[CS-FSLUG] Church Management Software

[EnzoAeneas]

I love the questions!

I have more:

Do we emphasize cross-platform at all costs? This allows churches to
keep their costs down.

Do we emphasize freely available technologies (mono vs. .NET) to limit
dependence on bodies not completely committed to atleast open source,
if not free software?

How will this work affect our testimony? What do we want it to say?

Do we create a system that can be coded in any or many languages so
that we can take benefits in performance for any platform, or do we
stick to a single language? (API before implementation, or API
developed from implementation)

What is acceptable performance and what is the minimum requirements to
yield this? Should it be able to run on almost any hardware?

I'm sure more will come to me later

thank you Ed!

kevin
On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 11:12 AM, Ed Hurst <ehurst at asisaid.com> wrote:
> 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
>  ------------
>  Associate Editor, Open for Business: http://ofb.biz/
>  Applied Bible - http://ed.asisaid.com/index.html
>  Kiln of the Soul - http://soulkiln.blogspot.com/
>
>
>
>
>  _______________________________________________
>  ChristianSource FSLUG mailing list
>  Christiansource at ofb.biz
>  http://cs.uninetsolutions.com
>