Remember Limewire? Remember Kazaa? Remember Napster?
All of those once-great applications are barely remembered now as Peer-to-Peer software has been shutdown through federal courts in light of copyright infringement. Yesterday Limewire got another hit by courts finding the owners personally liable.
But it’s boring news since it’s been happening for years and it’s all so ho-hum now, right? Occasionally we’ll get a juicy article about a supposed “ignorant” young single parent who was caught downloading terabytes of music and fined for a trillion dollars and see them blame it on their 3-year old child…
Yikes.
But something I’ve thought about for a while that hasn’t yet come to pass is a global Peer-to-Peer network for the Church. Why don’t we have something like that? I think we could even make it “legal” if we all had the right mindset about it, right?
The technology isn’t the problem, it’s all the ego, legal mumbo jumbo, and “rights” to information that gets us stuck. But what if we were to put those aside and create a rich P2P network of content, media, and more?
Pretty neat idea, right? Perhaps I’m dreaming or perhaps it actually might be a good idea…
Thoughts?
Tom says
The potential is huge: podcasts, messages, singles from musicians. It’s a seriously solid idea and could totally underscore the whole budding online church movement.
John Saddington says
word.
youngdesign says
Our church gives away all anything we produce for free.
Why wouldn’t we?
Honestly, I can’t stand finding myself on a church website where I have to pay money to listen to a message – it’s ridiculous. How are we to reach the lost online when we are asking for money?
My hand is high in the air for creating a FREE church portal of contributed resources.
– Series art
– Stock photography
– Worship
– Messages
– Documentation
– Outreach Plans
Oh yes.
John Saddington says
Sweet. i think we’re going to look into it….
Trevor says
I really love it to read things like this. It all comes down to the ego and making sure we get ours. Which doen’t jive with what Jesus said you needed to do to be great. John, you may remember me from Drive and I told you a little about the band I play in and our approach. Often I refer to our music as “open source music” because we do not sell it. We give it away. Lives being changed by Jesus Christ is too important.
John Saddington says
YES! love it. love it! and it was great to meet you.
oschurch says
It’s great to see stuff like this happening in real life and not just in theory/theology. I’d love to check your band out…can you send the info my way?
thanks
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
Trevor says
Here is the links, Kevin.
http://www.myspace.com/fightthefademusic
http://www.fightthefade.com (still under development)
oschurch says
Thanks! I’ll check it out.
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
Daniel Hahn says
Dude! I’m totally there! Let’s do it (and when I say us, I mean someone with the talent, know-how, and resources…), and get to sharing! Why hoard it all up when there are people who need to hear what we have to say in the most creative possible ways to say it!!
John Saddington says
i’m in agreement.
oschurch says
Two words…AWE-SOME!!!! I would love to see this happen especially in a legal, community-oriented way using Creative Commons Licenses. The church was made to be in community and technology could be another tool to help bring us together (instead of alienate us which tends to be the case). To me, at least part of the “right mindset” you talk about is engaging with “open source culture”: the idea that community, sharing and freedom (all very Biblical ideas) help develop great things. Couple that with the Christian mission (which I would say embodies those principles in a lot of different ways anyway) and you have a very powerful force for sharing the love of Christ with those around us.
Actually I’ve had a lot of ideas around doing something like this and hope the opensourcechurch.com site can eventually be a landing pad for it if someone else doesn’t do it first. More power to anyone else though…the sooner, the better.
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
John Saddington says
sweet. my team has put it in their heads…..
PhillipGibb says
it’s a great idea – if u can convince people to be legit. There are so many Christians shamelessly sharing pirated tv shows, movies and software that something like this may be too much of a temptation.
John Saddington says
pirating. yes. stay above reproach!
Daniel says
I switched to WarezBB, before then I used bittorrent/thepiratebay, but then I got a C&D from adobe…
I know its wrong, and I plan to stop once I get older and get a job…anyways, I won’t go into that.
I’m all for a legal, Christian p2p program/site. I’m for pretty much anything that incorporates Jesus with the endless-potential IT medium.
John Saddington says
sweet. sweet!
dannyjbixby says
You’re right, it’s a great idea.
You’re right, you’re dreaming.
maybe
John Saddington says
stay tuned…..
Trevor says
Someone has to dream it before it becomes reality.
Matt Phelps says
Something along the lines of LifeChurch.tv’s “Open”? I agree, I’d love to see something like that, especially when a majority of churches don’t have the resources to produce quality graphics/videos. The major obstacle I see with that is how many churches seem to feel like other churches are the competition.
John Saddington says
yes, very much similar… but anyone can contribute, seed, etc…
danielcberman says
You may be dreaming, but I think its high time somebody starts pushing for this. Hopefully, not only as a file sharing service but a global collaborative ministry framework. Basically, what happens if we turn SoChurch inside out and push it global?
Check out http://global-christian.net for my efforts thus far.
John Saddington says
ah, it’s changed again…? design?
danielcberman says
Launch quickly, iterate often. :>) Still working to refine vision, and build support…
Eric says
sorry if this has already been posted http://www.creativemyk.com/
Bruce says
Someone has to dream it before it becomes reality.
John Saddington says
agreed.