The Open Source Church

Well it has been a little while since we have had any posts here. But believe me that is a good thing. We have been working hard on the Open Church Manager, and it is coming along nicely. It will be ready for beta release and testing toward the end of June, so keep those eyes peeled.

Apparently I am now a billionaire basketball team owner. I found the ping back below in my caught spam box for comments.

In case you don’t see it here is what it says:

Blog Jocky » Blog Archive » Slow Week Blogging | blogjocky.com/slow-week-blogging | IP: 69.89.31.64

[…] Mark Cuban wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptSo it was a little bit of a slow week blogging. Sorry life can just get so busy sometimes. Any way here is what you have to look forward to in the weeks ahead. Next Week: Church Web site design- a 5 part series where we will examine and … […]

Thats right I am now Mark Cuban the owner of the Dallas mavericks. So since I am now super rich I think I’ll go buy that flat screen TV I’ve been wanting.

So it was a little bit of a slow week blogging. Sorry life can just get so busy sometimes. Any way here is what you have to look forward to in the weeks ahead.

Next Week: Church Web site design- a 5 part series where we will examine and dissect 5 church sites and see what it is that we can learn from them, good and bad.

After that we will take a look at some of the already available open source material for churches. We may even have a guest post or two from the people behind them.

Over at Slashdot(Yes, we are that big of geeks) there is a post on PI day.

“Today, the 14th of March, is Pi Day 2008. Pi Day is internationally celebrated in honor of the mathematical constant “Pi,” who’s actual value will — now and forever — remain unknown. NeoSmart Technologies has a run-down on the history of Pi, Pi Day, and the significance of Pi and other such “magical numbers” to science and technology. ‘Pi isn’t just a number that you can use to calculate circle-related mathematics, it’s a symbol of something by far greater. Pi is one of many “magic” numbers that are found everywhere — if you know where to look. These magic numbers can’t be explained, they just are. And if you use them right, they make it a lot easier to do a lot of really complicated things… In a way, they’re a testimony to technology and computers (or vice-versa, depending on how you look at it).’”

I don’t know to me the “magic numbers” show a God who in his infinite wisdom was so precise that he created these “magic numbers” as a base for all of creation. I think when you look at everything all together you have to conclude a knowledgeable creator. I also see a God who is as big a geek as I am(but that is just me). Have a good Pi Day.

As promised Here is what we have in the works for you here at The Open Source Church:

• THE OPEN CHURCH MANAGER: This is going to be our flagship offering. It is being developed as a web application for all aspects of Church Management. Some of the features will be:
  • Membership Database: complete with contribution tracking, mapping, and standard database features.
  • Check-In System: This is a system that can be used to check in your kids church. It will feature the ability to notify parents via SMS and bar coded label/badges for the kids.
  • Group Tracking/Attendance: Need a solution to track attendances? This is it. Track your small group attendance, your Worship service attendance, or any other thing you want to track.
  • Email Marketer: Performs the same functions as a lot of the other cost based Email Marketers out there.

  Any other features that I did not mention that you might like to see? Let us know and we will take a look at it.

• Church Website Builder: I am not about to try and reinvent the wheel so this is just going to be a pre-packaged Drupal install. Why Drupal? Because in my opinion Drupal is the Best CMS on the market.
• We can also custom code solutions for your church as the need arises. Who knows we may already have a solution available to help you. Just ask us, it can’t hurt.

That is a look at what we have coming up. Our current Time schedule to the beta release of The Open Church Manager, is about three months. If you are interested in signing up for a beta account when we go live, or if you are interested in helping develop the project please visit our contact page.

We are a new organization that is dedicated to helping churches spread the gospel. Our focus is on technology, creativity, strategy, and marketing. That’s a mouthful isn’t it.

What exactly does all that mean? Well to put it simply we want to empower church leaders to reach more people for Christ. One of the ways we accomplish this is to help them implement open source technology to streamline their operations, and save them on the cost of proprietary technology.

We also help with leadership and growth strategy, marketing and design concepts and tools, and creative ideas. We want to help bring churches into the world so that churches can preach to the world.

We are “Powering Churches To Spread The Gospel”.