The Open Source Church

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.

Check out this post by a good friend of mine Pastor Marty Walker of The Sanctuary Church in Canyon Country, CA.

This dude has a truely incredible ability to communicate. I think his insight on this is amazing.

I just read this article over on Wired Magazine. It outlines the history of “Free” and explains why “Free”is the future of business. This article is a good description of us here at The Open Source Church.

We are offering a free service in hopes of a a latter reward, only for us that reward will not come here on the earth but in heaven when we we hear the Lord “Well done my good and faithful servant”.

How does this apply to churches though? What services are we offering our guests? What is the cost of those services, either real or implied? In the world we live into day people are starting to be conditioned to expect things for free. What can your church do to capitalize on this?

Most churches are offering free stuff already, coffee, dough nuts, childcare. But what other services could you offer to guests that would generate interest and attendance while not raising you operating costs?

Maybe it is providing a Moms day out/Parents night out, utilizing your building which just sits there when your not having service. You could offer up your volunteers to help clean up the surrounding neighborhoods. Or you could show free movies for families once again utilizing that facility you have.

The point is utilizing the resources you have and using them to give something away. After all isn’t that what Jesus did? He used his life and gave it away for us, in the hopes that we would accept that gift. That is the ultimate example of “Free”.

Just thought I’d share this file with anyone who might be interested. It is a manual that I put together with the help of  some other churches ideas. Feel free to use it in any way you want. If you want an editable source file then just leave a comment and I will try to get you one. Other wise use, it claim it as your own, whatever you want. It is free!

First Impressions Manual

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!

So I explained what we are about last week. This week i want to give some insight into what we are going to be doing specifically with this site and project.

First off we will be building a database of open source software and solutions that we feel can benefit the church. From website building to document processing to server software to video editing and anywhere in between. we want the church to be able to operate more smoothly and efficiently while saving money on proprietary technology.

Secondly we will offer tips, articles, and consulting to churches looking for help with technology, marketing, and design. And since we are the OPEN SOURCE church, we will offer everything that we do for free. How can we do that you might be thinking?

Here is how. Through the grace of the almighty God that we serve. We aren’t exactly sure yet how we will sustain what we do financially, but we know that God is calling us to do it. So we are being faithful to that call and offering churches our help and services for free in the hope that we can help churches spread the gospel of Christ to the world.

So what are some of the services we are going to offer then? Here are just some of the things we offer you:

1. Technology Consulting
2. Website Design and Development
3. Marketing Consulting
4. Graphic Design
5. Software Consulting
6. Internet Strategy

And anything else that we can do to serve to the churches that are out there in need of help.

How will this work? Where do I sign Up? When can You start?

I am sure that these are questions that are running through your mind right now. Well As we get up and running please allow us a little time to get set up before we start offering these services. I expect that we will be available to start serving the church in about one to two weeks.

So stay tuned in to this blog to keep up with what we are doing.

(Coming up in Part 3: A glimpse at some of the open source solutions we are developing in house.)

“The world would be a better place without Internet Explorer” - Terry Storch(Head Tech Guy @ LifeChurch.tv)

His Original Post 

This is the most true statement I have ever heard. I  very much dislike developing for IE. But nonetheless have to due to Microsofts total domination(eghhh). Good news though Firefox is getting more popular and is now at about 36% usage I believe. If you are still using IE, well I have two words for you…

GET FIREFOX

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”.