Tag Archives: bible software

ICCM 2012, Mobile Apps for Ministry [Sketchnote]

Continuing with some of the sessions done at the ICCM Conference, I was a facilitator for the BOF (birds of a feather) session talking about mobile apps for missions. This was essentially a conversation about what’s out there, what’s missing, what’s needed, and then any tangents those questions cause. Here is the Sketchnote I took during that time:

ICCM BOF Mobile Apps for Missions Sketchnote

The app idea towards the end (an app/service to better do contact management and donation management for individual missionaries) was pretty neat. I think that is something which might really have a chance of happening, if some of the political ends of it can be answered.

That was the 3rd session that I led in some fashion for the day. I was totally wiped out when that day was done, and yet, I think that kind of intensity of participation was needed from me.

Can Data Expose the Depths of Mobile/Digital Faith Efforts?

screenshot of email image from YouVersion showing Top 10 Bookmarked verses from their service

About a week ago, I received an email from YouVersion noting the top 10 bookmarked verses within their application. This is quite valuable information, especially if you are apt to advise people to use their digital tools in order to engage the Scriptures. Now, the fun comes in taking this kind of information and trying to make some sense of it. Upon receiving this, I tweeted an honest and business intelligence -like question:

Top 10 bookmarked verses in @youversion; the needs of digital believers can be summarized in these perhaps?

Why these verses? What about these verses speaks to the needs, or at the very least the attention spans mentally, spiritually, and socially to believers? Does this point to how mobile has fostered spiritual transformations (transformations)? Let’s see.

(1, 5, 6) Philippians 4:6-7, 13

Do not be anxious about anything. Instead, in every situation, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, tell your requests to God. And the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus… I am able to do all things through the one who strengthens me.

Anxiousness tempered with prayer and thanksgiving. Not exactly the instant nature of mobile. One could argue that this is intentional friction to life if considered on this frame.

(2, 7) Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own understanding. Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will make your paths straight.

Having moved to prepaid instead of post-paid, I am seeing my trust stretched (amazing what a buffer missing doesn’t do in terms of keeping you off track).

(3) Jeremiah 29:11

‘…For I know what I have planned for you.’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope.’

Do we know what Facebook, Amazon, Apple, etc. have planned for our uses of their devices and services? Probably not. But we do have a sense of God’s leaning towards us.

(4) Romans 12:2

Do not be confirmed to this present world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what’s the will of God – what is good, and well-pleasing, and perfect.

Well, it might be a bit late for this. There are more people who use mobiles (+4 billion) than who are Christians (~2.5 billion). What isn’t too late to happen though is a pattern of behavior that is distinct in it’s goodness, appeal, and viscosity while mobile and connected. I would argue that this verse isn’t taught in this way (again, a mobile filter here). But, if it were, what would Christ-thru-mobile look like?

(8) Romans 8:28

And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

This is not something people feel when their favorite platforms and devices are no longer supported. But, again, it is a state of mind and affairs of the believer. Accessing this verse on a mobile is probably in context of knowing that some moment isn’t, but that the word (and device) is timely in its encouragement.

(9) Matthew 6:33

But above all pursue his kingdom and righteousness, and all these things will be given unto you as well.

The structure of this verse lends itself to having to read all of the context before it. It’s not that you get anything, but only those things that are necessary for life and godliness. I hope it’s taken in that context by those bookmarking it, because if you are leaning on this to get that next mobile, you might be following the leanings of the wrong god.

(10) 1 Corinthians 13:4

Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envious. Love does not brag, it is not puffed up.

Man. This is the kind of verse that makes all of those customized cases, skins, themes, and ringtones feel a bit worse for wear doesn’t it? Does our use of mobile demonstrate the kind of love being detailed in this section of Scripture? Or, is this marketer a reminder for the kind of love that needs to resonate through each service and application on these devices we use?

Interpreting the Data We Can See
Can the life of the digital believer on YouVersion be identified as Christ-following if we use just this snapshot? Clearly they walk through some of the more accessible passages in the text. There is also some kind of leaning towards the spiritual, emotional, and psychological health of the reader. We don’t know how often these are referenced, nor how often they are bookmarked.

To the the dismay of some, there isn’t one evangelical verse in here. To some, there is an almost hotel bible approach (NT, Psalms, and Proverbs) – so where are the minor prophets or even the Pentatuch?

If you teach the word, do you lean on these and other popular Scriptures as memory devices for the hope and help of the believers you are serving? Or, has this simple statistic from one of many applications that have been used on mobile devices shown the lack of a solid, secure, instructional view of the entire Bible (66 or 80 books)?

What Other Data Is There Worth Mining for Value
It is very true that just collecting and trying to interpret data for the sake of doing so is a fool’s errand. There’s a lot of knowlledge that can be gained, but very little understanding if it has no context. Something that I wondered in looking just at this snippet of data that YouVersion shared was what other kinds of information could they offer? For example, if there’s a top bookmarked verses, there’s also a least (where least is greater than 0 or null). There’s some kind of data wrapped around frequency of verses during times of the year? And possibly there is some regional variation towards which parts of the Scriptures are more tuned in towards than others. In a very simple sense of things, YouVersion and other similar service providers, sit on a bounty of information that’s just waiting for the right questions to be asked of it.

Would YouVersion, Logos, Accordance, Olive Tree, and others be open to these kinds of questions towards how people are using their applications? Shoot, it would just be interesting to compare the top bookmarked verses in each of these service-app platforms just to see how they are used differently. Would pastors/teachers be apt to know how to ask for this information (“hey, I know that these people following me in your app-service attend my church, is there any way to get a custom report towards how we all do in terms of general reading and searching data?” is the kind of question that I’m leaning towards. For those who use the group settings, this kind of information can be a boon.

What if we find out something that turns us off? Like people don’t read their Bibles but once a month in these apps. That many people are more apt to remember the app when their devices say to update, rather when they are admonished by their community to meditate on a specific passage (Joshua 1:8)? What could we do with the information then? Does mobile expose digital faith as helpful, a hindrance, or as just another Hebron between us and God?

Copyright, Licesning, and Faith-Based Resources

screenshot of the World English Bible copyright and liscense agreement
The publicaion, use, and sharing of religious resources has been a rights issue for as far back as there has been a faith practice to transfer. One can make the call that God even enforced the first rights-management system when he declared that “I am ther Lord your God and you shall have no other gods before me. (Exodus 20:2)” Weighty in the respect of reverence, but also in the respect of exclusivity – if there is to be a faith towards a deity, then let your faith towards this one be exculsive and binding.

To that end, the faith world has seen all kinds of challenges to doctrine, dogma, and behavior. Going digital has rekindled some old arguments and founded some new ones. In 2009, we tried to add some sense to the challenge and change that digital contexts makes in regards to copyright/licesning biblical resources. It was one part of an on-going discussion, and one where there just isn’t a clear answer. Its been an intention to add to that article some items of relevance – with a ground literally shifting often. But thankfully, others are picking up the discussion, and the mounting challenges not so much for just having access, but having access that fits the context of digital use and ownership paradigms.

The licenses that govern the use of modern versions of the Bible in English grant very limited, arbitrary permissions for the use of the content. For instance, a person may be permitted to use 250 verses of the Bible (or 500 or 1,000, depending on the publisher) but only if they do not include a complete book of the Bible in their content. The amount of Biblical text they use is usually not allowed to exceed a certain percentage (often 25%, sometimes 50%) of the complete work. The table below lists current (at the time of writing) license restrictions on some common versions of the Bible in modern English. Note that “Max. Verses” refers to the maximum number of verses that may be used, “% of Total” refers to the maximum percentage of the text in the resource that may be Biblical text, and “Complete Book?” refers to whether or not a complete book of the Bible may be used in the resource.2

Version Max. Verses % of Total Complete Book?
CEB3 500 <25% No
ESV4 1,000 <50% No
HCSB5 250 <25% No
NASB6 500 <25% No
NET7 not specified <50% No
NIV8 500 <25% No
NKJV9 1,000 <50% No

Most licenses (though I am not aware of any exceptions) do not explicitly allow freedom beyond these specific permissions, meaning the restriction preventing the translation of the Biblical text has not been lifted. For use of the text that requires more than this—like including the complete text of a book of the Bible—the user must enter into a specific licensing agreement with the copyright holder of the Bible translation. These licensing agreements typically include the negotiations of royalties from the sale of the content back to the owner of the Bible translation.

Read the rest of The Urgent Need for An Open Liscensed Bible in English at Distant Shores Media

Besides being an updated guide, towards the current challenges publishers, participants, and readers have towards digital faith-based resources, it also speaks to the problem of why there is even a greater challenge to create non-English faith resources. Simply put, law and process hasn’t kept pace with technology and behavior.

…Imagine a Christian pastor in Tehran who uses his mobile phone Bible application to search for what the Bible says about “suffering for Christ.” The pastor does not know that the free Bible he is reading on his app is only free in exchange for data about how he uses it. In fact, he cannot even do a search for “suffering” on his phone without a network connection, because his free app with the “free of charge” Bible he is reading phones home to the web service with every search he makes. And when his app phones home to an American website (a Bible website, no less), it may well trip a filter in the Great Iranian Firewall. And maybe around 2am, the pastor gets to find out firsthand what it means to suffer for Christ. Because his app phoned home. Because “free of charge” comes with a tradeoff, when it is not also accompanied by “legal freedom” at the level of content…

While I do think that in some revolutionary ways this will be addressed in my lifetime, I am also very aware that the nature of faith, data, and information lends itself to be something held close and valued towards exclusion rather than shared towards posterity. Hopefully, there can not only be a change that works for all here, but one that compensates rightly all the levels of engagement that it takes to make these resources possible to the global faith community.

Then again, is not part of the definition of religion that of a system that’s exclusive not just in application, but in information shared?

JIT (Just in Time) as Your Mobile Focus


When preparing for this week’s articles and activities, a term kept coming to mind, then it started popping up in various articles and comments. The term is simple, JIT (just in time), and it refers to a context of information and the media channels supporting it. But when we drive into mobile, JIT takes on another, more personal implication – I’m using this device for this channel because at the moment of need, its just in time to reply.

When was the last time that you went to your mobile for something you needed right now? Was it directions? A movie time? A contact you needed to message? How did it make you feel when you got that desired information? Were you relieved? Or, did you decide that you’d not go that route anymore – hoping that you never were stuck in that same place with that “only known to you” avenue of finding it?

In designing for a mobile context, this concept of JIT has to be taken probably a bit more seriously than everything else. We can see that there’s at least one signifiant set of mobile consumers who can be strictly judged by this JIT approach (see Pew Internet report).

So, when you are designing your application or service – does it matter to a JIT context? Yes, some content doesn’t. Let’s strike that off the board now. Now, to the content that does matter – can it be accessed just as its needed? Does someone have to remember a login code to get there? Do they have to compromise privacy in identity, location, or relationships to get whatever is needed just at that time? Is the value of that extra step worth what’s at the end of the rainbow?

At least from my perspective, many of the apps – and I can argue even down to the mobile platforms themselves – do very little these days to repsect that some information needs to be gleaned as easily as God makes Himself available to us – think it, nav to it, got it. When its not, what breaks in the experience? There are less than 20 app slots on that homescreen – is what you offering as necessary to someone’s life also valuable enough to be put on that screen that’s accessible at the immediate moment of need? If not, did you have the right focus/perspective in building that channel?

Just in time… we get dingged about that towards MMM all the time (hence the design approach taken with the alternate mobile site). If its not available when its needed, then its value diminishes faster than the time it takes to finally get there – if you do get there. Tech is relevant when its personal – but personal matters in the context of being right on time.

Jeff Wheeler, co-Founder of Laridian Bible Software, Passes

On Monday (5/7), we greived with many others in the Bible software/mobile ministry community when the post went up at the Laridian blog noted that Jeff Wheeler lost his fight with cancer.

As with many who are enjoying Bibles on their mobile devices, we owe a whole lot to the activities of Jeff and Craig – who are literally a few of the real pioneers of Bible software. Pocket Bible, in its many platform iterations (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, PalmOS, Windows Mobile, Java), was likely one of the first Bible apps you tried out until recently. And even though there are others who have taken the stick in terms of leading the charge in this space, Pocket Bible has instigated many core features around library management, navigation, and spiritual focus that remain core characteristics of the electronic Bible reading experience. Jeff Wheeler was a big gear to many of those innovations, and his passion and heart for this space will be greatly missed.

Our condolences and prayers to the Wheeler family and Laridian Bible software for their loss.

All Books Project on Github

All Books Screenshot
I’ve added my All Books Project to Github for those who might be interested in taking a look as to what I’ve been working on. Right now, that’s just the UX. I’ll get the ReadMe and Wiki updated in time.

As of now, I’m not really planning to do much more to it before I finish some lessons with JavaScript and figure out the speed issues on my Nokia N8. But, if you’ve got ideas, or want to jump in, well, there it is.

Oh… the colors, measurements, and arrangement is all for a reason. That all comes in the documentation… stay tuned.

PearlVault and A Potential Solution to Notes and Electronic Bibles.

Last week, we were contacted by Aaron Frey, who has begin a Kickstarter project called PearlVault asking to help get the word out about this project. We’ve not talked about some of the struggles with notes and electronic Bibles in a long time (something from 2008, and another something from 2006), and so getting this note about PearlVault reopens that conversation alongside the other collaborative features many have asked for in the Bible software domain.

About PearlVault
From the Kickstarter page:

…This project will create a web portal where you can take your Bible study notes so that they are searchable, taggable and indexed according to Bible references. It will also allow you to attach notes to words from a particular Bible translation–or even words from the original Greek or Hebrew. It will be optimized for the easy discovery of past notes whenever you study that same passage/word/topic again. It will also be optimized for use on mobile devices so that, even when you are away from your desktop, you are never away from your Bible notes. And PearlVault, should this project succeed, will be available for the rest of your life, independent of whatever study environment you use otherwise.

Essentially, your Bible reader of choice will utilize PearlVault as the syncing-linchpin for your notes content between Bible apps. Not a bad idea, and definitely down the road towards how we’ve supported similar-featured projects in the past in regards to being able to have more liberty with the content you create or own.

[Click here if unable to see the video embedded above]

The Challenge for PearlVault
The challenge for PearlVault is getting enough buy-in and interest from Bible publishers and software companies to support this effort. Hence, the Kickstarter project. Your notes would be stored outside of the application, so that in the case you’d decide to move to another Bible software suite, that you’d not lose the content you’ve already created. As it stands right now, of the Bible software programs which have a notes functionality, many times this is a feature within the application and you usually need an additional piece of software (or in some cases a full PC) to take the notes from the application and put it into a more generic format.

The other challenge actually comes from the users of Bible software. Much like with versions of the Bible, software can become an issue of comfort and attachment. And unless circumstances dictate otherwise, many people will stick with the same Bible software family for many years. Now, when they do change, there’s some general flow towards how they evolve with Bible software:

  • Many start with a free, gifted, or low-cost package; as they become more skilled in using the software, they may opt for the paid content or a paid Bible app with a similar user interface (UI);
  • Some start with a recommendation of personable apps such as Olive Tree, Pocket Bible, YouVersion, Logos, etc.; sometimes with the encouragement to try a few of these before settling on one; in the meantime, notes and other content is being generated that won’t transfer to the app they settle to
  • The last step forks one of two ways: either the person is such the student of the text (w/pastorial responsibility) that Logos and their deep library is the only option, or they are a mild-academic in terms of the text, looking to some of the lighter Logos packages, or the wares of Olive Tree, Accordance, or eSword (depending on content needs); the latter group is likely to use more than one Bible software package

Having said this, the challenge is actually quite apparent. Even if a person moves up and through several leagues of Bible software, they will have some (not major) difficulity in keeping their notes attached (programatically) to the text. Now, do know that we are talking about a specific set of Bible software users here, its not the normal course for non-pastor/teacher types to go through several iterations of software – folks just aren’t that patient. Those who are, and who have a genuine joy for searching the Scriptures so that this issue of notes between apps comes into play, just have different needs that’s not been met as of yet which PearlVault seeks to do.

More Information, Supporting PearlVault
PearlVault is using Kickstarter in order to raise the funds needed to support the building and maintaining of the service which will be hosting these linked notes. It is also in place to log the interest of people for such functionality. By placing your donation into the project, you help Frey’s discussion with Bible publishers and software developers who sometimes don’t want to look outside of their products, but do know that the user at times will.

Some additional information about PearVault and Aaron Frey’s motivations for the project have been detailed in an interview over at Christiandroid. Definitely check that out as it goes into a bit more than the Kickstarter page towards the project’s vision and aims.

And finally, support Aaron. Having been on the side of trying to just make Bibles available between platforms, I admire and affirm Aaron Frey’s project and what it aims to do for everyone who gets value out of storing, rereading, and sharing Biblical notes.