December 08, 2006

WEC Update

Now that Web Empowered Church (WEC) has been underway for a couple of years, Mark Stephenson has come to the belief that it won’t reach its full potential without Church Management System (ChMS) functionality, or at least deep integration with an existing ChMS. I totally agree with that assessment. So Mark and I thought it would be a great time to get together with Rubin Perry to discuss how ChMS fits with WEC’s vision and strategy. Like my meetings with Fellowship Technologies and Shelby Systems, our conversation was detailed, candid, and thought-provoking. While I’m not free to disclose everything we discussed, I can say that WEC has deep pockets, a passion for helping local churches use the Internet effectively, and a long-term view.

I’ve noted previously that combining content management (CoMS) functionality with ChMS and Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) functionality in a single, integrated system would be ideal. Most forward-thinking church IT leaders I know agree with this. WEC is looking for churches and church IT leaders who will partner with them to build just such a system based on the LAMP stack and TYPO3. As I mentioned, another possibility would be to do a deep integration of a market-leading ChMS with TYPO3. We’re in the process of discerning whether it makes sense for Church of the Resurrection to be one of those partners.

WEC is fully committed to open source software. By that they mean basing the software on the LAMP stack, licensing the software they develop using the GPL, and employing open source development methodologies. The advantages of this include risk reduction, ease of integration, competitive diversity, and distributed innovation. Already WEC is being adopted by churches around the world that have the technical ability to make use of complex technology. Such churches appreciate the fact that open source means WEC doesn’t have the licensing cost barrier associated with commercial software.

For churches that lack technical skills, however, adoption is challenging. TYPO3 is more than powerful enough for even the largest churches, but it is quite complex, it is difficult to learn, and it suffers from poor usability in some areas. Accordingly, addressing these issues represent top priorities for WEC.

1. WEC is actively working with the TYPO3 Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) team to improve usability.
2. WEC is developing TYPO3 training videos.
3. WEC is working on improved processes for providing tech support.

So that's a summary of how WEC fits into our ChMS analysis. I'm praying for clarity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am excited to here about this. As the Church needs a system that is feature rich and affordable. After working with Shelby for 6 months I knew the need for a ChMS that integrates with a CMS was huge. When this system gets up and running it will improve how many churches do business and minister to the community. I know God is moving on the hearts of many church IT professionals to build this system. My prayer is that these professionals will be sensitive to the call from God to join this great ministry.

Dean Lisenby said...

Clif, I completely agree with you. You said: "Most forward-thinking church IT leaders I know agree with this" Forward thinking companies serving the faith-based community agree with this too! At ACS Technologies, we started down that path several years ago. True integration between CMS and ChMS is something we dreamed about and have worked towards, but now it's birthed and we already doing it and clients are coming on board. It's one of the fastest growing areas of our business. Indeed, it's happening so fast, and we're so engaged with it, that we don't always blog about it. But we do love to talk and collaborate with others. We especially like visiting with those who aren't just kicking tires but have a destination in mind for their church(es) and are ready to get going, to roll up their shirt sleeves and to make things happen.
I'm still hoping we can get you, and others, to look at this soon!