[CS-FSLUG] Church Management Software

[Ed Hurst]

Josiah Ritchie wrote:

>> HELLLLLP
>>
>> Whoop love to stay and chat but I got to go plunge the toilet!
> 
> Seems like what Pastors like this need is a full management system that
> would install onto a computer that would be different from their office
> computer, dedicated to management, ready to be networked if desired...

[snip]

> In a situation like this, to put such critical information onto a regular
> old desktop seems insane. You can almost guarantee that the person
> maintaining the system doesn't know how to. This is a great risk to the
> data. Such a situation means the system needs to be rock-solid dependable
> with little maintenance required.
> 
> Oh, and before I'd think tech classes in seminary make sense, I'd like to
> see mission classes, but that's another rant entirely. :-)

Amen, Josiah!

Before we rewrite the seminary curricula, we are better off deciding
where God is taking the churches of this age. They are most certainly
not all heading in the same direction, but there are similarities. Then
again, tomorrow may see forces ripping the whole thing to shreds. Until
then, we can't begin thinking in a one-size-fits-all mode for what now
exists. And I submit we aren't doing that here, but some of our comments
do sound like it.

I'm not proposing an answer, but asking some questions I hope will prove
useful in the discussion. In the past five years, I've worked in a
monster church, a medium church dreaming of being a monster, and a tiny
country church whose entire active and inactive membership didn't
justify purchasing a rolodex.

If a church wants a technology solution, we should assume someone will
step up and learn it. I believe God operates that way. I'm thinking the
question is more, "How much should they have to learn?"

As I currently lead worship in my home, I have to wonder just how much
information does it take to make things work. Since I'm likely almost
alone on that, I grant a more or less mainstream church administration
is what some people believe they need to serve the Lord. The point is, I
wonder if some of our comments haven't slipped too much into
prescription and less description.

While the group assembled virtually here on this list is probably not
representative of churches which might take interest, we have little
else to work with for now. Can we make this a more-or-less official
project for us here? I'd love that; I'm betting most of the rest would,
too. Our combined resources and skills are more than adequate.

I feel like wearing a bullseye today. Let me propose a few questions to
be answered, and you can all shout me down if you like:

1. Whom are we targeting? Whom do we attempt to serve in the Lord's name
on this sort of project? How broad can our reach be before we bite off
more than we can chew?

2. How simple can we make it? How close to the reach of non-techs do we
dare to place it? Can we at the same time keep it useful to serious techs?

3. Can we make it versatile enough to run on one PC, but scale upward to
serve a large LAN? I personally wonder if it has to be either/or
regarding where the database resides.

4. What itches do we scratch? Do we emphasize free and open source, and
not so radically different in function and form? Or do we emphasize
something really different, and incidentally open source? Do we have to
emphasize anything at all, aside from sheer need?

Anyone got more or better questions?

-- 
Ed Hurst
------------
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