The Sunday Mail
Ashraf Tikiwa – Religion Correspondent
RELIGION continues to break new ground with more and more innovative techno- savvy mobile app ideas birthed to further ministry.
Whether it be receiving your daily devotional, mastering a scripture verse or even singing your favourite hymn, religious cultures continue to sync the world of technology with favoured spiritual activities.
Both locally and abroad, mobile apps have been created and adopted in some religious cultures. Zimbabwe has also joined the bandwagon of app producers and have established tools for navigation, praise and study
Quoting an international website and applications forum, Technews World, technology has fast gained mileage in the business of religion today, “Technology is about expanding the parameters of what is possible and about finding new and different ways to communicate thoughts and ideas. Internationally religious websites are among some of the top most visited sites today.
“As a result, technology has allowed thousands, if not millions of people, to begin to develop spiritually outside of the traditional structures.”
Top of the list of locally brewed apps is the AFM hymn book app for android devices. It adds convenience to the traditional way of carrying a hymn book and allows church members to have all their favourite hymns at the click of a button.
The AFM hymn book app seeks to be a prominent feature in the praise sessions in services and some of the users shared their sentiments on the App, “It is excellent. I love technology, I was in church singing a hymn on my tablet and all those near me wanted to really understand what it is and how to get it. Praise God for the beautiful technology.”
Another member concurred: “Kudos to AFM in Zimbabwe. Its inspirational development. May God continue to bless you.”
The Catholic Church in Zimbabwe has its foot in the app lane with their very own Catholic Directory.
The directory contains a list of all cities in Zimbabwe where a Catholic church is located allowing Catholic believers to easily navigate to assemblies convenient to them.
Another home-born mobile app, this time designed for the traditional African culture, is Mitupo, a mobile app that seeks to preserve the Zimbabwean traditional culture. Basically it is a listing of all generally known Mitupo (totems) in the public domain.
One can scroll and search to get the totem they are affiliated to.
This app does tie in with the African traditional religion in this regard and hence appears in this family of locally birthed mobile applications.
The Rastafarians have mobile applications for followers.
One such is a mobile free dictionary app designed to help members familiarise with the Rastafarian terms used. The app goes beyond just giving meanings of words and terms like a normal dictionary but may also contain a brief history of the culture with regard to specific terms in the dictionary. Though not as prominent among local citizens as the others above, the app does offer a greater insight into this culture.
Churches have also adopted SMS applications.
These are widely popular in today’s religious sects and are typically used for daily devotionals, outreach programme invites and notifications to existing members of assemblies.
With these latest innovations by Zimbabwe religious groups coupled with the emergence of television stations and other new media by local churches, mobile technology looks set to be the growing trend in the religious culture.
