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.

Check out this video by the Catalysts Road Trip Guys, where they sit down with Tony and pick his mind about blogging. it’s some good stuff.

So, Tony Morgan led a blogging breakout at last weeks Unleash conference at Newspring church in Anderson, SC. If you didn’t attend(Like Me, I wish i could have though.) you can catch Perry’s two sessions online at the Unleash site. Anyway Tony gave ten steps to better blogging in his session. Here they are:

1. Determine your primary audience
2. Post regularly
3. Keep posts short
4. Don’t sell yourself
5. Use Humor
6. Stop attacking other people or ministries
7. Remember that blogging isn’t private
8. Be a thought leader
9. Don’t listen to your critics
10. Reveal the real you

So what do you think? What else would you add to this list? View the PDF from his session, it has more on each point. Also register for next years Unleash Conference, I will.

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.

Ok so we didn’t get any of those cool web 2.o type pages up yesterday (sorry, we just got a little busy), but today we present to you our AboutUs.org wiki page. What is this? Well it is basically just a summary of what the website is and what the organization does. Why would we need this? Well for one it creates something more valuable then gold in a Search Engine owned world, linkbacks. Linkbacks help improve your sites search engine ranking. The more linkbacks you can get to your domain from reputable sources the better your ranking will be.

Anyway go on over and check it out, and if you want you can even add or edit info on it.

Today we are setting up a lot of web 2.0 apps for ourselves here at The Open Source Church. Why you ask? Well simply put we are a technology driven project so we are going to stay on top of technology(and we just love doing this stuff).

Also a lot of these great Web 2.0 apps actually help market your church to the masses. Most are free so it will cost you nothing. Think about it. If you spent one day setting up a Facebook Page, A Squidoo Lens, A AboutUs wiki. you could reach more people, which means more possibilities of change dlives. All for just a little bit of your time.

If you are interested in helping to promote your church using these and more great Web 2.0 apps, get started doing it yourself or  contact us today find out more.

We’ll Keep you updated throughout the day as we get different apps up.

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.

Just wanted to highlight a few favorite Technology Resources for you guys.

Internet Filter

-You may have heard of this before but just wanted to share one of my favorite ways to provide content filtering is through OPENDNS. It is a great resource for content filtering and even moderate network monitoring. Check it out.

Office Software

- Now I would hope that you have heard of Open Office. But if you haven’t go get it. It does everything that MS Office can do and best of all it uses the open document format, which if you haven’t heard is kinda a big issue right now between the like of Google and Microsoft. Check it out,and better yet start using it.

Portability

-Ever wish you could take the programs on your computer with you to whatever computer you use. Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of
your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any
Windows computer. All without
leaving any personal data behind. This is the leading use for my thumb drive. Yeah sure I use it to transport files every now and then, but I love being able to take my the apps that I use the most(along with all my settings) with me to other computers. Check it out.

Have a great day!