Beyond the Mobile Web

Mobile Web is a fascinating for me.  The thought of so many people now having a personal, simple (relatively speaking) device that they can use to connect with people around the world boggles me sometimes.   More people are carrying around with them a device that has more computing power than 1969′s NASA (source) than ever in the history of the world.  They’re using these devices to not just do business (or send people to the moon) but are using them as extensions in their everyday lives.  Connecting to the Internet is not an event that one does as in the day of the desktop computer but its a part of life and basic daily communication.  As in the show “Star Trek” which showed a tri-corder which could do almost anything, so today our mobile devices do all sorts of things.  People are using the mobile phones as MP3 players, cameras, schedule keepers, games, sound mixers, instruments, audio recorder, information gather, shopping assistant, etc. The feature I use the least on my mobile phone is calling someone.

Case in point – when Alex, my 10 year old son, was talking about what one of the kids in his class did that was funny, I asked him if he got a picture of it.  His response, “Dad, I didn’t have a cell phone with me.”  In his mind, cameras are a part of mobile/cell phones.  I haven’t even talked with him that originally cameras used film and that you actually had to wait to see what the picture looked like.

Now I’m not going to go into whether or not it’s good for society to be tied to technology over straight human contact (the same argument has been discussed with every major advancement of communication – the telegraph, radio, TV, etc), however the reality is that the world is moving in this direction.  Mobile devices are going to be just a part of our daily interactions with people.

So my question is - how do we as the church incorporate mobile devices into our lives so that we can share the Gospel in relavent, contextual ways?  What ways have you come up with?

Reach the world

We live in an area of the world that is the cross-roads of a multitude of cultures.  It’s not uncommon to hear 3 or 4 different languages spoken each day by the people who live in our town.  And we don’t live in some big city like New York.  We live in a smaller (about 4000 people big) town but that tells you the extent by which Europe is a melting pot with people from everywhere converging onto the one of the smallest continents.

But that’s what’s exciting about ministering here – there’s an opportunity to reach not only the Germans, French, and other traditional European populations but you can easily walk along side people from the Far East, Middle East, Russia, South America and Africa as they are on their spiritual journeys.  The reality is that those away from their home cultures are usually more open to discussing spiritual matters.  Now is the time to engage with them.

All the nations – in one location.  Come with us and reach the world.  – Greater Europe Mission