The Intersection of Scripture Use and Text Messaging

I saw a Papua New Guinean friend of mine recently and got to talking with him about the recent explosion of mobile phones in Papua New Guinea. I had read an article in Forbes awhile back about how mobile phones had gone from "nowhere" to "everywhere" in just a few months, and, my friend told me, the stories are all true. "Mobile phones are everywhere," he said. "Everywhere you go on the Highlands Highway there are phone stores and people talking on mobiles."

It didn't take long for us to begin talking about how these mobile phones could be used for Kingdom purposes. One of the needs in PNG is for "Scripture Use" - teaching people how to read, comprehend and apply the Word of God in their own language. As we talked, it seemed that a cross-platform computer program called FrontlineSMS could be used effectively in Scripture Use applications.

FrontlineSMS runs on a laptop computer and connects to a GSM mobile phone (or GSM modem) via a USB cable. The software connects to the phone to send and receive text messages. It can manage groups of contacts (e.g. "Translation team" or "Community Church members") and reportedly has MMS (multimedia) capability as well. Click the screenshot below for a larger version:

The goal of using FrontlineSMS would be to enable pastors and church leaders to connect with people using the devices they are already using. For instance, a pastor could send text messages of the "Bible verse of the week" in their local language and enable people to communicate about the verse with him and with each other. A Bible translator could use the service to test translated passages with people, anytime, without needing to be in the same place. Eventually, as phones become more capable and data access improves, the text messages could provide download links for audio and/or video resources.

While it is not a perfect solution, these are some ways that even the simple text message could be used in building up the global church.

Other resources:

• Hardware needed
• Example of building a community using FrontlineSMS