[This is the first “official” announcement of my participation in a startup business, SoChurch, which hopes to change the way ministries and churches leverage web technology for church communication. I’ve been waiting my whole life to build something like this!]
You already know this but it’s worth repeating again: The lifeblood of any organization is effective communication. An obvious corollary truth is the fact that organizations that have a more strategic, effective, and organized method of communicating will always be more successful.
Of course, the opposite is just as true and unfortunate: Organizations who are weak in terms of communication end up with frustrated programs, initiatives, and burnt out personnel.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this said:
If only we had better communication between X and Y! We’d be more productive, save more time, money, and resources!
Right? What’s been fascinating to me for the longest time is why the church, of all types of organizations, isn’t one of the very best at communication since our entire culture and history is related to a communicated message!
And if it’s not the people that are causing the bottleneck then it might just be the tool(s).
SoChurch aims to change all that and more. Welcome to Church Communication. Simplified.
Built for the Church. Really.
One of the most frustrating and disappointing truths about many of the products that exist today that are being leveraged for ministries and churches is the fact that they are retrofitted products and strategies from the marketplace.
In other words, these products are somewhat forced to be solutions when they are rather copies of what appears to work well outside the context of the church. SoChurch isn’t built that way.
In fact, it’s been built from the ground-up with a completely different paradigm, philosophy, and mindset when it comes to how the local church operates which is, from many vantages, categorically different than marketplace and secular organizations.
I’m personally proud to say that it may just be the first product for ministry organizations that has taken a historical and cultural approach to it’s product build. I honestly can’t wait for you to see and experience it.
There’s obviously much more to this on a pragmatic level and you’ll hear much, much more from me on how we built this product differently. But I guarantee that you’ll say “Wow”.
Scalable, Dynamic, and Culturally Flexible.
I’m proud to say that we’re building a product that will scale from the giga-church all the way down to the tech-savvy leader of a small group and/or house-church. We’ve done this by creating a robust information architecture that is simply one-of-a-kind and definitely world class.
It’s also just plain “different” than the rest of the applications and products that are out there, and not just different for its own sake; we’ve built it so that it can be used effectively regardless of how your organization communicates today.
You see, our goal is not to necessarily change the way you communicate to your organization, congregation, and beyond but rather to provide a technology solution that helps you do whatever you do but better and more effectively.
As a result, we’re building a product that is infinitely scalable, “culturally flexible,” and dynamic in the unique ways that God has created your ministry.
Trust us when we tell you that we can’t wait to show you how “all that” works…
Do More Ministry. Seriously.
We’ve all heard it a thousand times:
I wish I could spend less time doing X so that I could spend more time doing Y (or actual ministry)!
Typical solutions to this rampant problem are found in time, resources (financial), and manpower. SoChurch will help you save on all three so that you can seriously spend more time doing what you do best, which may not be accounting and administration.
[Although God bless you if you have those gifts!]
Although you might be won over by the obvious technological benefits that this platform will provide it ultimately has to create a compelling business case: We’ve done all the work for you.
SoChurch will save you time, money, and valuable resources on many of the things that you’re already doing in an effort to communicate to your ministry and congregation. Examples would include email campaigns, news-lettering, online properties and website costs, polling, online giving, and more.
We’ve calculated that SoChurch will save the average congregation, regardless of size, up to 90% of their monthly costs associated with such services. Try presenting that fact and figure at your next Director meeting…!
An Unbelievable Team
Finally, I’d like to submit to the fact that God has assembled an amazing team to help build SoChurch to its full potential.
Although I cannot give you more details right now about the specific people that have partnered with us as our Advisory Board they will be names that you recognize and respect.
The simple fact is this: Although we feel like our core Executive team has the chops (and experience) to make something fantastic we know that that’s not how it “works.” God asks and challenges us to gather in community with other believers who He enables to give valuable guidance and insight to help us be more successful.
And this also just makes sense since we’re building a communication tool for community development, right? We’re going to walk the walk and not just talk the product.
Expect to Hear the Name SoChurch More Often.
Expect to hear more about SoChurch not only through this blog but also throughout the interwebs and in everyday conversation.
Our goals and vision for this product would probably be considered “god-sized” because we believe that we have something incredible to offer the local church.
And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
We want to do big things for God and His Church and we’re going all-out on this one.
Patient and Prayerful Anticipation.
Seriously, we want you to be excited! We’ve been planning this for months (years actually) and things are finally to a place where we’ve gone public.
There’s still so much that I can’t wait to share with you and let you in on; we’re just not there… yet.
We feel that this product is going to not only revolutionize how ministries and churches communicate but open the much larger Church body to a level of innovation and thinking that hasn’t been done quite yet.
We’re unbelievably pumped and humbled that we’ve been allowed to be a part of this and we’re asking you to be a part of this as well as we continue to build this product and launch it to the world.
Stay tuned for more information and pray for the team as we continue to follow God’s calling in our lives!
Sneak Peak, Twitter, Facebook, and You!
You can follow us on Twitter, join us on Facebook, and check out our relatively-bare intermediary homepage (for right now) here: SoChurch.com.
Until then, here’s some eye-candy for you to review… although these are only high-fidelity comps (and subject to change) we’ve been spending more than what’s typical in terms of mapping out the user interface and user experience:
[Click for a hi-rez]
Finally, we want to hear from you. Although we’ve been planning, doing research, praying, and learning how ministries communicate (or how they don’t) we want to hear what the perfect communication platform looks like to you?
Tell us in the comments.
What features would it have? What functionalities? What integrations? Dream with us.
We’re taking notes.
JayCaruso says
This is great. It’s also timed rather well. This past weekend our church kicked off a purposeful leadership development program and it’s going to have the active involvement of many people who operate in the volunteer capacity and not full time staff positions.
When we were having a round table discussion on Sunday with members of the Timothy group (the core group of leaders who will be assuming more responsibility as we grow) and I got very blunt at one point saying the one thing our church truly lacks is effective communication. This seemed to bring a look of puzzlement to some of the staff members until I told them that they added a service for Easter Sunday yet failed to notify my wife who happens to be the Nursery Director. The only reason she found out is because I went to the church website and saw the new banner. Others did not know as well. Communication amongst staff and ministry leaders is often haphazard emails, grabbing somebody as they walk by in the hallway or last minute phone calls. Communication within ministries is vital to their health, so it will be very interesting to see what SoChurch has to offer.
And I got a nice laugh out of the fake “Tom Jones” and “Billy James” names used the above graphic. Hilarious.
John Saddington says
neat! stay tuned. it shall be grand.
Stephen Bateman says
Hey this is in the vein of FellowshipOne or Community Church Builder? Our church is in the market for one of these, and we’re about to buy but haven’t made a decision yet. Possible beta testing?
Anyway perfect comm platform would handle:
-Really good signups for events
-Email members with option for sub-groups
-Volunteer management
-Team spaces with options for discussion and document hosting/preview
-Follow Up (Someone responds at a service and are connected to the right people right away)
-Social integration
LOVE IT
John Saddington says
definitely a YES on the BETA testing. it’ll have events, emailing capabilities, social networking, and more.
we’d love for you to test it.
Jonathan says
Send off an email to craig [at] sochurch.com and he will get you on our list of future beta testers. Thanks for the interest, Stephen!
dewde says
fantastic list, Stephen.
John Saddington says
agreed
PaulSteinbrueck says
I’m still a bit fuzzy on what you’re developing. Is it going to be full-blown church management system like Fellowship One? A private social network for churches like Unifier? Something else? Regardless, I look forward to seeing what you guys put together.
John Saddington says
we are not creating a new church management system.nor are we creating a private social network… we are building a tool that helps make communication more simple and effective. we’d like to say that we’re creating something that’s never really been created before. in fact, we’re pretty positive it hasn’t.
our app will work well with existing products as well. we’re not interested in recreating the wheel!
great questions!
Nick Shoemaker says
Love that you’re not recreating the wheel with this.
So sweet. So needed right now.
John Saddington says
i couldn’t be more pumped.
Jonathan Cottrell says
Wonderfully put, John. It’s exciting to have you on board the SoChurch team. I personally look forward to making waves within the Church alongside you!
John Saddington says
w00t!
Jim says
can’t wait to see what you guys cook-up!
Jonathan says
Thanks Jim! Looking forward to sharing more as we go.
John Saddington says
you ninja. you’ll be the first to know….
Dan King says
Sounds sweet so far. I think that the perfect tool for our church would include complete Twitter, Facebook and YouTube integration as well as separate calendar and room request tool. Integration with Sermons.net would be cool too. It would also be nice to have a nice blog feature in it as well.
I’ll have to think about this a little more, but these are some of the things right off the top of my head.
Dan King says
Oh… and event payment (for like conference fees, etc.) or other online giving integration.
And I’d also be willing to Beta test if possible. I promise to blog about it!
Jonathan says
Thanks Dan! See my note @Stephen Bateman up above and send an email to craig [at] sochurch.com to get on the beta tester list. And keep those ideas comin’ our way!
Daniel Decker says
Very interesting to see where this goes. I just sent Craig a note from my church email address.
John Saddington says
love it. integration is definitely something we’re looking at closely.
seriously. love it.
PhillipGibb says
wow – that is incredibly awesome.
I’ll be one of the many drivers out there in the Internet spreading the news!!
Jonathan says
That’s tremendous, Phillip! We really appreciate it. Expect an affiliate program in the future to make your participation in spreading the word rewarding, too!
John Saddington says
+1 for affiliate program…!
Ben Forsberg says
We totally appreciate your support! Thank for helping us out.
dewde says
Phillip is an amazing encourager. It’s sort of his thing.
peace | dewde
John Saddington says
yup. that is true.
John Saddington says
thanks phillip! i know you’re already a supporter!
Brad Davis Seal says
Church communications is tricky stuff. Thanks for help to simplify it.
Jonathan says
We agree that it can be–and most often is–tricky stuff, as you put it. More importantly, we don’t think it has to be, or that it should be.
Bye bye friction!
John Saddington says
we’re going to do it!
Andrew Mason says
Great.
Way to *air quotes* “Change the world” and crap.
😉
Seriously?
….Awesome.
John Saddington says
yes. and then some. 😉
Nick Shoemaker says
HA! I love your avatar from Meatballs– especially when coupled with this comment!
Noice. 🙂
Faye says
I’m with @Stephen Bateman – we’re at that place of truly needing “something” but not sure yet which “something” we’re going with.
I also feel the pain of finding out through abnormal sources about resources needed for events. Someone has a wedding planned this Saturday. When asked if they needed one of the sound techs for the wedding, she said, “Oh no, *** is just going to sing one song.” I asked her then if the singer was singing acapella, or would she use music, and did she want it amplified. What a look of shock!
Please, earlier in 2010 than later, I’m about to be on the floor kicking & screaming!!! (And that won’t be pretty.)
Jonathan says
Faye, I love this comment! Thank you so much for communicating your need–we know you are *not* alone in the need.
Kicking and screaming unfortunately won’t get it hear any faster, but you can rest assured that we are moving very quickly. Follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay updated… and be sure to spread the word!
John Saddington says
i will think of you every time the day gets closer to release…! you should sign up for a beta release!
dannyjbixby says
I’m not exactly sure what this does.
From reading the comments, it seems that’s almost the point. There isn’t something that really does it now, so it’s not explainable…exactly.
I think that’s pretty sweet.
An area that I know we need better communication in is our small group management. Leaders to members, leaders to coaches, members to each other. Same w/ volunteers.
We use ChurchTeams & Fellowship1…but it almost sounds like you’ve got some sort of hybrid (and more) happening here.
Neat.
Jonathan says
Danny, you hit the nail on the head–we don’t mind creating a little bit of mystery. Hope you don’t mind navigating it.
Regarding small group and volunteer communication, we totally agree! We aim to truly centralize the efforts of separate systems and, as John so aptly put, simplify church communication. That said, I want to be clear in stating that we are not a full blown Church Management System. Instead, we are a communications platform built expressly for the Church. I hope that clarifies things a little bit.
Thanks for the comment!
John Saddington says
mystery is awesome. 😉
Ben says
Absolutely phenomenal. When I worked as the administrative assistant for my church, the largest frustration was communicating between each other and to the congregation. This is really a revolutionary way to make the church relevant and hopefully strengthen a community.
My hope is that it is affordable for the smallest churches also (which sounds like you will be doing that). You really are a treasure John, can’t wait to see the final product.
Jonathan says
Ben, we agree with both of your sentiments. SoChurch will be both 1) Revolution and 2) Affordable. Stay tuned!
John Saddington says
THANKS SO MUCH! i can’t wait for you to see it.
Sam Hoover says
Well you sure know how to pump up excitement … you’re saying all the right things. Just hope the product itself can live up to the expectations/demands with which you’re setting us up. I’ll take the risk in sounding skeptical since I’m a “believe it when I see it” kinda guy but I know that if you guys deliver, this will be big.
LOVE your enthusiasm! That kind of energy is exactly what’s needed to get this kind of tool up and running. Keep it up!
Jonathan says
Thanks Sam! I believe our experience in real world product execution will speak for itself, but I understand the skepticism. Stay tuned though, because this thing WILL be real and WILL deliver on its promises.
John Saddington says
please. be a skeptic and prove us wrong…! or try to.
😉
austinklee says
A Big w00t from me to you!
Jonathan Cottrell says
And a w00t back to you, Austin.
John Saddington says
word.
Martin Hathaway says
Thank you for the great timing of this announcement!
I am six months into development of my own church community & communications software platform – Church is Social™. It’s just a couple of weeks away from launching to the UK church market. I was starting to doubt myself and asking whether I was really the only one seeing this market need.
I left a job at the UK’s leading ChMS (known as ChurchInsight in the US) to start this venture, which puts community back at the centre of the church. It’s a community-oriented SaaS platform that makes internal and external church communications more efficient and simpler to manage.
I wish you the very best of luck as you prepare your first release and I look forward to following your progress. Although I am launching to the UK market, my market research was based on spotting this niche in the US market. However, church web technology tends to swim very slowly over to our side of the pond.
Martin Hathaway
Co-Founder and Product Manager, Church is Social™
Jonathan Cottrell says
Best of luck, Martin.
John Saddington says
cool! we should talk.
Martin Hathaway says
I am more than happy to talk. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sanford Levings says
Please explain what it is that you are doing.
John Saddington says
sanford, i could definitely explain this in person probably better…! i’ll email you.
Stuart says
John – would it help with this: http://churchtechmatters.com/2010/03/21/ive-got-an-idea/ – if so I’m in for testing, trialling, whatever ….
Excited. Yup.
Jonathan Cottrell says
Hey Stuart, glad you’re excited. Just send an email to craig [at] sochurch.com and we’ll get you on the beta tester list. Be sure to spread the word!
brett barner says
Wow, this is awesome! Seriously, can’t wait to hear more updates on this. I have a feeling this will be made with extra awesomesauce.
Jonathan Cottrell says
You can most definitely count on a whole bunch of love, care, and extra awesomesauce being caked on this thing.
dewde says
Especially since your mug is plastered all over those screenies! haha.
peace | dewde
John Saddington says
that is true…… 😉
Nick Shoemaker says
yeah- you deff have the mug for “church screenies” 😉
John Saddington says
tons. and then some.
Tom Schneller says
I don’t know what “it” is exactly… but I like it.
Kinda like a Yammer for the church Wiki Forum Blog Bulletin Board that’s so easy even a Facebook user can use it…. but not exactly like that… 🙂
Woot!
Jonathan Cottrell says
You’ve got some pieces. Don’t worry, we’ll fill in the gaps as we go. Consider this post the border of a puzzle that will soon be filled and complete.
John Saddington says
it’s going to be “something” that’s for sure. it’ll be easy to use. definitely.
Jason Yarborough says
This is great stuff. Look easy to navigate through as well. If this has the capability to back into something like F1 or Arena and avenues like that then you’ve got something huge. I’ve been working with another startup very similar to this on their advisory board. Some of the ideas I’ve thrown out there for them (but not implemented) are what you guys have done. Impressive. I have talked to quite a few ministries that need something like this to work with existing systems…not separately.
Jonathan Cottrell says
Sounds like you got some good insights on the matter, Jason. Spread the word, and watch for some exciting developments over the coming weeks and months.
John Saddington says
again, we’re not interested in re-creating the wheel or just doing the same thing as others but “better.”
we want to do something different and to fill a definitive need.
word!
Benji Zimmerman says
I guess I would want to make sure that a system like SoChurch can integrate with the FellowshipOne database as well as leverage all the various social media outlets (Facebook groups, staff blogs, twitter accounts) Kind of like the integration of twubs on a particular hashtag. With thousands of attendees at Central and hundreds of various groups, would SoChurch require accounts for different sub groups?
From the picture I am guessing that SoChurch will integrate various feeds so that a person doesn’t have to visit various websites, but can find all the communication about events in one particular place – which leads to a previous question: will a person be able to financially register?
I guess I just have questions. . . maybe I should just shut-up and wait to see what happens. 🙂
dewde says
I’m not new to social media or even SaaS software development. But I am new to the internal workings and needs of churches. Even still, in my short 1.5 months on staff at North Point Ministries, it is clear to me that a robust event registration and payment system, which integrates with existing ChMS platforms, is a “felt need” right now. Case in point it has come up in several comments here.
What I haven’t seen, however, is an indication that solving that “felt need” is within scope for SoChurch. Nor do I think that it necessarily should be in scope for a “communication platform.”
Great conversation.
peace | dewde
John Saddington says
word. we shall see…!
John Saddington says
great questions!
integration is, of course, a big concern for us and we’re looking at it from every angle. we don’t want to re-create the wheel but we want to make sure we leverage the really good “wheels” that exist!
so, a FB login system would make sense, right (for example).
single signon… FTW! we imagine that this just makes sense.
finanically register? what does that mean?
Benji Zimmerman says
I guess what I meant/was thinking is for example if you are stream lining all the communication for a particular sub-group within a church (let’s say Fuse Junior High) and they are hosting a retreat. All blogs, tweets & FB communication is found in one place for the particular event, would you send them off on a link to registers somewhere else to pay for the retreat?
I guess I am just tired of all the log-ins when it comes to Central. Online campus login, small groups login, online store login, etc. . . But I will contradict myself and agree with Dewde that it may be a felt need that does not need to be addressed in SoChurch.
Scott Miller says
Are you guys familiar with the @getshadetree project? Similar platform that will be open source and given away for free to churches to build on collaboratively. Is this going to be open source and/or free or is there a profit model behind this?
We’re going live with shadetree next month, so just wondering if these tools could work together. I’d love to see the church work together on projects that would be complementary rather than competitive.
http://www.getshadetree.com
John Saddington says
Hey scott, thanks for dropping us a line. a little surprised that you did though considering this tweet: http://twitter.com/watermarkgeek/status/10939503426 [ http://cld.ly/fd1r47 ] which was obviously referencing our announcement. a little sarcasm perhaps?
we are of course familiar with your project and have been tracking it for some time. in fact, we are aware of nearly every product that exists within our space… that’s what churchcrunch (and the sochurch team) have been doing for the last year and a half.
but, it would appear that you are unfamiliar with churchcrunch and my specific stance on open source which is this: I couldn’t be more of a champion for open source technology. In fact, all throughout this blog and for years I’ve been a champion for it. I love wordpress and build and give away free themes all the time. i’ve blogged many times here how i believe open source is, from one perspective, part of the future of the church and how it is so closely tied to how i see the church being historically and culturally.
as a result my decision to work on this project was after a long time of thought and prayer; not a decision made lightly at all!
we’d love to synergize, but we also love to be “positive” in all the things we do (and work with positive people) because the amount of negative energy that already exists in our space is already too much.
if you want to discuss this further, please email me directly: [email protected]
Scott Miller says
No man… no sarcasm intended at all. I know your stance on open source and I think you are reading too much into my post. We’re just working on an open source tool and I would love to not duplicate effort. Man, I think if you knew my heart you would be less likely to feel like I am attacking you. The only one who wins in this is the King. This isn’t about us.
John Saddington says
Cool deal scott. i’ve emailed you personally and would love to take the conversation offline. i am indeed curious about what you’re cooking!
let’s set a time to talk. i will email you my number directly.
John Saddington says
oh, and i doubt we’re duplicating anything here. but, we’ll discuss that soon enough!
John Saddington says
BTW, the above comment is representative of my personal thoughts and beliefs, not of my partners or team.
Nick Shoemaker says
Anyone else notice THIS sweet action!?:
http://twitpic.com/1ak3yp
John Saddington says
cool, huh?
Jonathan Cottrell says
John is a rock star.
Hamish Erskine says
Will all members need to sign up?
I ask because we have lots of members who are not social networkers, but do use email. We would love a tool that centralises our communication and utilised facebook etc… but also allowed us to update members who are email only (as in a staff member probably updated their details). I guess in short, will it be able to do total member management? or just social networkers?
Cheers,
Hamish
Jonathan Cottrell says
Great question Hamish. Don’t you worry, we know that not all church members are Twitter and Facebook users… and they will be well accounted for.
Hamish Erskine says
Great. I hope there is some facility for staff to make user accounts for user who wouldn;t do it themselves. I am wanting to have one membership directory to rule them all.
Mike Hooper, Jr. says
Very Interested! I will be sending my email for beta testing and watching closely for further announcements. Thank you!
Brad Davis Seal says
This is exciting. Glad you didn’t post this on April 1–would have been a sad joke.
bradleydavis says
Just read this post again with all the comments and I have to say I’m very excited. I love tools like this that seem like they would be easy to integrate along side our existing set. I’m excited about where this could go!
Ryan says
Will this be different than ‘The City’ or in a similar vein? If different, how so?