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Visions of the Empty Church

I was thinking the other day about what I'd love to see as a company vision/mission.

To identify or create cost-effective solutions that meet the specific needs of non-profit and religious organizations.

I was thinking the other day that the majority of churches want need some sort of way to find a way to stay up to date with the current world, but they don't have much (if any) money to do things.

At St. Matthew's we have gobs of information floating around on about 7 different machines.  I say about because we have volunteers with their own computers and their own data which isn't backed up or even known about.

When we have a budget of pretty much nothing, there needs to be someone who can inexpensively offer solutions which focus on meeting the need instead of making money.

In the example I gave above, this company could work with multiple organizations and churches to create a requirement that all church volunteers creating content for the church must have Mozy installed and backing up data to a central church account.  The company may also negotiate lower prices for storage or even co-ordinate multiple churches and organizations to split the cost of off-site storage.

In any case, without some serious dragging into the Internet age, local churches are going to fail.  I look at all of the teens and college students around and already I'm falling behind.  These guys don't communicate over e-mail at all and never check their cell phone voicemail. 

To really reach them and get out information it comes from MySpace messages (though Facebook is taking over there), text messages and speaking directly (on their cell, of course...  or IM).  Truthfully the way these guys communicate and send messages will be completely different from anything I can imagine.

If you think they'll be reading snail mail, you are sadly mistaken.

My point is that if your church isn't actively working to use technology in communication and everything that it does, it's going to be empty in ten to thirty years.

What would a company look like that focused on helping these people with little money jump into the Internet age?

Peace,
+Tom

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