Jul 9, 2010
What Spiritual App Is There a Market for?
Paul Lamb Answers
For those who want to move beyond worshiping their cell phones to worshiping on their cell phones, a wide range of downloadable mobile applications are now available. With an iPhone or other smartphone, the spiritually inclined can look up holy book verses, access meditation instructions, or receive prayer reminders on the fly. There’s even an app for Muslims to locate the nearest restaurants serving permissible (Halal) foods.
But today’s religious apps for mobile phones are largely limited to generic, singular activities—like reading the Bible or identifying holy days. They are targeted at individuals with general religious interests or informational needs. What are needed next are more personalized communication apps that connect individuals with their own local communities of faith and the day-to-day activities of those communities.
Instead of simply looking up a Torah verse, for example, next-generation apps might also allow users to retrieve service times at their local synagogue, communicate with other members of the congregation via a mobile social network, access live streaming or recorded audio/video services, and receive updates and individualized prayers from their rabbi—all on a single cell phone application. Add on the ability to organize events, sign up for classes, and make contributions or tithe directly from a smartphone and voila! You’ve got your very own “church in a pocket” app.
Such all-in-one apps could also be integrated with mobile location-based services (LBS) like Foursquare, which allow users to know when fellow church members are nearby. In the case of a temple or church, the leadership could keep track of how many congregants have arrived for a service or event (perhaps to determine critical mass?) and even identify them by name. Naturally, each community would customize and brand its own app to target its own needs and user base, much in the same way that websites currently do.
Ultimately, the purpose of “church in a pocket” apps are to enable individual faith-based communities to stay connected, expand their base, and serve up “always on” services to worshipers on the go. While the concept of a religious community mobile app may sound like fast-food religion to some, the fact remains that nearly everyone has a cell phone these days, and the appetite for phone-based apps is increasing dramatically.
People want everything else on the go, so why not bring them the church on the corner, too?
Paul Lamb is the head of Man on a Mission Consulting and manages a “Technology & Spiritual Practice” training program for faith-based communities and technologists.
Thanks Paul for this article. You raise some important questions for those who are leaders of churches and other faith communities. If the church has a purpose, it must take serious the tools at its disposal for communication and relationship building. The social media tools accessed mostly though our cell phones must be explored for those of us serious about being the church in the 21st century. How do these tools help us to re-imagine our religious possibilities? Are there certain social media tools or Aps that can be developed to specifically support the mission of the church and faith communities? How can we collaborate to develop and promote the use of these tools? Should religious communities utilize financial resources to help make this happen or just take advantage of what is developed for free and in the business world? Paul, you spurred this questions for me. Thanks.
Great thoughts Paul. Often it is easy to automate the tasks at hand and make electronic versions of existing things. Like making mobile phone bibles or mobile church websites. But how does a religious community transform its way of working and thinking to really leverage technology, especially in community building way. We tend to be focused on what happens within our buildings or the work our pastors do. But how do we break barriers for those looking to explore their faith and how do get our share of the scarce resource called people’s interest. I know there is more to my thoughts, but you have spurred it to start. Thanks.