Category Archives: Mobile in Spiritual/Theological/Psychological

ICCM USA 2013 (3x the MMM)

In the coming weeks, MMM will be heading to the ICCM USA Conference in Taylor, Indiana. And as with the last two conferences, the focus on mobile makes for a decent opportunity to share insights and forward areas of discussion. For example, a conversation at ICCM last year led to the acquisition of a Nokia N950 and a few conversations on open source technologies used on the mission field.

At this coming ICCM event, MMM will be in the mix for at least three of the mobile sessions happening, and given their topics, it should make for some interesting pathways forward.

The first talk MMM will be in on is called The Theology of Mobile Ministry. Here’s its abstract:

The speed of acquisition and use of mobile devices presents a sociological argument for understanding mobile ministry. The emphasis on services and applications presents the technological arguments we are already well familiar with. This presentation will present some of the theological points for understanding and engaging mobile ministry.

A theology-first discussion on mobile tech? Yup. And I’m hoping that it will lead towards an opening of tech and faith discussions on this wise outside of the academic community. This is a topic designed to fit alongside our goals for 2013, so this conference probably won’t be the only one that this information is shared.

After that session, MMM will be leading a panel discussion on the subject of BYOD (Bring Your Own Devices) and what that means for your ministry. This isn’t totally a new topic (think: laptops), but it has caught all kinds of positive and negative press because what it has meant towards IT teams supporting efforts, folks on the field making evangelistic efforts, and ministry leaders who want to stay on top of keeping all of this activity cohesive.

The third and final topic that MMM will be facilitating is a mobile workshop titled Sharing Content FROM Your Mobile.

The challenge for many ministries who want to go about using mobiles in ministry is that the practice of sharing info when on the field doesn’t match what’s done at home. This will be a workshop demonstrating methods of how to share content from mobile devices using several conventional and unconventional methods. Attendees will be active participants and all will be required to use some kind of mobile device during this session.

Now, this seems like it would be one of those easy topics, but the audience attending ICCM works in places where doing something like attaching a file to email, sending a Dropbox link, or even throwing up a server, just doesn’t make sense. Where the wrench happens here is for those groups who are ministering in communities which already have a significant mobile base who is sharing content, but they don’t know how or what’s going on. This workshop will have folks learning how to share content from their devices right in the session, with some notes about what’s happening in the ministry space around them.

At this point, I do have to apologize if you’ve not heard of ICCM before and this is a conference that you want to attend (were you not subscribed to the #mobmin Calendar). Registration is closed. We’ll do our best to make sure the presentation decks to hit the site right around the time the presentations happen on our end. You will want to stay tuned to the ICCM website and its social media hubs for other presenters’ decks.

About ICCM

The International Conference on Computing and Mission (ICCM) is an annual informal (NOties allowed) gathering of women and men who have
a common interest in computers and mission. We share a vision of cooperation for effective use of technology, bringing the Gospel to every nation.

This conference has been going on for almost 25 years, and from what I understand from those who have been there many times, its always a point of not just hearing something new, but being refreshed towards ministry efforts personally, in family, socially, and in organizations. Yea, there’s a helping of geeks whom are there, but its always quite friendly no matter where you are technologically.

One thing that I will note, just in case you miss this one and want to come to another. ICCM is a family-friendly conference. Meaning that there are several attendees who bring their kids along (a couple on the planning team brought their new addition to the conference last year). I’ve noticed that there are women-only sessions, there was a psychologist there last year to help with personal/internal items, and there’s always a section of the time devoted to prayer in small groups and community worship. Its indeed not a normal conference, and at the same time, its how the Body connects with itself.

For more information, including conference information about the Europe and Australia editions of ICCM, visit their website. And if you will be there in June, I look forward to connecting with you there.

Ministry in the Digital Age, IE Day Contest

Ministry in the Digital Age

Was good to see this note of Dave Bourgeois’s book Ministry in the Digital Age now being available.

…What are the best evidence-based practices to implement? How do you best truly integrate digital, rather than just bolting on a few social networking options to an unchanged structure?

For these things are no longer optional luxuries. Any ministry or non-profit without an effective digital and social media policy, owned and understood by the whole team, is doomed to near invisibility and likely failure.

Dr Bourgeois takes you through both the strategic planning and the practical steps for implementation. On his book page, he explains the background to the book, with an online preview of the introduction and appendices…

That news was found via our friends at Internet Evangelism Day, who also highlighted that post with a contest to win a copy of Ministry in the Digital Age. Here are the details:

Do any of these things before the end of May, then email me to say where I can find it along with your postal address, and the winner, chosen at random, will receive get the book:

  • Tweet about this page using this ready-made link, or include the #ieway hashtag
  • Share this review on a Facebook group or personal page
  • Link to or republish this review (an edited summary is fine) in a blog
  • Syndicate our blog posts to your Facebook personal or group page using Networked Blogs
  • Embed our daily Paper.li news roundup into the margin of any webpage or blog – just copy the code from the ‘Share > embed this newspaper’ link at top-right of Digital Evangelism Resources.

Makes for a solid investment, and once my summer swing gets done, I’m sure we’ll have a copy of this in hand to get reading on as well.

For more information about Dave Bourgeois and his work in digital ministry, check out his website and see the fruits of that work with the Biola Digital Ministry Conference.

Identity and Depth

The other day, a friend and I were talking about the use of a call-in service for Bible searching, reading, and evangelism. In a sense, looking at the market of those folks who might be still tied to a paradigm of looking towards a voice for information (rather than having content on a screen, sent passively, or directly searched). One of the things that was striking in the midst of this conversation is how he stated that at his church, that the age and culture of the population poses some resistance towards those who use electronic devices for Bible reading in the community (a trait that John Dyer once spoke towards very well). In that, I wondered a lot about this idea about the identity of the Christian in this changing society and if there is something to be said towards these devices, services, and experiences that are gathered about these days.

You see, for those of us who pay attention to these things, there’s a clear sense that the identity of the Christian is being challenged on several fronts. Emotionally, there’s a drawing towards more expressive (some would call this transparent, others would call it performance) means of showing one’s views/feelings. Socially, there’s a bent towards urban centers in some metropolitan areas with pockets of intentional communities. While in more rural areas, there’s a bent towards a (romantic) preservation of the community and faith that was remembered by those who haven’t moved to urban centers. Theologically, it seems that just about every branch of the Church has not only gone through revisions of the text into a common language, but seen a shift from the leanings of the West towards something more charismatic and dynamic – moving south and east while doing so. All of this is happening in different shades across at least three existent generations of people groups. That’s a lot of shift to account for.

And yet, here is that nearly always present mobile. I like how Jan Chipcase squares this topic of identity alongside this totem we carry:

Much like the paradox of the toga in ancient Rome, some objects can connote high status in one culture and low status in another. A suntan on someone who lives in London or New York is a sign to others that that person can afford a tropical vacation, or at least a trip to the tanning salon. On the other hand, a tan in China or Thailand is a mark of peasants who toil in the fields. Thus on the shelves of pharmacies in Bangkok you’ll find dozens of skin products with whitening ingredients; in the United States, expensive moisturisers are tinted. Does this mean that the people who use these products are all that different from one another?

What are we saying if we are affirming or denying the use of mobile devices in community gatherings? What if part of the impact of what we are saying is that your identity has to have more depth than what you carry? We could stand to have a faith that does that. It would mean though that those making such a declaration have to be able to been seen without their totems as well.

Or, what if we said that you can carry it, but that it has to have an influence beyond just being your own screen? What does it mean when we cultivate the personal content and activity of a mobile device, but in some social situations mandate that it has an open or community-accessible aspect to it? Not just “you can see the photos I just uploaded to Facebook either,” but a more sincere – “here, let me help you understand why I took that kind of note” kind of feature.

What I thought about my friend’s declaration about his church’s specific culture is that they asked for folks to affirm the church’s identity, but gave nothing in return to those who needed a bridge to become that manifested character. If you will, “live the way I tell you, but I won’t give you my eyes to do it.” For many today, their identity is tied very tightly to what’s in their palms. The style of phone, the case on it, the ringtone, and even the applications preferred are a part of who they are. When we ask them to remove the device from the presence, we are asking them to set aside themselves for something they are not. In a sense, ignoring the traditional declaration of “come as you are.”

If I am also what happens on this little screen, then to engage the depth of who I am means that you have to be as willing to dive into me, as you want for me to unplug into you.

How Would Jesus Use (Compter/Connected) Technology

Was browsing over at Symbiota and came across a really interesting question worth discussion on several levels: How would Jesus use technology?

…I think Jesus would have used the technology in a couple of ways. One, I think because we see Jesus working primarily with his group of 12. He talk crowds, he healed and he walked through cities and really impacted a lot of people. But he concentrated, he put a lot of his leadership training in his 12. So I think Jesus would have really used technology to train his core leaders to give them the tools. I think of the story when Jesus send 70, 2 by 2. I can imagine, you know, hypothetically if I can use my imagination them being in the field and asking Jesus the question and having Jesus on Skype or on Google Hangout and he’s saying, OK this is how I would do the situation if I were you.

So I think he would primarily use it in training his core leaders but also because he was impacting so many people, he would make sure that the gospel was broadcasted as far and as wide as possible…

Read the rest of the Interview with Pierre Quinn over at Symbiota

Personally, I don’t know that Jesus would have used tech in that manner. At least not when it came time for ministry. If we look at the text, we see very little of the carpenter in the text, but we do see the effects of his work in terms of social movements, behaviors, and responses.

Its an interesting one, and makes us really think about how we navigate and move in this space. Perhaps its less about the tech, and more about the process after the tech we should pay attention to?

Disclaimer: Symbiota is one of several partner groups to MMM. Interested in partnering with MMM?

Psst… Pass It On

Its been a bit of a slow news week, but there are always notes being passed this worth passing along to you.

  • WorldBibles is a website that has a collection of text and audio Bibles in a few thousand languages. Much of the content is sourced from other websites, but its all collected in one place with a decent search facility
  • In an article over at Fast Company, its talked about why good intentions aren’t enough to make people use your app. That’s a lesson that many in the faith space don’t want to hear (that there’s not as much demand for this content as we want folks to believe). The solution is in part better marketing, but another part building stuff that matters before building the rationale for traditional messaging
  • Also at Fast Company, a article looks at problem solving electronic toys for kids and how one solution points at ways that existing software and hardware can be better purposed for engaging brains and activities… not just entertainment or passive learning as is usually the case
  • Continuing down the kids meme, the Huffington Post looks at tech in schools when kids are able to bring their own device and how that fosters different expectations and results in terms of the tech and lessons from those kids. Lessons here for missions work as well as understanding the educational advantages and constraints of mobile (in ministry).

There are a good deal more articles out there. Much of the week’s notes have already been passed along via Twitter (use the hastag #mobmin to see these). What news and notes have you found worth sharing?

[Video] April Mobile Minsitry Notes

As we’ve done the past months, here’s a video(cast) about those things related to mobile ministry. We talk a bit about the Mobile Ministry Forum, as well as some newly acquired tech and how that’s being used here at MMM. Take a peek and let us know what you think of these videos.

Watch previous months videocasts:

Also, you can check out other videos about mobile ministry.

Mobile and Disruptive Events

As the USA has witnesses in light of the Boston Marathon bombing, there are some signifiant failings towards mobile that tend to rear their heads. And certainly there are things that can (and won’t) be done to address that. Fast Company went through a litnay of possible ways that carriers have addressed the issue of call/data/messaging volume during emergencies in a recent article:

…Mobile networks have bandwidth that is more than sufficient 99% of the time. However, when disaster strikes, the decentralized nature of the network means that whole geographic regions can be knocked out by increased call volume. Whenever the generous-but-finite bandwidth at carrier site buildings are strained, users are prevented from making voice calls. Because SMS text messages take up far less bandwidth, mobile carriers instead encourage users to text message each other. As Pica put it to Fast Company, “text requires less dedicated real-time capacity than voice. Data networks including LTE and EVDO were not impacted due to the nature of the way data systems are used.”…

Read the rest of Why Your Phone Doesn’t Work During Disasters and How to Fix It at Fast Company

As much as I liked the idea of the article, and have thought about similar here in light of the recent bombings in Boston and Bagdad, I don’t necessarily think of the nature of the network in the same way. In emergency situations, I think of communications channelling going from utility-controlled to P2P-types of methods. We talked about the quick-setup and versatile voice/data network put up at the Burning Man festival each year. And have also talked about the mesh-networking-based product Serval – which acts a lot like the way Skype used to work (several nodes connecting to each other rather than all pointing to a single node).

In many of the conversations about mobile ministry in the missions and security spaces, this idea of P2P communications gets a slightly larger share of attention (from IT folks) than it does in the general conversation. Manily because our normal behaviors have been shaped to expect utilities to be managed from a regional or govermental central point. And indeed, the governance and poolicies set on those levels creates a quality of service level that just isn’t matched by other methods. However, when there aree emergencies, this central-focus becomes a failure point to which its literally a tech and behavior shift to do something different.

In some respects, I’m proposing that we start doing things like sharing communications over Bluetooth (passing notes, contact cards, events, etc.) in normal situations so that when emergencies do come up such as Boston/Bagdad that we are more or less equipped to keep going, rather than feel like the tech limits us to wait until a gatekeeper says its ok to connect in a specific way.

Thinking about Decay As Much As Create

Coda electric sedan coming off assembly line

Despite the frequency of posts slowing down a bit here, there’s still a lot of thinking and positining towrards this idea that mobile devices, services, and expereinces facilitate part of the lens by which we should look at faith in these times. In a most recent reading about steamboats, landlines, and cars, the challenge was not to think about it in terms of creating something new, but what it looks like when technologies and practices decay. Here’s a snippet:

…Some niches eventually grow to replace the prevailing regime, as cars themselves once did. But that process is equally dependent on so much more than technological invention. Look at how the cell phone has evolved to replace the landline. Our need for cell phones didn’t arise in a vacuum. Work practices changed. Commuting times got longer, creating the need for communication inside cars. Batteries got smaller. Cell phone towers proliferated.

These are the unnoticed events that happen in the slow course of technological transition. We didn’t even recognize that the car was a fundamentally new thing until around World War I, Cohen says. Until then, many people viewed the car as just a carriage without a horse.

“The replacement of the car is probably out there,” Cohen adds. “We just don’t fully recognize it yet.”

In fact, he predicts, it will probably come from China, which would make for an ironic comeuppance by history. The car was largely developed in America to fit the American landscape, with our wide-open spaces and brand-new communities. And then the car was awkwardly grafted onto other places, like dense, old European cities and developing countries. If the car’s replacement comes out of China, it will be designed to fit the particular needs and conditions of China, and then it will spread from there. The result probably won’t work as well in the U.S., Cohen says, in the same way that the car never worked as well in Florence as it did in Detroit…

What Steamships and Landlines Can Tell Us About the Decline of the Private Car at Atlantic Cities

In thinking about the implications of this tech, are we also paying attention to what decays in order for mobile to rise? And then futher, when mobile decays, what will arise from there?

MMF (@mobmin) 2012 Consultation – Executive Summary

A few days we posted on Twitter asking for prayer for a meeting going on this week:

That got us looking back and realizing that we neglected to post the Executive Summary from last December’s Mobile Ministry Forum Consultation. Let’s rectify that, first with a summary this past MMF Consultation:

119 mission strategists representing 56 organizations (including 31 remote participants) participated in the third Mobile Ministry Consultation sponsored by the Mobile Ministry Forum (MMF). This more than doubled the 2011 Consultation participation. 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 expand the four-week course into a six-week course, develop a training manual to equip ministries and local believers to use social media, create a mobile ministry pathway for ministries considering mobile ministry, develop a centralized online hub for all resources related to mobile ministry, design a three-hour introductory online course, and create a taxonomy for discipleship criteria on the mobile platform.

This last consultation occurred at Wycliffe Headquarters (Orlando, Florida). And if you paid attention to Twitter (@mobmin and #mobmin) in December, you’d seen several comments from various participants. But, besides the comments, there were also presentations, keynotes, and strategy sessions.

Keynotes

Strategy Workshops

Tactics Workshops

Read the rest of the MMF 2012 Consultation Executive Summary

The meeting going on this week aims to take what has happened in this and previous MMF meetings and continue to push mobile ministry activities, awareness, and opportunities forward. Items such as the Mobile Ministry Training Course more video demonstrations of mobile ministry, and more case studies/resources become the output of these kinds of sessions.

Stay tuned to the MMF website and the #mobmin hastag for more information towards opportunities and events in this space. And once there’s some data about another MMF Consultation that we can share, we’ll definitely put that out there.

Tweets, Analytics, and Reflections

Its been a nice and busy week technologically and spiritually. Concerning mobile tech, we saw in introduction of the Samsung Galaxy S4 as the headline for the week. Concerning those things spiritual, the Roman Catholic Church introduced its new pope, Pope Francis, an Argentinean. Lots to think about, and amazingly enough, it took a tweet and some analytics to put it to the forefront.

Perhaps its not right that the tweet should have started things, but or brother in the faith @bibliata pointed to this TwitPic by @JayCaruso:

Share photos on twitter with Twitpic

Now, @bibliata tweeted that this is a picture of mobile ministry. My response is that its merely a picture of using tech to capture a moment. Ministry hasn’t happened yet. You see, when I saw that directed tweet, I immediately thought of James 1:23-27. That idea of ministry being derived from one of the clearer passages of Scripture which detail the outcome of this faith. Amazingly, these are the standards that Pope Francis is being painted towards esteeming the most.

That didn’t motivate much in the way of anything. I’m actually stalling from two projects as I write this. But, I turned towards MMM and took a peek at the analytics as we had a spike a few days ago (that Google-juice caused by Hacking Imaginations was pretty sweet to a lot of folks). And saw some other things that just pointed at some of the contrasts demonstrated with Samsung and Pope Francis.

Technology Ratchets was a piece that still rings as a mark of the disruption that mobile tech can be in various capacities. Samsung clearly realized it, and designed the SG4 around it. But what about the church. Pulling something nearly prophetic, the rise of the church in Central and South America isn’t just a matter of changing economies, but a changing view of what matters the most in all communities (relationships, family, and consistent beliefs demonstrated in daily actions). Its not just what you swing, but how what you swing effects your life and those around you.

We have been playing with augmented reality (#AR) pretty often this year, and our experiments with Layar have been something to behold. Sure, we can do neat things here at MMM, but the value of it isn’t going to make sense until its applied to your life. Samsung’s GS4 has so, so many features. Many of which that I can look at and say “I’d use that,” and “hey, my Nokia N95 used to do that.” But, its really all about what gets life done. I hope that Pope Francis is adamant about pointing that the Holy Spirit is the best life companion any of us could have, while admitting the Babel effect that having a companion in your pocket can cause.

That’s where the next piece in our analytics makes things even more interesting. Our insistence that if you are going to go mobile that you should embrace its unique characteristics isn’t lost on some folks. There are a number of folks that I’m coming across who tell me things like “I don’t have a PC, can I just show it to you on my phone,” and that kind of activity makes me smile. Of course, these are people to whom public services such as libraries or personal commodities such as owning a tablet or a laptop isn’t normal. They really do everything on their mobiles. Samsung seems to recognize this in their latest, does the church continue to understand and navigate to a similar communicative state?

Lastly, there was a piece last year where I talked about the beginnings of the All Books Project and this idea of spatial interfaces. Interfacing not only with content in a linear manner, but one that also takes into account context and physical space. Its pretty hard to wrap your mind around, or, you can just take a look at some of the neat features in that new Galaxy 4 mobile and start from there. Interacting with your mobile in space… and then what? What happens next? Who’s life is impacted by your ability to take a photo on both sides of the lense, or with whom do you share that gallery of images from your missions trip? How do you show someone who needs to better manage their health how their mobile can participate with that? Or, do you leave them to that part of their life’s space without accountability?

It was only a tweet and some analytics, but it got me thinking about the two main news themes of this week. New tech and new positions are good. Lives that empower others are better. What’s in your hand that can change the world around you?