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Purpose Driven 2.0?

written by Ben Dubow
Saturday, February 24, 2007

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I just got back from a Purpose-Driven Conference at Saddleback Church. It was a fantastic conference with tons of take-aways. (Read some of my general thoughts on the conference here). One of the most interesting things at the conference was when Rick Warren spoke about some of the things they are doing with technology and web. Rick described what many are calling “church 2.0″ (based on the idea of web 2.0) where there is a network of contributors as opposed to a hierarchy of information.

Saddleback sees committed to creating a real network of churches sharing ideas and best-practiced across the globe. In additional, Saddleback is working on developing two suites of software packages that they are planning to make available for free to other churches. One is a comprehensive church-management suite including things like “Group Find”, “Ministry Find” etc. The other is wiki-based suite of information on missions. They have been building it at Saddleback as their small groups have been going out into the mission field as part of their PEACE Plan. The database will include user-contributed information about pretty much every mission location, project, country, people group, etc. It will also include training modules for cross-cultural missions, information about what to pack/bring, etc. They are also including a “logistics” management piece of the software to manage trips.

Anyway, this all sounds very cool. I am deeply impressed by the folks at Saddleback and their commitment to serving the broader Body of Christ.

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17 Responses to “Purpose Driven 2.0?”

  1. This is good to hear. I’m currently working on a few things in this space as well. Hopefully we don’t over lap. I’m currently working on a bunch of web 2.0 stuff for my church. Do you know if it will be open source or have api’s? oh and if you are a small church looking for a little bit of this action lifeboat14.com (i think) is a cool small group social site for your small group.

    Mark Miller February 24th, 2007 at 1:14 pm

  2. Dave…

    I love to hear discussions of “new” ways of doing church…

    I had an idea the other day. What about a “wiki” style online site for commentary. We have wonderful commentaries on every book in the bible, but what about community commentaries. We could call the communitaries. If I knew that I had a means to speak into the life of current interpretation of scripture, I would do it in a second…

    What do you think?

    AJ

    AJ February 27th, 2007 at 1:10 am

  3. I love that idea AJ. We’ve been looking at using a wiki to invite people in our community to participate in the writing/conception of messages/sermons.

    Ben D February 27th, 2007 at 9:40 am

  4. AJ I love that idea too. Ebible.com has a build in commenting system that can be shared but isn’t true wiki. I think it’s time that Christians start thinking open source when it comes to expanding the kingdom instead of going down the road of how we can package what we have learned and sell it to other churches.

    Mark Miller February 27th, 2007 at 10:55 am

  5. Hi,
    we wore one of the venders at the Purpose-Driven Conference. We are a web 2.0 management system and social network for small groups (Small Groups 2.0). The conference was a great way to put the word out about groopik.com, we had a great time and we created a good buzz around our service. Check it out.
    www.groopik.com
    It would be nice to hear some feedback from you guys.

    cristian February 27th, 2007 at 4:33 pm

  6. Hey Cristian-

    We currently use a web-based system that integrates groups into the whole church management software, but I will take a look at groopik and let you know what I think.

    What would make me very excited would be if it included some live chat functions which would allow us to create completly online small groups, in addition to providing a resource for traditional small groups.

    Ben D February 27th, 2007 at 4:49 pm

  7. Is your current system a connecting place for your members also?. In groopik every member can login and communicate, similar to myspace but without all the junk. They can send comments, browse people by tags, etc. But also the pastor can see attendance reports, the latters prospects and members added to groups.
    If you would like I can give access to a demo account so you can see what I’m talking about.

    cristian February 27th, 2007 at 5:02 pm

  8. We are writing one that will work with our church membership app. I would like to see more of these church apps as scripts to purchase so we can integrate with other apps. Like the one we are writing works with our “my account” login so we only need one login for online giving, small groups, commenting on department blogs, and registering for events. I wish more church apps had api’s

    Ben,

    What apps are you using for group and church management?

    Mark Miller February 27th, 2007 at 5:08 pm

  9. I think one of the problem is the most of church management aren’t web base. Our church is using a very popular software but no body like it, is a desktop app. We are using groopik for our smallgroups ministry and they like it a lot becouce is so simple to use.

    cristian February 27th, 2007 at 5:15 pm

  10. ya i hear that. We are using shelby but we are slowly moving to a custom web app because the current web (fellowship technologies) apps don’t have api’s or anything. Which if I want our members to have one login that wont happen, they would need to register for our small groups and then register to give online with fellowship, and that makes it hard for reporting. I like the simple interface on the groopik.

    Mark Miller February 27th, 2007 at 7:20 pm

  11. We currently use Church Community Builder(http://www.churchcommunitybuilder.com) and like it.

    It integrates together a church database, groups (with email, discussion groups, etc), a “facebook” type interface, online giving, and a user-defined assimilation process as well as room/space reservations and church-wide calendar.

    Does anyone know of any non-custom software that would allow online based small groups (including live chat)?

    BD

    Ben D February 27th, 2007 at 9:33 pm

  12. Hey guys,

    I stumbled on this blog as I was browsing the net for web 2.0 applications for churches. That is great what Saddleback church is doing, what a service!
    I have been looking at web 2.0 apps. and have been trying to scope out the top 5 and bring them to my church to see if we can jump on the bandwagon. I just checked out groopik and churchcommunitybuilder (thanks to the above posts). While browsing I also found this site
    http://www.simonsolutions.com Has any one heard of these guys or currently use them?
    Again thanks for the info

    Michelle March 2nd, 2007 at 1:39 pm

  13. Ben,

    Take a look at ning.com. One iteration of this is http://jesusfirst.ning.com/. It’s not great, but it gives you an idea of what you can do. - Tim

    Tim March 23rd, 2007 at 8:55 pm

  14. Re: Wiki & Faith

    I’ve been tossing around the idea of “Faith-o-pedia,” with the notion of bringing core doctrines into the broader public view (and subsequent discussion). The theory that was bubbling up in my brain at the time was to “free” the discussion of doctrine, pulling it out of the confines of institutions and putting it into the hands of everyone.

    That’s a pretty ambitious goal, and doesn’t do Martin Luther’s work justice by way of comparison, but it could be an interesting springboard. I think a combo of Ning.com, a doctrinal wiki, and a set of cell-based shared blogs would be interesting. Granted, it wouldn’t satisfy the “we need something to count” crowd, but that may be a good thing. ;-) - Tim

    Tim March 23rd, 2007 at 9:03 pm

  15. Thanks Tim-

    Ning looks pretty cool. I’m going to play around with it.

    Interesting ideas… I like.

    Ben D. March 23rd, 2007 at 10:22 pm

  16. Tim - I can’t remember how I stumbled across this site (Theopedia.com), but is it what you’re envisioning for “Faith-o-pedia?” I haven’t actually browsed the site yet, although I may do so now.

    Blake A. March 24th, 2007 at 7:25 pm

  17. Blake,

    Interesting. Not sure how I feel about the intentional lack of a “neutral point of view.” Thanks for the link though. Interesting reading. - Tim

    Tim March 26th, 2007 at 4:09 pm

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