Part one of this, the happenings for Good Friday, help set the context.

The past few days have been crazy. I’ve dropped my emergency mobile running from a few officials – no major damage. I could have sworn that I heard that one of the brothers is dead. Not sure yet how, rumor has it that he left a message for those willing to read it. That would be too dangerous though, those officials are still looking for us and would definitely expect one of us to see what happened to our brother.

The rest of us managed to find a room in relative obscurity. Due to our proximity to one another, we decided to just share four SIM cards between us, and let the other SIMs be used only in extreme emergencies. This has caused a problem with some of us who need to contact families, but I think that we’ll be ok if we can hold on a few more days.

Some of the women went down to the sepulchre. It was a very nice gesture Joseph did in granting Jesus his tomb. Surely the Lord will look well upon his gift – it already seems that brothers and sisters from neighboring towns have – offers of sepulchre’s and burial items have been pouring in by SMS all weekend.

Another beep. This time its only one of our mobiles. This doesn’t feel right. It is too early for the women to be sending us a message, hopefully nothing has happened to them. So few others outside of this room have that number. It can’t be good. A brother – bless his aggressive heart – picks up the mobile and looks at the MMS. His face looks pale. Then he droops and begins to sob. None of us dare want to break the silence by asking what he’d seen. He just throws the mobile on the table – a video clip playing.

I can see it from where I’m standing. There a cave, no, a tomb. Looks like the one they described as being the one donated by Joseph. However, its open. That’s not right. We can’t make out much, but it looks like the stone is moved, and there are no guards. Could the body have been… no, they wouldn’t do that. Would they?

Then the conversations start. We’ve got to see what’s going on there. Peter stands before us all cautioning that we’d be better off just waiting until the women return and then see what their report is. The message had to have come from them. Maybe they were just as surprised and shocked as we were.

A few minutes later the mobile beeps. This time just an SMS, and from the mobile held by the women. It was a short message, but stirred all kinds of emotions in all of us when it was read, “He is risen!” First one, then a few more started wailing. The pain of Jesus leaving just a few days ago, and how this – “He is risen” – what does it mean? Was he telling us the truth after all? Is this what it all meant?

A few hours later the women return. They are tired, but seem happier than anything. We asked them to explain, and they responded, “didn’t you get the message. He’s risen.” They go on to explain what happened when they got to the tomb. Its an unbelievable story to say the least. Peter runs out, he needs to see for himself obviously. The rest of us are sure, whether Jesus is risen or not, we’ve got to move. As soon as that news gets out, there are going to be even louder calls for our heads.

It had been three days since seeing my wife and family. I was glad to see them, hug them. And get some freshened clothing. Having some time, I also picked up my solar charger, and swapped SIMs with my wife. She’s got clear instructions not to use it until tomorrow. We’ve got to make sure that it doesn’t look suspicious that she’d changed numbers right now. I show her the message (“He is risen”) and she just beams. She doesn’t understand it much more than I, but she finds some relief in the message. I let her know that I’ve got to go for a few more days, but that I’ll be back. That embrace was hard. I really wasn’t sure if I’d see them again.

The brothers planned to meet near the place were ate with Jesus last. The keeper of that room also received the message from the women and assured us that we would be taken care of and fine there. We had to think and act quickly. And somehow, if Jesus is risen, get in contact with him. I’m sure that he couldn’t get a mobile – but I’ve seen him produce all kinds of things out of thin air, anything is possible with him.

The plans came along quickly. This was much different than in times past. It seemed like this time that we just wanted to be on one accord. Some of us reclined in our seats to breathe, some had been on the run a lot longer than just the past three days. Then something strange happened. The mobiles in the center of the table turned on at the same time, then vibrated, then turned off. That was weird, and we all seemed to see it at the same time. It got quiet, really quiet. Then, near the doorway, there was this voice, “Peace be with you.” I couldn’t believe my eyes. The face was right, and the body didn’t look anything like that battered person we saw on the official clip before the crucifixion.

Oh boy, it was him alright. I didn’t even have words. I was sorry for running, sorry for staying. I believed. I didn’t believe. And yet, there he was.

“Peace be with you,” he repeated. We all ran to embrace him but he stopped us. We couldn’t touch him? Weird, but he was there. Literally, right in our face. It hurt a bit that our mobiles didn’t work while he was there. It would have been great to send the wife footage of him eating with us and joking just like he used to. Weird how they didn’t work until he was gone. There was also some teachings that he gave. Teachings about things he taught before, which were a lot clearer now. I think I get it. The family won’t believe it, but I’ve got the means to explain it now.

Just as quickly as he showed, Jesus left. He still knows how to make an exit. This time though we’ve got some hope. Some of the brothers sat in a corner talking about the plans that we made earlier. Some things would have to change. We were confident that those changes would be for the better. If we are going to continue on the course that Jesus stared, we’d have to live life the way he did.

The only thing that was perplexing to me about the way he lived was that “gift” he kept referring to. What was that gift? And why was he so adamant about us receiving it?

As surprised as I was when the news hit my mobile, there was still a lump in my throat. After the arrest, I knew that it would be a matter of time before they’d come looking for the rest of us. Thankfully, with the Passover in full swing, and the numbers in the city swelling, I could hide in a few places, and hopefully get the benefit of time causing some measure of forgetfulness. I only hope that the images we sent to the brothers weren’t intercepted.

The plans were in my head already, but here I needed to act. I told my wife of the situation for as much as I had known. Then asked her to take my mobile and destroy it. I’d keep the SIM card, and would be very brief and random when I’d use it to let her know where I am. I pulled the emergency mobile from the drawer, kissed her and the kids, then left under the cover of the rising sun. I was still excited about last night, and here I’m already running for my life.

Making my way through some of the early crowd, I made sure to keep the SIM in one pocket and the new(ish) mobile in the other. If at any point there was another announcement made about registering mobiles, I was fine with the mobile being taken or destroyed. Not the SIM, I needed that until I could get to one of the brothers and have it duplicated. Time was of the essence, I’d already been tipped off that one of the brothers was seen near where they held him for the night. Not sure if that image was posted, but it sure did make the rounds through a few text social circles.

By this point, I’d not eaten in nearly half a day. The news was now everywhere you could turn. Weirdly enough, there was very little about the officials looking for his associates. They seemed to be more concerned with him, the multiple trials, and later the show of blatant disregard for his lineage. In some of the video coverage, I could see mobiles being used to record, then Roman soldiers as well as religous officials snatching the devices out of the hands of people. They didn’t want this to get out, but they wanted it to be seen. This can’t end well.

Finally making it to the safe house, I pop my duped SIM into the emergency mobile and shoot some MMS messages to my wife and kids. I wanted them to see that I was ok. Hopefully, their devices aren’t being traced, but I have little time to care. I just need them to know that I’m ok. And then, almost like a symphony, all of us in the room hear all of our mobiles go off at the same time – all of us received the same MMS message. Was it them? Did they know where we were at after all? No one dared to even open the message, let along click off the prompt that a message was received. One of the guys who ran out of the house when the messages initially came in reentered the room saying that everyone has received the message. “Open it, look what they are doing to him!”

It was only a 30 second clip. But that was all that we needed to see. There he was, I think. In the face it looked like him, but the body was badily bruised. He had something on his head, but I couldn’t tell – I’ve got a simple mobile without a good screen. It looked like he nearly fell with some beam on his back, but then some other guy grabs the beam from him and then the scene cuts. We all looked at one another terrified. We knew what was next. This kind of message only comes out for certain kinds of capital punishments.

My mobile had been off for a few hours. I needed to relocate and didn’t need any cell towers tracking my movements. Better that my IMEI simply shows up in a different region with a different SIM than traveling across regions. It was around noon when mine and all the mobile around me beeped again. There was another MMS. This one felt different. The sky had darkened before it came in. I had this feeling in my stomach that I lost something very important.

I clicked to look at the message. There he was. Just… hanging there. The recording wasn’t clear, but he said something (John 19:30, Luke 23:46). Then he just hung his head. It was over. Right before this clip cut, a Roman soldier entered the scene. He didn’t look so strong, he looked convinced (Luke 23:47-49) – as I did that day on the Sea of Galilee – he wasn’t a normal man at all. Jesus was a lot more than that. But here, as plain as every recorded message of his that I had and had received from others, is gone.

People who’ve attended those crucifixions say that its different when you are there. I knew Jesus personally. I don’t think that I could have been there at all. The pain would have been too great, I’d try and pull him down or… something. I can’t think about that now. I shoot a message out to the brothers and some of the sisters, we need to figure out what’s next. Surely, in a few days when the Passover is done, we’ll be targeted. We’ve got to have a plan. That’s what he would have wanted, right?

Part two, what happens on Easter Sunday, continues the story.

This is a repost from our archives. There were lots of posts written before the move to WordPress that have kind of gotten lost. From time to time, we’ll pull these out and reopen the conversation.

When MMM got started, a frequent thought of mine was about the early church and if the technology that we have today could have been relevant in any way. One of the easiest correlations was with Paul [love of] writing and the fact that so many are writing today via blogs. Many articles were written about what this could look like if Paul did have a blog, but one aspect of having a blog is being able to blog. We’d have to assume that Paul would have liked the GSM setup that most of Europe has now (though he would need a waterproof phone) for traveling purposes. But what would his blogging platform look like? I personally don’t see him as a Facebook or MySpace-type person (easily Peter and John would be involved in those). But I do see him with something like Mob5.

I learned about Mo5 via its review at Wap Review and noticed that while it is short on features compared to some of the more entrenched social networking software applications, this one is incredibly versatile in that it is very usable on a mobile device. From the Wap Review article:

…I am impressed with Mob5.com’s technology for adapting images to various mobile browser screen dimensions. Mob5 is resizing images to literally the largest exact size that will fit the browser’s screen width. When I tried impersonating various mobile browsers using the the Firefox User Agent Switcher extension Mob5 would deliver the same image resized anywhere from 90 to 183 pixels wide. It worked well, in most cases delivering the largest possible image that would fit the screen without horizontal scrolling. I never got an image that was too wide for the screen. When Mob5 doesn’t recognize a browser it renders images 90px wide which will safely fit on any phone’s screen…

A pretty impressive feat for any website, let alone one that is a blog which serves several types of audiences. Paul would be able to speak to the various communities, and they would all (via the mobile tech) have a link to one another to share how God is working within their communities. Not all all much different than the functionality that sending and reading the letters did for the fellowships (in many cases, the same letter was read in multiple churches).

Mob5 is an interesting use of mobile tech and I am sure that as communities, companies, and people get more in tuned with how they want tech to be a part of their lives, services such as Mob5 will be right there with the enablements.

Other similar services/programs are available, such as MSN Spaces, and as we come across them at MMM, we will cover them and how they can be used for your organization or ministry.

One cannot be so naieve to think that technology will not get to a point that it will out perform aspects of life that we take for granted as being the sole domain of the human experience. And one cannot be so naieve to think also that we will always be able to control the implications of the decisions that we make with technological advances – such that surprise will always force the hand of ingenuity and experience that seems to sit as the domain of creativity and purpose that God’s given each of us for our lives.

It is with those thoughts that I think about the piece of Pope Benedict XVI’s sermon on Palm Sunday which was quoted by the Ottawa Citizen:

All the inventions of the human spirit are ultimately an effort to gain wings so as to rise to the heights of Being and to become independent, completely free, as God is free. Mankind has managed to accomplish so many things: we can fly! We can see, hear and speak to one another from the farthest ends of the earth. And yet the force of gravity which draws us down is powerful. With the increase of our abilities there has been an increase not only of good. Our possibilities for evil have increased and appear like menacing storms above history. Our limitations have also remained: we need but think of the disasters which have caused so much suffering for humanity in recent months.

What is somewhat unfortunate, is that the context of the quote pulls out of perspective some of what I think is many times lost in the magic of our technoloical times – that we are increasingly capable of creating some great things, being surprised by the most simple things, and in outright fear of what we don’t understand. And yet its at this intersection that we find many aspects of our lives challenged, disrupted, and bolstered by what has happened in such a short time.

We’ve gone from a few thousand mobiles in a lab and by a few wealthy elite to almost 2/3 of the world covered by mobile phones. We have more computing power in our hands with these devices than was used to send the first men to the moon. We can talk to one another instantly, almost making the entire world as close as a next-door neighbor. And indeed, these kinds of effects have also caused for the land to be stripped of its nutrients for farming, people to be exploited so that we can get to those choice materials faster and cheaper, and find several industries (many of which aren’t over 100 years old) falling aside to the personalization, speed, and raw ability to “just be there” of the Internet and these mobile windows. Surely, there are implications both perceived and missed when we take an honest look at just what is in our midst right now.

The question of how man can attain the heights, becoming completely himself and completely like God, has always engaged mankind. It was passionately disputed by the Platonic philosophers of the third and fourth centuries. For them, the central issue was finding the means of purification which could free man from the heavy load weighing him down and thus enable him to ascend to the heights of his true being, to the heights of divinity.

Is it true that we want to ascend to some level of God-hood with this technology. If you were to ask the most basic levels of users for different hardware or software, you might be surprised. That’s not what they want at all. They see a tool that seems as if it will solve their problem and they go for it. To them, they have little mind to think of the implications (long-term) or even how that tool was created that might cause an issue for them later.

And there are those who know a bit better. We know how to put things together (code or hardware). We understand the wizard behind the Oz and go along with it because it does fulfill some level of ego-posturing, self-worth to us. But we don’t stay there because we want to be gods either. However we come closeest to our basic tools brethren in understanding the slippery slope between it being a tool and an altar.

Finally, there are those who make decisions. In Ephesians 6, Paul makes the statement that could be unpacked here. There are those in authority in venues above us, who see what we don’t, make decisions that we can’t image, and are driven by things they can’t imagine. As often noted in the Scriptures – the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord and He turns it whatsoever way He desires. Those are the persons whose ego manifests itself in the products development, but not always in its direction. These are the folks most burdened by being surprised. And have the most to gain by not being surprised. And yet, they too are loaded with this weight of becoming the altar or crafting the tool.

It would seem that we are always engaged in trying to reach for something unattainable. And yet, there has been no time like the present that has shown us that even our imaginations aren’t too far from reality. I’m reminded of a man who has lived in computing since the 50s, and how the iPad is magical and dream-defeating in a sense to him. When we can go this far, there’s a fear that we might go too far. Or worse, that our creations for this life would spiral out of our control. And given that we aren’t much deposed to mercy it seems, that doesn’t bode well for any relationship betewen us and technology.

I personally don’t put much stock into the fear. As Pope Benedict XVI so duly noted at the end of that message:

We are on pilgrimage with the Lord to the heights. We are striving for pure hearts and clean hands, we are seeking truth, we are seeking the face of God. Let us show the Lord that we desire to be righteous, and let us ask him: Draw us upwards! Make us pure! Grant that the words which we sang in the processional psalm may also hold true for us; grant that we may be part of the generation which seeks God, “which seeks your face, O God of Jacob” (cf. Ps 24:6).

If this is our focus, not just with tech, but with life. We’ve got nothing to do but continue to grow responsibily with these tools, and the moments that its afforded us. If we forget this focus, then we’ll be consumed in our vanity. And it will not be technology that is our end, but our own hands which cause us to miss His high calling through Christ Jesus.

Quotes from Pope Benedict XVI’s Palm Sunday message pulled from Catholid Online

It definitely seems that QR Codes have jumped the shark in respect to seeing and hearing about the, a good bit more. It’s even gotten me to go back to using business cards, now that there are enough people that either understand them or want to know more about them.

This past weekend, I experienced the latter in a very interesting manner. My God-daughter’s mom is totally not a techie. She used to bemoan my use of mobiles in church as recently as two summers ago. However, life has moved in such a way that she now has a Palm Pre Plus and really enjoys it for the communications, camera, and applications that are offered. So, you can imagine the surprise when she asked me about barcodes – and not just QR Codes, but Microsoft Tag codes as well.

She has an independent business that also works for her to disciple other women, and one of the things she noticed is that some other women were using business cards with the MS Tag on them. While she liked the idea, the MS Tag didn’t work on her device (there is no reader software) but she want to know more about it. I pulled out my business card and explained to her the difference between them.

With the MS Tag, it would be a need for the person scanning the tag to have a web connection. Besides the data on the other side of the tag, there was also some analytics and tracking happening. However, much of her audience doesn’t have data plans, or might not have good enough browsers on the mobiles they do have, so the QR Code was a better choice. With that 2D code, you can embed information such as calendar event data or even a contact card (similar to my card). You can even do a QR Code that is a pre-built SMS message. Then, that plus a low-cost printing solution like VistaPrint (which she was already using for her business cards) would make for a reusable contact point for everything from sharing contact information to making flyers more interactive.

Now, she wasn’t concerned with tracking, hence the suggestion of the QR Code versus the MS Tag, but it would be possible. And as I explained to her, using a barcode in this manner just adds a layer of interactivity to efforts to communicate and connect. You (usually) don’t put info in a barcode that would be easily discerned in an email, or even faster if typed. Giving a reason for folks to engage has that side benefit of making you stick in their head just a bit longer.

Of the past weekend’s conversations, this was one of the ones that ended up being very exciting. A friend not only adopted mobile tech, but found a means to help her small business along while increasing the ability to connect-engage with those she already disciples. In this respect, mobile being added to the Body like this hits every relevant aspect of life. That kind of progress with this tech is what I’ve been adamant about, and am glad to see it happen in surprising places.

This has been one academic week with two talks about MMM and mobile ministry in university settings. In both sets of talks, there’s been the setting of expectations around mobile as it relates to ministry and media. So far, they’ve poked a few thoughts.

Stealing a bit from the second talk, mobile seems like a three iterative layers of communication: there, I described it as speech (communicate to interact), tweet (communicate to broadcast, not necessarily targeted), and text (communicate with intent to re-engage). With mobile, there are layers that we use it, and many people sit (stop) with the first. Its that second layer that many of us are seeing more and more, and the third that we have the most problem with. For the most part, communicating with intent to be re-engaged is a bit much.

These layers also seem to play their part in matters of faith. Speech (prayer, small groups, etc.), tweet (sermons, mailings, larger-group teachings), and text (conferences, fellowship, communion, etc.). Simplified, but maybe you can see what I am looking at here. Mobile has its space in which its usable, and others where it facilitates something bigger. The key is understanding the difference, and then going forth (whether in ministry or addressing culture) from there.

Due to the various perspectives (faith) of the audiences that I’m speaking to, I see this as a better route to talk about mobile ministry and digital faith efforts. What I’d probably want to do here is become a good deal more informed towards what’s happening in other faiths in respect to mobile and web (of the latter, its a ton). Those perspectives can help, and at the same time will have a viewpoint unique to their faith cultures.

Interesting thoughts to end the week aren’t they? Poke us if you have any insights, or would like to have us speak to your class/group. There’s much more to explore at this intersection, and from there we can send and receive – and occasionally pull something out that is in a different space that what you might be used to thinking about.

Some of the stories that I come across concerning mobile education have to do with curriculum development. Other stories talk more about the access and impact of the devices themselves on the structure of the classroom. What I haven’t been able to find so much of though are those stories of educating teachers, especially in those contexts where lack of materials makes for mobile and web use to work best.

As I travel about NC and VA this week, one of the questions that I ask of pastors and teachers is whether they think that their learning should be limited to what can be pulled together in a classroom, or if there are aspects which should/could be done outside of the classroom, where mobile devices can play some part. The answers are interesting – generational differences abound – but all tend to agree that if they understood the technology better that there would be a place for mobile in the teaching-teachers process.

So with that, I’d like to throw the question on there to chew on: should ministers be expected to know enough about mobile technologies to be educated anywhere? Or, is that one too may toolsets to require of their already full belts?

I am always intrigued about those aspects of life that mobile seems to take away. In some respects, adding mobile just seems like a stop and restart of some actions that we might have been very well used to. But, then also this challenge to see things and accept that we weren’t always acting in a way that was best for the world to see us live faith.

For example, where it used to be that the pastor read from the Bible, and then the congregation repeated the text as they heard, we then moved to Bibles in our pews. From those in the pews, we moved to Bibles on our dashboards. And then from there, we have Bibles in our pockets – first in a font size that we could barely manage reading with good eyes, and later through our mobiles – bigger font size, but definitely less on the screen.

Now, with that move to mobile, we don’t just have the Bible, but we have these connections to the text that were once the domain of our pastors. We can open up Logos on our mobile and be connected to the same depth of commentaries, maps, and multimedia that our pastors used when setting up the lessons. We can communicate notes in real-time with others who have read the passage before-hand, and gain insights that our pastors will have gotten to, and some that they would not.

We have “information-now” as the default, instead of as the privileged opportunity. And that is a bit concerning to some. Having that at our fingertips, whether we know how to use it or not, takes away some of the experience that we’ve been cultured to believe is a part of the worship experience. Depending on how we hold onto that culture, we might deem that this ability of mobile/web is too far, and therefore takes away from our culture something that we subconsciously cherish.

It reminds me of the story in Mark 4 when Jesus addressed the man who had a legion of demons inhabiting him. The people were used to their culture where he was pushed to the side and could not interact with their affairs. But, insert Jesus and not only does he become delivered from these, but their source of income – their very economic sustenance – in the pigs is challenged. Now, they not only have to deal with someone in their community that is an extra mouth to feed, but they also need to figure out as a community to live without the layer of wealth they they had before. It was a major shift, on where just this addition of Jesus, while wanted, produced results that meant they needed to grow more than they wanted.

I wonder if we think of our culture in the same way. That we want mobile, web, etc. to apply to now we address our communities, but really aren’t prepared for their impacts. And then when it does impact, are we bold enough to admit our cultural mentality and behaviors which might not have been the best, especially to those whom our former practices left behind?

I can admit that I’m very much influenced by those who are able to get out and about to meet and discuss matters of faith in various social contexts. Yes, there’s definitely a good time of doing so in church/bible study, but I also find some of the most interesting conversations in places such as coffeeshops, waiting rooms, and even the line in the grocery store.

Weirdly enough, it was my first few mobiles (Palm PDAs) which helped me grow in this respect. You see, having a (few) Bibles out in a library doesn’t necessarily say to others that you are open to talking about your faith. Yea, you’ll get some of the more contentious folks, but that’s not the kind of life that I wanted to have. When I started having my Bible, notes, and later a lot more, on a mobile device, it forced me to pick my head up and see what others were doing – and then be open to the life they are living alongside my own.

As I’ve moved towards different devices, my head has slowly gotten more up. I’ve been much more open to chatting not just about my faith, but asking others about theirs. Its to the point that now, one of the reasons that I enjoy trips to the coffeeshop (amongst other places) is that whenever I sit down to drink and draw, there’s always someone (many times a child) who comes over and asks about my motivations behind what I am doing. Art and faith have a very decent history, and how people want to open up about their faith is an artful expression that’s worth enjoying.

So what about you, do you have a moment, or a lifestyle behavior that mobile has opened up for you? Or, in a more serious sense, has what you learned about your faith made you think more about the how and where you use mobile and other technology?

When not writing or speaking, life is filled with the pocket of life called training. This has been adults more an teens and kids for a while now, and it’s really interesting when I look back at my use of mobile tech when teaching, compared to expectations and results.

For example, when doing classes in the corporate arena, managers want a lot of materials. If you will, the training never feels right unless there is some paper handed out. And this is true even in the hands-on classes with mobile devices. Non-profits (and schools even) seem to better deal with training materials that are online, or at least viewable on device alongside the hands-on lessons.

There is the matter of setting up classrooms – a task that I wish I didn’t have. There are the majors like wireless access, intranets, wikis, and comfortable seats. But, then there other things like planning for breaks, adjusting the time after lunch to get everyone comfortable again, or making sure that activities are repeatable on the hosted hardware or even in a personal context.

When done teaching, there’s always an evaluation. I prefer to use survey tools as a means of capturing thoughts – though have gotten used to the fact that in tech classes that some prefer to write on paper their thoughts. Survey Monkey and SharePoint’s Survey Library are great for these – though the former (or even Google) gives a better dashboard of results.

And the other part of the feedback loop, the questions that come days or weeks later. I don’t know that you can really prepare for those, but you kind of do. With all of that setup time, you are leaving hooks for people to either have questions and self-investigate further or have questions and more easily get in touch with you later. Unfortunately, if you have information-heavy classes (mine usually are) it will probably be another party that gets the bulk of questions about use or a product.

It really is all in the prep-time though. I spend a lot of time reading, writing, and interacting so that I spend less time coming up with curriculum or practice exercises (the latter I always have to change based on the context of those whom are being taught). Coming up with the right curriculum is as simple then as identifying the goals, noting the issues, and then being realistic about the available resources to fix things. From there, it’s all fun and lessons.

Many if you might be leading small groups, or looking to build curriculums for your missional, outreach, or in-reach efforts. Does any of this sound familiar? What steps have you taken to ensure that your pockets are ready and able to teach when needed?