I’ve got a small but probably good-working theory about mobile and many people who are categorized as being “unreached:” I think that mobile presents the opportunity to reach them – personally, effectively, and consistently.

Its been my experience that mobile isn’t an answer though, its another tool on the utility belt, that when used in light of its positive and negative implications, can have a profound impact on the teacher and student alike towards maturing in Christ.

Its to that end and this point that I’m speaking in Los Angeles right about as this is going up at the Visual Story Network’s 2009 Leadership Summit Conference. I was asked to speak on the subject of mobile, specifically where it fits in a world where visual media (film, movie, YouTube, etc.) has become a driver behind many evangelical influences.

Mobile is only a piece though to the entire puzzle. There’s more than just visual media that’s effected by mobile, and certainly there are more areas to which these lessons in mobile can be applied.

What is clear though is that every new technological paradigm gives us a second chance to make that first impression. That impression being that Jesus truly is the Way, the Truth, and the Life to which we not just find peace towards living, but a hope towards living with Him next.

To those not able to be at the conference, I hope that you can enjoy the presentation slides, and chime in via Twitter (@mobileminmag). Mobile is only the 4th screen, but the chance to impact someone with Christ’s life/love is something that we can’t let wait until a second meeting.

A few days ago, I came across a really neat link from Nokia’s recent Nokia World Conference. It was of a possibility for some future uses of mobile-like technologies combined with the real world and the Internet. Here’s the video:

For the way that I think about how I interact with media and information, especially within a church or bible study setting, I can see some value in some of the interaction approaches taken here.

One of those things that I really like though, and something that I could see in some level – maybe not with the glasses – is that idea of the world as an interface layer. If you will, seeing and interacting with the world around you, with the context of linked data on top of it.

So much like the woman viewing her news posts within the “browser,” I could see a host of users within a church or bible study setting instead of being shown the text of Scripture, seeing just verses on a screen. And then as they hold up their mobile’s cameras, or special glasses, they would unlock the ability to interact with that data. Sort of like Logos’ RefTagger, but instead of being done on a browser, its being done with some character recognition, along with connection to data streams (personal, church’s, and publisher’s – all working together).

Beyond that, I would see a shared space, something like YouVersion Live that would be an aggregate place for those saved/shared discussions. With this total interactive experience being a part of that door that we as the Body offer to the world around us.

Its a dream, and one that I have often – everytime that I open my mobile in church I want to do just this scene of linking my data to the pastor’s and others in the community. But, its one that I think would be possible, if we were to take a chance by mixing up things a bit, and allowing the tech to actually speak towards how it was created to be used. What do you think?

Or, we could pull something off like this with announcements and other parts of print Bibles while we wait for things like the originally posted video to happen 😉

A nice post has gone up recently at Collide Magazine titled A Biblical Definition of Ministry in a Technological Age. I know that I have some opinions about this piece, but I’m really more interested in hearing what some of you have to say. Given the highly techie nature of this blog and its audience, I know that our responses can be biased, but I’m intrigued what this community thinks after reading this piece.

Still battling a cold, and this has given me time to rest and reflect a bit towards MMM and the kinds of thinking that happen here. When we started, it was about seeing all those streams of connections between mobile and non-mobile use. Then, there’s devices and services that started allowing for more play within this space.

We moved to a common understanding of mobile devices, and understanding tendencies and behaviors about them. We looked at the implications of mobile earlier this year, and in a presentation next week, I get to bring forth another aspect of mobility that I think is important to consider – context.

When I looked at this new image-based search technology that IBM is developing calledSAPIR (Search in Audio-Visual Content Using Peer-to-peer Information Retrieval), I started to ask the question of how do we interpret context when it comes to mobiles. There’s context in devices, context in locations, and even context in the text that morphs and transforms how we then dialog about the connections we have to our faith. We see something happen, and our mobiles are there as a recorder to the event. We want to engage people or environments different, and our mobiles provide a context to the best type of communicative event.

This isn’t to say that mobiles are the only elements of context, but as a media/technology, it plays a role that is both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. I wonder how future generations will look back on this mobile phenomena, and then ask how the Body was aware of, and then responded to the implications and challenges of mobile. And at the same time, I wonder what in these times will inspire others to reach forward in innovative spaces, creating a new context for faith to come alive and reach into the lives of others.

More: Really good stuff coming out of the Mobilize conference. This post on the future of the mobile web points to some of what I have talked about in this post and others. Of course, as the Body, we go further than just the technology and get to the point of making sure that the Gospel stays at the front of all that we say and do with mobile/tech.

Max Lucado has written a book that is timely and appropriate for our times. His book, Fearless, pointedly addresses the fears we face every single day.

These fears could originate from unfamiliar, distant lands from a people whose language and culture we are alien. Or, they could originate from deep within spawned from experience, pain and failure. The tag-line is bold and unafraid, Imagine your life without fear. Thats quite a tall order to addressbut, one that Lucado successfully achieves with his extraordinary spiritual perspective, keen insight into God’s Word and his skillful storytelling acumen.

Max Lucado seems to have an otherworldly gift that enables him to view some of the most harrowing and difficult questions from uniquely spiritual eyes that leaves readers both enthralled and inspired after each and every chapter.

According to Lucado, the key to overcoming is in one’s relationship with Jesus Christ forged from trust. Lucado brings home his message by bringing back to Jesus and his promises by bringing us back to God. His message throughout reminds us to hold onto Jesus promises… Jesus personal convictions.

Lucado doesnt tell us how to manage fear; or how to mitigate it. He’s training us through biblical teachings and principles how to live without fear. Other than the Bible, what other book today addresses this topic head-on, and addresses our fears dead-on?

Review written by Kevin Agot

Max Lucados “His Name is Jesus” is a beautiful book in every sense of the word. The outsized, hard cover book is one that you would proudly display on your coffee table or offer as a gift for someone special. “His Name is Jesus” traces Jesus steps from his birth to his mission, his death to his resurrection and ultimately, his legacy.

Each section of every chapter of this book has excerpted portions from Lucados previous books. Lucado’s books such as “God Came Near”, “Just Like Jesus,” and “When God Whispers Your Name” are part of a host of books quoted in this compilation which serve to best highlight aspects of different stages of Jesus’ life.

Lucado has such a powerful grasp of words. He masterfully uses the economy of a sentence to dramatically emphasize God in short, restrained, encapsulated prose. Here are some literary gems as examples:

• “God had entered the world as a baby.”
• “The hands that hung the stars in the heavens also wiped away the tears of the widow and the leper.”
• “Angels were only a prayer away. Couldnt they have taken the spittle away?”

Lucado’s words capture the imagination, move the heart and stir the soul. It would be difficult to pry yourself away from “His Name is Jesus” which capture the spirit of devotion to God.

A final comment about the photographs that grace the pages of this book: I would be remiss and negligent if I were not to state how the images for this book perfectly marry the written word. The pictures take both the reader and the text to another level experientially. This is a book that genuinely serves to elevate one’s spirit and deepen ones devotion.

Over at Talk.Maemo, I opened a discussion asking a few questions about a potential Bible application for the new N900 and other Mameo 5 devices. What I’m more interested in is creating momentum for the application than anything else, and from there, this community and others can be a point of reference for use-cases, testers, and developers who’d build something solid. Here’s the questions posed at that thread:

• Is there anyone working on [developing] one? If so, I’d be up to assist in testing, UI, etc).
• If there isn’t one under development, would this kind of application be useful and if so what features rank highest?
• If not a Bible application specifically, would a browser-extension that works with a Bible-based website be a suitable development target?
• What are some of the positives and negatives of Bible applications for Maemo 5 devices (pick the perspective that’s relevant to you to speak towards)?

Hopefully, there can be something of some direction gained towards that effort and then developers and testers alike could move forward towards something of benefit for the Body and of highlight to the platform – can you imagine a Bible application being something that exploits the best nature of the platform and then profiled by the manufacturer? I can 😉

Add your thoughts here or the thread at Talk.Maemo.

I wonder sometimes what would happen if there was ever a situation where the publicly available Internet were unavailable. Where you would only be able to get on the Internet to Google or wherever with some kind of token, and even then, you were being tracked and led down roads where you might think are free to go, but are really dead ends.

Truthfully, I do see this happening sooner rather than never. And for some people that visit MMM, I’ve been told that this is their reality now. That the networks while “open” are really being monitored and tweaked so that the Word doesn’t get out. I keep wondering if there is a way around or through this that is legal, and only come to one really solid conclusion – mesh networking can be a short term, short distance solution.

Now, what I mean by mesh networking is that there are people whose computing devices are designated as the main connections – if you will, like a teacher in a classroom as the gateway point to inserting knowledge into a session. The other students (computers) would be able to connect to that computer over what is called an ad-hoc connection. Ad-hoc being a connection that is computer to computer, and does not have a router or third party network in-between.

Once connected, those computers would share that connection, and that main computer would have the information needed by the others to collaborate, share, and edify. Once that session is over, all persons with a computer would have that information, and then go to other places to be a node and share information with others. In a sense, creating a network that multiplies itself through the introduction of a “fellowship” event.

This idea of mesh networking to share ideas isn’t really new. In terms of how we pass information from one to another, its pretty much how we’ve always done it. But in the context of those communities where the Internet is so heavily censored that passing this “Body knowledge” over the web is hazadorous, using computing devices within these fellowhsip events to share information and push out the Body might be a solid idea.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had this thought, but a conversation brought it back up as something that the Body might be good to understand better, and then take advantage of. And who knows, this might be the future of how we have to pass our electronic bibles from one person to another.

By now you have already heard a boatload on Nokia’s latest announced device, the N900. The N900 is a successor to the popular N800 and N810 Internet Tablets, but does them a few degrees better. For one, the operating system has been totally retooled and sits now on much better engineering and hardware. On the other side, you have that still open and tweakable aspect due to its Maemo Linux roots, and this endears the N900 to be the kind of device that can and should be tuned to the user’s liking.

The thing that most intrigues me about the N900 – and in some respects about the N97 – is how a device like this can fit within the toolkit of ministers and those involved in the kinds of ministry endeavors where the world is their window, desk, and workspace.

So I thought about its relevancy in that wise – as a tool for efficient working. I think about how I used my N800 (and donated N810). I see some things that are pretty much no-brainers with the N900. A device that is tailor made to be a pocketable computer that just has the power to get things done. A device that has a smattering of wireless options – including cellular wireless abilities – to pretty much utilize any connectivity point possible in order to share, report, or create information.

I think also about the cost: financial and mental. The N900, like the other tablets before, promote a different way of looking at the information that you interact with. Financially, this will be the most expensive tablet to date, though there will be options to purchase it through a carrier and get some level of assistance with the subsidy model. But you get back to getting work done and the question served is how does a 3.5in screened mobile device enable my ministry to be more personal and effecitive with my dwindling time but increasing responsibilities?

I don’t know that the technology alone can answer this. But, I know from my recent N800 experience that given some assessment time, you can not only get your value out of this device, but also enrich your life. For my N800, I turned it into a work folder. It was a large storage space, that also served as a notepad. Because it was connected, I could afford more of those moments in meetings where I simply needed to be notified of what is going on. In time, I pushed out from that usage to managing the Intranet, using the device to communicate more effecitively with others, and now – with the N97 – I’m mobile-centric, but my data and means of communication work with those around me enriching their lives. I see this with the N900 as a possible role.

That is, once you get past the price. Its expensive, and in these times, making expensive mobile purchases totally doesn’t fall on the “list of things to do now.” Nevertheless, I think that those who are purchasing this device beyond the geek-factor have the ability to see what Nokia is clearly stating with this device: you don’t need all that power of a laptop if all you will do is connect online for communications, email, and basic work. And a mobile device should be yours to choose how you connect wirelessly, the devices you use, and how you enrich the world around you.

This type of fitting into one’s life isn’t normal of mobile devices. More are doing it, but not all are this up-front about making sure that you know – at the touch of a finger – that your world is what you make of it. To that end, the N900 calls us all into an interesting piece of accountability.