Today marks the beginning of the Lenten season in much of the Church. As is the case every time this season rolls around, I’m reminded of my youth and the years spent within the Roman Catholic tradition. Whether you were Catholic or not (I was not), you had to attend service at some point during the day, and then opt whether to receive ashes on your forehead. Depending on the moment, I’d say yes, understanding some of the significance of those ashes. And then there was the humor of trying to figure out what it was on our foreheads when it didn’t look like a cross. Funny moments, and certainly one of those moments where these days, I wonder how the common occurrences of mobile tech with kids could turn both that tradition and humor on its head.

The ashes though aren’t the end of the experience. Even in those youthful moments, teachers and parents would ask “what are you going to be fasting for Lent?” Some classes got competitive with the fasting – with classes logging who’s not watching TV or students cleaning up their language for 40 days. There are those folks who’ve taken to making those 40 days into 40 acts of kindness. And then there are those folks who look at pushing just a bit further, deriving that idea of a Lenten fast from the framework of the perspective in Isaiah 58 – removing something from your life but putting that into another’s life.

No matter how you spend those 40 days, if you are observing Lent, then do more than just fast for the sake of it, or serve just for the sake of it. As our friends over at Church Mag made note of the other day, “it isn’t just about the “giving up,” it’s about getting ourselves mentally and spiritually ready for Easter.”

We’ve got a list of apps to also assist on your Lenten activities. But, you don’t need an app, just a dedication towards some time to contemplate on what the resurrection means inside and beyond our traditions.

Doing a video article last month was pretty fun, and so I wanted to continue with using voice as a means of talking about some of the issues that relate to mobile ministry. In this video, I talk about the big picture of mobile apps in ministry, based on a few emails received and conferences that are upcoming.

If there’s a topic that you think would be a good fit for this format, get in contact with us with the topic and reason why and from there let’s get a discussion going.

One of the complaints that I hear from time to time is how religious apps (and services) are functional, but lack beauty. If you will, many are pretty in functionality, but not always in asthetics. That’s not always the case, but it happens often enough that one has to wonder what happened to all of those skills that did the Sistine Chapel and other works of art we admire so much.

Per my usual travels through the web, I wandered into Communication Arts Magazine and some of the events/competitions they have going on this year. I made it through a few items and started wondering when we’ll start seeing mobile apps from faith/religious organizations get nominated (in the Interactive category). As we talked about before, there are several design trends that do mark some items, but I wonder when we’ll see some more.

Some beautiful apps/services in this domain? Here are a few:

• Bible Bloom
• John Dyer’s Bib.ly
• Mars Hill’s Windows Phone App
• TabTale’s Children’s Books for iPad

Those are just a few which come to mind. I’m sure there are others (well-know and not so). What are some of those beautiful apps and services to you?

Earlier this week, I recorded a new video post that was supposed to go up today, but since I’ve been a bit lazy in terms of uploading it to our current stable of videos, I’m swapping it out for an appearance earlier this week as the featured co-host for this week’s edition (episode 35) of The Voicemail. Here’s a snippet about what The Voicemail is about:

James Whatley and Stefan Constantinescu get together every week for 30 minutes to talk about the mobile industry and anything else they might fancy.

And here’s what Episode 35 is about:

This week James is joined by long time listener and mobile blogger, Antoine RJ Wright. Antoine writes about the nexus of mobile technology and faith at Mobile Ministry Magazine; he and James have been fans of each others’ work and have talking online for many, many years. Stefan’s a fan too, and man, will he be pissed when he finds out he missed him…

This week: more Blackberry coverage, some MWC previews, and a rather interesting piece of news on graphene (seriously).

Now, don’t let me hold you back from taking a listen (about 35min). Once you do, definitely make sure to rate it on iTunes, give it +1 on Google+, and subscribe to the podcast (RSS) to hear James, Stefan, and the other featured co-hosts of this mobile-focused podcast.

A lot of times, you can look at the news and mounds of information that come from various sources and its just so pessemistic. I bet that to some degree that we are guilty of that here, MMM hasn’t always been the most chipper place. And yet there is some good news out there if you are looking for it. For example, take this series of data points shared by Anil Dash:

• The percentage of people in the world living on less than $1.25 per day has been cut in half since 1990, ahead of the schedule of the Millennium Development Goals which hoped to reach this target by 2015.
• The number of deaths to tuberculosis has been cut 40% in the past twenty years.
• The consumption of ozone-depleting substances has been cut 85% globally in the last thirty years.
• The percentage of urban dwellers living in slums globally has been cut from 46.2% to 32.7% in the last twenty years.

Read of the rest of The World is Getting Better at Anil Dash’s website… and pick up your perspective towards what’s really changing in the midst this powerful time of life.

Its always a joy when other ministries jump into the area of mobile ministry and begin to take their unique content or audiences and do something familiar and different at the same time. One of the most recent examples of this comes from our friends at Renew Outreach. As you might recall, about a year ago, we interviewed the founder/president of Renew (David Palusky), and now we are seeing some of outgrowth of parts of that conversation that were not covered on-camera.

What now appears on the Renew Outreach website is a section dedicated to the topic of mobile evangelism. Besides the previously linked video, there’s also a decent explanation towards the methods used in mobile evangelism. Here’s a snippet from that page towards what this section is aiming to do:

Currently, there are around six billion mobile phones (cellphones) worldwide. Most of these devices are capable of playing audio and video files that tell the Gospel story. Renew World Outreach has created these training videos to empower mobile evangelists so that they can make use of the three main tools for distributing Gospel content – such as audio Bibles or the Jesus Film – to mobile phones in rural areas. To begin the video training series, start with the Bluetooth Intro video…

Renew is also good friends with the folks over at the Kiosk Evangelism Project and so its not too surprising to see some of the same methods and tactics used here in order to share the faith and extend the viability of content production efforts.

For more information, in addition to utilizing the mobile evangelism efforts for your own teams, visit the Mobile Evangelism section at Renew Outreach. If you, or someone you know, is involved with missions to the literal ends of the earth – areas where we are just beginning to explore – then I’d recommend Renew Outreach’s expertise here as well – they specialize in audio, video, and solar technologies that speak to the conditions faced at the edge.

Over at Church Tech Today, we recently contributed an article looking at mobile computing trends for pastors. We took a look at it from a different perspective than what you might find on other sites which might talk about ministry and technology. Here’s a snippet:

…First off, a maturing of some of the best of the genre in terms of Bible applications. Logos 5 and Olive Tree were released in the 2nd half of last year and present themselves well able to take your studies and sermons into the most necessary topics of the new year. I’m also hearing a good bit of chatter about non-English content in these and other platforms for study, which is going to be key for many ministries who have made a goal of discipleship for this year.

Social networks are entrenched, and its a good idea to continue investments with Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and others. However, you might be surprised to see the direction these networks trend this year. Whereas pastors were looking to add to the signal and noise, I see 2013 as being the year where pastors will pull back from being present in so many networks and doing more towards being effective in conversation and communication. There’s going to still be some confusion amongst some pastors as to which networks work best, but I see 2013 and 2014 as being those years where these matters are figured out…

Read the rest of Mobile Ministry Trends for Pastors at Church Tech Today.

Do you have trends that you see coming? What about if these might feel a bit further along than where you might be thinking – are you prepared or are you stepping ahead?

Last week, ministries gathered in the Netherlands for the 2013 iteration of the ICCM Europe Conference. While we were invited, finances and scheduling kept us from being able to attend. Nevertheless, there was a very healthy slate of presentations and conversations covering topics related to mobile ministry, missions/evangelism tech, internet evangelism, non-English language content, and security in tech.

Last week, we were also passed a note of two of the presentations from the 2012 MMF Consultation, here links to those:

• Implementing SMS Outreach
• Preparing for the Post Mobile World of 2019

If we get a  notification of additional topics, we’ll update this post with the links to those presentations. In the meanwhile, check out Mobile Advance and GEM eDOT for more info about those presentation topics and to collaborate/contract their services for getting setup.

One month already down for 2013 and we’re rolling with getting through some of those resolutions that we’ve posted about earlier. To recap what those resolutions are:

1. Explain, emphasize, and demonstrate the theological underpinnings to mobile ministry
2. Detail and expand on knowledge of Non-English Language/Cultural expressions of mobile ministry
3. Increase number of and collaboration with ministry partners
4. Refine and release v2 of the Mobile Ministry Methodology
5. Embed Mobile, Not Mobile As Layer

We’ve got a few things brewing that will bear fruit soon towards all of these. What about you and any mobile or mobile ministry resolutions that you’ve put forth, how are you doing with them?