I am fast to say that there are aspects of mobile/web/connected technologies that make sense towards engaging and being transformed by the Bible or other texts. But, the experience is always layered. There’s the device… the moment… the software… the text/audio… what window can I engage it in at that given that that will enable me to put my entire being in that Joshua 1:8 state?
And then I looked at this and smiled:
Now, this is a video demonstrating various technologies available and in use right now (XBox Kinect, Microsoft Surface, Windows 7 on a tablet, Windows Phone 7, email, IM, SMS, optical recognition technologies, etc.). But, it gets me excited because its not beyond anything that many of us have in our homes in whole or in part towards taking that “get in the Bible” experience and pushing it a bit more.
Let’s reframe the video a bit see what I mean:
- You see in the beginning that small group IM/SMS session that’s going on? That could very easily be your small (cell) group and a conversation that’s happening amongst them.
- The blueprint you see overlaid could be the entire Bible, or more specifically the sermon outline with some identifiers to Bible, commentaries, Wikipedia/Britannica, and web search entries that further expand the central them (the room being a theme, the rooms being the explorations of those themes)
- Now, the key here is that there’s not a layer to the communication aspects. Some might be in the same room using an XBox Kinect to “see” the same experience, but others might be using voice only, mobiles, tablets, or some combination to engage the discussion.
- Love that part where “Bill” takes us into the master bedroom. Can that be the “taking us into a tour of the temple?” Going a bit further than Glo Bible (a well done app experience I might add) of showing pictures, but we get a virtual room of the building and the people in that context.
- That end result, changing the door handle and adding a lamp, what happens when we are in a room (world) and we add a door or light to the environment?
Several weeks ago, my aunt and I were talking about an iPad and I shifted the discussion to what she would think of as the perfect Bible app. She responded to something like this video and our reframing – a visual and audio tour through the world of the Bible, but it connects to the physical world so that you could get a literal learning of the text and more readily apply the lesson.
If you are a pastor or lesson leader, could you get along with merging things like this? If so, do you think some of this is possible right now with what you have on your desk, in your pocket, or even, in your family room?
video via istartedsomething
We come down pretty hard on Bible apps here at MMM. Either they aren’t focused enough, or they have so many features that people get lost in using them (a 
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