In Charlotte this past Monday, I became a part of what could be a major milestone in my life – and definitely in the lives of others. The first meeting of Digital Disciples has just happened. Digital Disciples is actually the product of Gave Tavino and I was one of many people that he’s asked to see about interest in a Digital Disciples group in Charlotte, NC. What can I say, I like discipliship.

Tonight’s meeting was pretty much just an interest meeting. We just established basic communication with one another. We talked 🙂

The other two persons who were there tonight were Dale Fletcher and Susan Spalding. Weirdly enough, I sat back for a while when I made it to the venue, I want to watch them for a bit before engaging them. And that was good, both Susan and Dale have a lot that I can learn from.

During this time of just building an initial relationship, we talked about what we expect to get out of this kind of group and two key things stuck out to me: establishing a core group and paying attention to the context of those who’d like to be a part of this group whether walking in the Faith or not. Being one who is already mentoring/discipling a number of people, I see Digital Disciples as just another branch on the tree God is planting me to be. And at the same time, I think He’ll use Digital Disciples to further tweak areas I’m not so strong in.

At the end of the night it was clear though that our hearts were definitely knit towards making Digital Disciples Charlotte a place where people can and will mature in the faith. It will be very interesting towards seeing how God leads us from this point as I think one of the best things is that not all of those interested have showed up yet. That part will definitely add a good kind of sweetness to the tea.

Until next month though, there will just have to be prayer and administration work done. Thankfully, there’s something of a piece of groundwork that is happening. From Twitter, to Facebook, to SMS messaging (yea!), we’ll be working towards getting the word out. So stay tuned, and at the same time keep prayerful. Technology is only a doorway. The key is all things should point us towards maturing in our relationships with God and others by grace through faith. Beyond that, its just tech.

To find out more about Digital Disciples, make sure to visit the website and click on the Local Gatherings tab. There will be some info posted here, Twitter, Facebook, and a few other places as to how to get connected and what’s coming in the next meetings, so stay tuned.

Here’s the hCal event for the next meeting:

November 2, 2009 7 – 8:30pm : Digital Disciples Charlotte at Dilworth Coffee Ballentyne, Charlotte, NC

I ranted this topic/subject on my personal blog, but really it can be summed up in saying that innovation within mobile has nothing to do with applications or devices, it has everything to do with empowerment, education, and enablement.

When the Body is ready to step into mobile – shoot, technology period – in that fashion, then we change things.

When I was in Seattle earlier this year for the BibleTech Conference when I heard from and connected with Gabe Taviano from Digital Disciples. Suffice to say, after meeting him, conversing a few times, and listening to his presentation, I was totally moved to see how MMM and Digital Disciples could work together towards tilling the landscape in terms of using technology as a component towards maturing believers after Christ.

This past Monday evening will be the first meeting of the Charlotte “campus” of Digital Disciples. Considering that I’m writing this a good 4 days before that happens, you’ll have to stay tuned to Facebook or Twitter (#DigitalDisciples, #DigitalDisciplesCLT, and @mobileminmag) for updates. Nevertheless, its a really good thing that if you are anywhere near a Digital Disciples’ plant that you should check out.

IMPORTANT!!! – before some folks get up and arms. Digital Disciples is not designed to replace churches, its designed to augment them by offering technology-enabled discipleship that will lead to greater involvement into and by the local Body. Personally speaking, I look forward to this as items such as the 4Cs and segments like Parents and Mobile Kids will get more face-time in front of the Body.

There’s no denying that this is needed. And in terms of MMM’s mission to educate and edify at the intersection of faith and mobile technology, we are totally making a point to be a part of this movement.

For more information, especially towards looking to start a Digital Disciple’s branch where you are – internationally too – check out the Digital Disciples website. Hope to see you in Charlotte or beyond 😀

Setting up and executing an effective mobile strategy is something that comes up a lot when at conferences or during engagements with various (and prospective) clients. The easy thing to say about that is that you have to have a mobile strategy (speaking solely in terms of faith-based endeavors). Its not an issue of if you will need it, but that you do and need to go about it with much clearer planning an your internet strategy.

Now, without giving away too much of what allows Inner-Linked to survive 😉 I will let you in on a few things that you should be mindful of when thinking about “going mobile” on an organizational level.

• First, understand that mobile is just a window into interaction, not the only door, and should definitely not be the last door. Its a handshake, treat it as such.
• SMS is more effective than a website; so don’t get caught up in mobile web and applications, yet
• Do take advantage of mobile learning via apps and websites already created for mobile use (for example, YouVersion Live)
• Finally, just try something; mobile is still too new to say that everything won’t work. So try something, learn from it, and move to the next door/handshake.

Much like the Mayo Clinic is finding out, you need to have and think hard about a strategy before moving forward. But you have to move, its part of the commission (Matthew 28:18-20) and its the present and future.

Not long after penning the last post, I came across this link to a rant from another perspective of idoltry and how our affluence just sometimes looks really bad. I don’t want to dig into the entire post, but there was a part of the rant that stuck out just from what I’ve dealt with personally on this issue:

…Yesterday I had students begging me for a copy of the Portuguese NIV Study Bible. If they only knew that people in America are spending the equivalent of several months salary on yet one more Bible when their shelves are already sagging from the weight of an endless collection of devotional Bibles and study Bibles in colors to match your every Sunday outfit and target each and every consumer niche…

The entire post with several comments is here, but the explaination of it in better detail and context is over at Think Christian (by the same author).

In light of our gifts, we are also responsible to those who have not.

A very simple commandment simply states: …have no other gods before Me (Deut 5:7-10). And given the Person that said it, one would think that we’d at least have that part down when it comes to mobile and web technology. But we don’t.

Hence this simple reminder to make sure that you are taking active – not passive – steps towards making sure that you are not putting technology and its uses over your/your family’s/your church’s spiritual development. Some of these active steps include:

• Having at least one section of your day where technology is put out of your physical presence to talk to God and your family face-to-face if possible;
• Placing and enforcing boundaries on tech use (for example: no laptops or smartphones in bed after dinner time);
• Teaching about accountability in tech with your children, mentees, and disciples and what that looks like in a healthly, spirit-filled lifestyle;
• and, putting away those pieces of technology that you continue to grapple with long-standing sins/vices with, then seeking godly council towards healing your heard, heart, body, and spirit.

I’m accuetly aware of the challenges that many of us have in this area. But I don’t want you to get into a position where you feel that you have no other choice but the tech in front of you. Take God at his word and ask for (then walk out on) wisdom and understanding in this arena.

If you are a parent and looking for a way to talk to your kids about this, check out our Parents and Mobile Kids series which dives into this a bit more. Yes, technology moves fast, and its sometimes harder to see the idols when you are dealing with your own, but this series is designed to help you engage that conversation with your families.

Above all don’t allow anything to take away your eyes and heart from the God who redeemed you. Of all the things you can do in thanks, being mature in your use of tech is one big one.

You ever have one of those moments when you have a presentation, but moments before you go up, you realize that one of the analogies that you wanted to use to frame your presentation was way off?

That happened to me while in LA for the VSN Summit. And it was probably the best thing that could have happened – as I’ve been able to reflect on things. You see, even though I had this nice slide deck ready to go. I really was a stranger in the mist of this group of media vetrans and innovators. That is, until I started introducing myself to them.

When it came time for me to speak (#3 of the first day), I had the exact metaphor that worked not only for the presentation topic, but for exactly the impression that I think people should be getting from a mobile-enabled lifestyle: a handshake.

One of the things about a handshake is that it is almost like getting a second chance for a first impression. Someone might look a particular way, but once you’ve been introduced and the handshake happens, your perceptions adapt and change. That’s a good thing, physical and personal interactions should cause us to change our perceptions of people and the world around us. Its my hope that one of the uses of mobiles within the Body would follow along a similar action-set. That the introduction of mobile enabled services and applications would extend another chance for someone to get to know us just as much as we want to introduce them to our faith.

And to be honest, I think its something that could work – just given the response from those at the summit. You see, I don’t think that its just about the development environment, bling, applications, or even the ability of us to be connected that makes the point that mobile is useful in ministry. Its that avenue with mobile that we take that invites others to want to change their perceptions of us.

This is something that can happen with mobile devices, apps, or whatever. But we go to others in full confidence that God will take our faith in that moment and produce something that will someday turn into a part of life that glorifies Him. We go into those communicative events hands open so to speak. Our hands – while holding a mobile device – are open with the possibilities that someone wants to connect with us and see just how our lives are intersecting with theirs at that point.

Its just an idea, and it could be fleshed out in so many ways – hence the title being calledan idea. But, its something that I think many times, if we just grasp the fact that our mobiles are a part of just presenting an open handshake to Christ, that we could have that second chance to use that fourth screen for a first impression that just might take us all to an eternal joy. Your thoughts?

Here are some updates from the folks over at Internet Evangelism Day:

Church Website Opportunities

‘Desperately Seeking Lodgers’ is a new short parable from Internet Evangelism Day, highlighting the need for church websites to be people-oriented. ‘”We need more lodgers,” said Maria Silversmith to her husband Milo one evening…’

www.internetevangelismday.com/church-evangelism.php

Campaign for Prominent URLs

Internet Evangelism Day has initiated CPU – the ‘Campaign for Prominent URLs’, to encourage churches to display their website URL in large readable letters, so that passing motorists can easily see it.

www.internetevangelismday.com/church-website-publicity.php

The Church Website Design Questionnaire

The Church Website Design Questionnaire has become a valued tool for many churches. It provides a custom report, based on the answers a church webmaster enters online, suggesting ways to make the church site more attractive and user-friendly to outsiders.

www.internetevangelismday.com/church-website-design.php

Popular Culture – A Forgotten Gift

Internet Evangelism Day suggests that Christians do not often use a God-given evangelistic starting point – popular culture. “Suppose God sent you a letter. And in it, He offered you a gift – a simple evangelistic approach similar to the parables that Jesus used. Something that would engage with people’s interests, and employ a common language and experience. Would you want to use it?”

www.internetevangelismday.com/popular-culture.php

Online Training for Digital Ministry

Internet Evangelism Day lists a range of new resources to help Christians learn more about online ministry:

www.internetevangelismday.com/training.php

Speakers Available for Conferences

If you need a speaker about any aspect of digital evangelism for a conference, fraternal, staff consultation or Bible College, you can now request a speaker from Internet Evangelism Day’s panel of experts, available in a number of countries around the world. When traveling distance is a problem, most are also available to linkup via a Skype or telephone conference session.

www.internetevangelismday.com/speaker.php

Using Contact Cards for Outreach

Contact cards are an often-overlooked way to enhance a face-to-face interaction. As well as carrying your personal information, a card can invite people to visit a church website, and/or some recommended outreach sites that explain the Gospel clearly to outsiders. Internet Evangelism Day has a webpage explaining strategies for using contact cards, with a guide about using online design and print services to make your own cards quickly and easily. Pricing for 250 cards can be remarkably cheap – only a few pennies or cents each.

www.internetevangelismday.com/contact-card.php

Advance Notice of Internet Evangelism Day 2010

Internet Evangelism Day, the annual web-ministry focus day for churches, is set for April 25 2010. To mark the day, churches can create a short program, using free downloads from the IE Day site: Powerpoint, video clips, handouts and music, to investigate and showcase the huge potential for outreach using the Web.

www.internetevangelismday.com

For these and other information from Internet Evangelism Day check out their blog.

If I had to rank my experiences of the Visual Story Network Summit, it would have to be one of the questions that I was asked after presenting:

(Paraphrased) Can I ask you a question? And you can be honest with me, I hope that you are. Do you send text messages while you drive? I looked at him blankly, impressed, and convicted – simply saying that “yes, I do SMS while driving.

At that moment, everything that I spoke in that presentation meant nothing, as I showed by that answer my clear selfishness towards tech over people.

For all of the adrenaline that I had going through me, feeling a lot like I did a horrible job – that question not only slapped me back to reality, but in so many respects, leveled the kind of accountability to mobile that I many times do not display at all.

Truly, I’ve thought about that question all weekend; and today when driving back and forth to/from the office, I picked up my mobile intending to SMS a few people, only to remember that for all that I have in my hands, the lives of others on the road are so much more important.

Christ asks us simply to give our lives for someone else. When we text while driving, we are being selfish; taking the inventory call that their lives matter less than our own. Totally convicted by that moment, I’m changed. I hope that in Christ’s stead, and as accountabilty for yourself and others around you, that you would consider putting down the mobile while driving as well.

Greetings and blessings to all. This past week I attended the Visual Story Network Summitand had a great time connecting and engaging the hearts and minds of a slew of incredible people. Besides my own presentation, there were a number of panels and presentations from others much more versed in the art and ministry of digital story telling that I. And yet, I felt very much in the company of equals.

Many of you are visiting MMM for the first time today (and in the coming days) and so a lot of what you might find here can be deep or overly technical. Don’t let that discourage you from searching the site. Concerning mobile and ministry, there’s a lot that has been talked about here over the course of the last 4-5 years. That being said, here’s a bit of the notes that I scribbled on the last day of the VSN Summit that will end up being content topics here in the posts/days to come:

“Copy the Master”, 4Cs Framework, Mentoring with Mobile (The Handshake Idea), Idolizing Technology over Spiritual Development, Accountability after the Presentation, Mobile as A Windows into God’s Story, Best Practices in Spiritual and Mobile COmmunication, Generalized COmmunication Issues Exposed by Mobile, Pointing People to VSN and Other Mobile Video Thoughts, Instead of Making Networks – Be a Network, Face the Book, and Creating a Mobile Story Project

All of those are subjects and titles of posts to come. There’s certainely some more beyond those as well. I’d like to invite you to join MMM for a ride into those things next. And at the same time, feel open to ask questions and seek answers where your life intersects with mobile technology.

As for me, I’ve been challenged to live in faith concerning MMM. I have no clue of what to do, or what is right, only that God and the Body are requiring me to lead more than I ever have before. Your prayers are definitely petitioned for.

And by the way, if she’s reading, I’ll be looking for that Palm Pre video review 🙂

Whether mobile or something else, God’s story is the greatest story that so many people have never heard/smelled/seen/touched. Wanna help a bro change that?