Tag Archives: mobile ministry

Church Tech Takeaways from CES

A little after the New Year celebrations ended, I attended the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). This was my third time attending this annual trade show and exhibition, this time as an exhibitor with the Dutch company IamProgrez. Even though I was acting in a different role, I still came away with refreshing insights into the future several areas of consumer electronics. While there were no churches represented in any of the products or services I saw at the show, I did come away with some takeaways for those in the church tech space who deal with church and community technologies.

Read the rest of 3 Tech Takeaways from the Consumer Electronics Show at Church Tech Today

Bonus:

ICCM Australia Keynote 3: Exploring the Shift from Content to Context

Its been great sharing with you the various keynote sessions shared at the 2015 ICCM Australia Confernce. In this third keynote, we open up the technical sessions of the day by talking towards the shift in computing from simply serving content to embracing the context of use.

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Issue 3: Holy Week

This issue of Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM) is deliberately begin set against the backdrop of Holy Week. The tools and technology should always take a backseat to the faith and its impacts, but as we find even in this famous week – the tools used (the whip, crown of thorns, nails, cross, and stone) speak just as loudly as the participants in the story.

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Issue 2: Envisioning

Welcome to the second issue of Mobile Ministry Magazine (MMM) simply titled Envisioning. There was a decent response from the year’s first issue and so we are going to continue down the same path with this package of observations and insights from the mobile ministry (#mobmin) space.

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Does Mobile Finish the Task

Through the recent MMF Consultation, we connected with the group Christ for All Peoples. They are one of very few organizations whose missional impact takes the perspective of reaching out to immigrants, and letting that influence put them in the position to go to various people groups around the world. During our time chatting, one of the pieces of information shared came from the website Finishing the Task which not only impressed the state of the missions movement, but also begs the questions if/when/how mobile can help finish the task.

Unreached People Groups (PDF) from Finishing the Task

Some years ago, we talked about realistically looking at the impacts of mobile. I think this dataset allows for us to revisit that question, and then ask of our methods and activities if we are engaging the technology and behaviors of mobile correctly in order to finish the task. As we stated on the panel at the MMF Consultation – information is not transformation. We cannot make a mountain out of distribution methods, and do nothing about lifestyle. We cannot just put a bible on a device and expect that literacy rates will rise and with that people will engage Christ. There’s something a bit more… detailed about the point of using mobile that our methods in mobile ministry have to speak towards. And when they do, then we see without a doubt that mobile ministry is truly effective.

So, for your organization, what about mobile directly or indirectly finishes the task of getting the Gospel to the ends of the earth?

CLA Mobile Ministry Course Registration Open

The Christian Leadership Alliance (CLA) has again opened the door to their winter session and the course we designed and will facilitate – Creating a Mobile Ministry: Mobile Ministry Introduction and Relevance – is going to be offered.

Learning Objectives

This course is designed to provide participants a better understanding of mobile technologies used in ministry practices. Upon completion, the participant should have a better understanding of the current information that is known in this space, be able to ask/answer questions of that information, and then generate new questions that will lead to sound research and applications of mobile technologies in ministry applications.

Module Overview

This course intends to lead the participant into an understanding of mobile technologies and behaviors which influence faith practices within Christian and other religious spaces, with the goal of creating a theological and sociological framework for analyzing, discussing, and leading local/global communities in mobile interactions. The participant will have the knowledge and foundational skills to supplement existing ministry activities, or start new ones which utilize mobile technologies, communications, and/or behaviors.

You can register for Creating a Mobile Ministry: Mobile Ministry Introduction and Relevance at the CLA website.

As with the previous offerings, if you have specific questions which are not answered on the course website, do ask.

Ofcom Researches UK Children’s Use of Media & Digital

Ben Evans posted about an Ofcom study that looks at children and how they have evolved in using digital devices and media on them. There are lots of nuggets here worth hanging some mobile ministry strategy considerations on. Here are a few of those graphics:

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Check out the rest of the post, and a link to the study, at Ben Evans’s website.

You might also want to look into subscribing to Ben Evans’s newsletter. There’s nothing like it and its worth the kind of content discussions you only get from one of the leaders in this space.

Should Mobile Ministry Be An API Not A Practice

Upon some of that good Sunday reading, I found myself on a website I’d never been on and reading thru their archives. Of the gems found that made its way into my notebook, a piece was just a simple listing of API resources from some larger media companies. It got me thinking of whether mobile ministry (#mobmin) would be better served as an API rather than a set of resources and practices. If you will, #mobmin as the transaction means to an end, and its documentation as nothing more than how to plug it in.

It sounds technical, but think about it.

Its Merely Practice

Dr. Richard Street

There’s something endearing about some of the conversations that we have in academic and consulting circles as it relates to mobile ministry (#mobmin). Sometimes, I get the expression – not just an impression, but a stated fact – that those who are leading in this space have all the answers. Or, at the very least have the body of work that makes it possible to just call solutions into the ether. And I get it, we are familiar with other industries where folks aren’t just working out whatever works, but they are putting for best practices – these actions that have predetermined results.

Mobile isn’t old enough, nor always refined enough to do things like that. And in a recent reading about Richard Street and a person’s reflections on his life and career, this was something I was skillfully reminded of:

Here I found the true meaning of “Practice”, with regard to medicine. Over the years, through countless struggles to preserve the health of those terminally ill, through tomes of medical literature the good doctor would pour until he had exhausted all known medical knowledge; he then would turn to the Almighty for prayer. Each painful loss only fueled his drive, his passion to prevent it from happening again. Each time, he would become better at what he did, continually striving to better himself, not only as a doctor, but also as a Christian. In essence, he practiced what he preached, and strove to become a better man while here on this earth for it.

To those businesses and ministry leaders who read this and immediately think that I’m taking the road of “well, he’s trying to hide his inexperience with a separate context,” I want to caution you. Having been in this space since 2004, an whole lot of what’s done is a matter of experiment and practice. There are items that do have definitive results – building a mobile website alongside your standard one if you are a church (or going the responsive website route); doing SMS alerts if your organization has devotional or event-led communications; and a few others. Not everything is going to get the mass of use you envision, and not everything is going to be successful towards reaching (read: broadcasting while receiving usable feedback) everyone. You have to have a measure of technical patience, and a larger one of spiritual patience.

When you do your posture either becomes one of contentment towards what is or isn’t working. Or, you derive better methods and outcomes from what you’ve learned. In any case, its mobile ministry as a practice more than it is as a finished performance. If you can get your head around that, then what you define as the “golden moment,” might carry a view that looks more like God’s than Wall Street’s.