobile and tablet apps?

Bonus question: what kind of apps are you (or your pastor) missing which would be most beneficial?

If it seems as if we’ve been pulling from the list of contributors noted on the recent Carnival of the Mobilists, that’s only because these have been items also sitting in our periphery as notes to pay attention to as we derive some knowledge and wisdom about mobile which is applicable to mobile ministry. Sometimes, this just happens to intersect well with other’s views of what is important in mobile.

Another set of insights pulled comes from a report by Mobify’s CEO (Igor Faletski) relayed via GigaOm. These insights are important to us because MMM uses Mobify to transcode and deliver our mobile website (http://m.mobileministrymagazine.com). Where he is taking is platform, we eventually follow in some respect. So, in hearing some of the lessons he learned in a recent excursion with Google’s Mobilizing Mobile event, there just might be something we could gain as a movement going forward.

Here are the individual points (described as numbered lessons:

1. Set the agenda
2. Make your innovation tangible
3. Focus, focus and focus
4. Track the micro, decide on the macro
5. Bringing it together

Read the details and examples of these ‘lesson points’ at the GigaOm article.

Our Reflections, Actions Forward
Its really easy to read something like this and just take it as another set of perspectives from a leader who’s gotten there and is basically setting the pace. But, we needed to go a bit futher here. How these lessons applied to MMM pushed forward some thoughts and initiatives that were already underway.

For example, one of the motions that we wanted to emphasize this year is that while we are in favor of the app movement many are prescribing towards in reference to going mobile, an app isn’t a strategy, and focusing on an app, or series of apps, would be a losing proposition with the kind of support we could push there (see how we explained about resource constraints with mobile apps/websites in a previous article. We decided therefore to decommission all of our mobile apps to an experimental status, and focus on cleaning up our use of WordPress so that we could be more readily accessible in a mobile format (see the Mobile/Web App Beta). There’s still a significant level of work needing to be done behind the scenes in terms of article categorization and dynamic page templates, but, not to the minute level of needing dedicated attention to each mobile platform out there. Will it take us longer to have a “solution?” You bet. Will we be better as a lighthouse for the extent of audiences we have here? Most definitely. That’s our focus, and the clarity we aim towards here.

Your steps might not be as drastic (then again…). What you need to decide as you are going down this path of being mobile, is that your success will hinge on the amount of planning, focus and execution that you can do or manage. If you are trying to control too much, however, you’ll find that the tentacles of mobile ministry will choke the purposes you initially had for your project, leaving you quite still in a mobile world.

50 mission strategists representing 40 organizations* participated in the second Mobile Ministry Consultation sponsored by the Mobile Ministry Forum (MMF). Presentations and discussions addressed a wide variety of issues critical to the use of mobile devices in ministry (see the topic list below). Collaborative outcomes of the consultation include plans to develop training resources to equip ministries and local believers to implement mobile ministry, publish online courses in “feature phone” formats, develop a taxonomy for mobile ministry, develop a Smartphone app for SMS crowd-sourced broadcasting, and a hold “hack-a-thon” competition to develop an evangelistic app for mobile devices.

View the entire executive summary, including links to presentations (slides, media, and audio), and contact information to the Mobile Ministry Forum at Mobile Advance.

A few days ago my friend Elmo (no, not the one one From Sesame Street) posted this article on Facebook about the power of Introversion. It’s a thought-provoking piece and, coming from the Philippines, one which spoke to my friend about the nature of Western Civilization (particularly the USA). The scales in this culture are set up for Extroverts to thrive, and Introverts to adapt. It’s an astute point. In fact the article actually quotes a pastor who believes that God isn’t pleased with him because he “likes spending time alone.” That’s just twisted.

Read of the rest of Always On at Painfully Hopeful

Format

A few days ago my friend Elmo (no, not the one one From Sesame Street) posted this article on Facebook about the power of Introversion. It’s a thought-provoking piece and, coming from the Philippines, one which spoke to my friend about the nature of Western Civilization (particularly the USA). The scales in this culture are set up for Extroverts to thrive, and Introverts to adapt. It’s an astute point. In fact the article actually quotes a pastor who believes that God isn’t pleased with him because he “likes spending time alone.” That’s just twisted.
Read of the rest of Always On at Painfully Hopeful
Path:

Another week, and another Carnival of the Mobilists has been published. This week’s edition has been published at Blog.AntoineRJWright and features a healthy serving of contributions from various points in and around the world of mobile [blogging]. Here’s a snippet of the selections:

Belen Pena’s entry for this week’s carnvial focuses on the schemas and contexts for usability testing for mobile software:

The moral to this story is that handset usability affects test results. A wonderfully designed website will feel difficult and cumbersome when used with a phone plagued by usability issues. Not that feature phones are badly designed (some are, some aren’t), but they are probably not optimised for web browsing or application usage. Similarly, not all touch-screen phones are built equal, and some of them will perform better than others.

David Olsen gives us a review of the book Head First, Mobile Web:

…The book includes hands-on lessons with each chapter (including code you can download) and useful “case studies” to make it clear how each technique should be used. By covering the latest trends like Responsive Web Design and HTML5 APIs and some old school techniques like device detection and CSS-MP “Head First Mobile Web” makes a great resource for anyone looking to get into mobile web development or, like myself, looking to brush up on their skills…

Read the read of the 260th Carnival of the Mobilists at Blog.AntoineRJWright.

If you would like to contribute to the Carnival of the Mobilists, follow the instructions at the bottom of that post, or visit the Carnival of the Mobilists website where instructions and the hosting schedule lies.