“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”
After watching information about the release of the 3.0 OS for the iPhone and iTouch I started wondering if any churches had iPhone apps. I know that many church have apps like YouVersion from LifeChurch.tv, but who has developed an app for their church and what would it look like? By simply searching for “church” in the app store I found that only Summer Street Church has an app. Summer Street offers:
Congrats to Summer Street Church for getting an app in the store before the Southern Baptist Convention or Lifeway or any SBC seminaries got one up.
With some many things going to the cloud and programs going online I think we get closer everyday to seeing a 7-9″ version of the iPhone/iTouch replacing the computer. Apps are software and service. I personally lust after exactly that kind of device everyday and imagine myself walking around with it and pulling it out at Starbucks. I am getting off subject though.
I want to outline some features that I could see contained within what I will call the “ArrowHeights.org Church” app. After reading the list add your comments on what you would add to the app.
Now I am not a developer and am not sure what all goes into developing an iPhone app, but I am very interested in seeing churches get into the store. Alright it’s your turn. Leave your thoughts in the comments section.
YouVersion
Good stuff man. We have a site called J-Life. Check it out at journeychurch.tv. It would be really cool to turn that into an app!
K
ya, that would be extremely cool. What about putting the church directory through the app? Guess people would have to sign a waiver or something. Good ideas dude!
You guys should check out the iPhone friendly site of Flamingo Road Church. On your iPhone go to http://www.flamingoroadchurch.com and you will be redirected automatically.
Jeremy, this is an excellent start. Our church web, admin, communications, and media teams began an email conversation on a NCCOGIC mobile and/or iPhone app, which includes many of the bullets you’ve listed, plus a few more.
Is a FORUM available for this type of discussion? I’d love to participate.
Blessings!
Minister Scotty Ward
New Community Church Of God In Christ
Waldorf, MD
Our discussion (so far) includes:
1. View the NCCOGIC Google Calendar
2. In conjunction with #1 above, offer the capability to synch with their mobile or Outlook calendar.
3. Opt-in/opt-out “tickler” or “reminder” notification of upcoming events found on the church’s Google calendar. The event reminder would popup each time the app is opened.
4. NCCOGIC Tweets (Could have two levels: first, tweets by NCCOGIC, and the second, what the NCCOGIC account sees: i.e. tweets of other COGIC churches or the saints’ activities)
5. View and play NCCOGIC Ustream archive videos (perhaps we should consider moving them to YouTube if they’re easier to “pull” using a YouTube API)
6. View and play live NCCOGIC webcasts
7. View and play pre-recorded NCCOGIC podcasts
8. Bible verse of the Day or focused Bible verse from the Pastor
9. Online articles (from Pastor, Chief of Staff, Auxiliary Heads)
10. Online announcements (from Admin, Communications; may be a restatement of #2 or #3 above)
11. Online ALERTS (prayer requests from Pastor, Chief). Not “opt” able
12. “Buttons” to locate specific data for interested auxiliary members (Youth, Music, Sewing Circle, etc.). This may be a restatement of #10 above.
13. Button to automatically connect to the m.newcommunity-cogic.org Mobile website, which may have some or all of the above (another desire of mine).
14. “Note to the Pastor” which will automatically forward a comment via email to the Pastor@ account
15. “Where’s My Pastor?” button (perhaps shows the GPS of Pastor’s phone on a map, such as the soon-to-be-released Google Latitude)
16. Upcoming Adult Sunday School lesson
17. “Who’s On Duty?”; could show Deacons, Ushers, Media, Sunday School teachers, Bible Band Teachers, or any other staff scheduled for upcoming events (another possible example: Team A and Team B assignments for Evangelistic Outreach, currently occurs using large numbers of emails among team members)
18. DONATE BUTTON for general fund or focused church campaigns (Seniya Fleming Fund, Earthquake relief, etc.)
19. NCCOGIC Forum button. Allow viewing and replying to NCCOGIC Public Discussion Forum (which don’t yet exist either) posts.
20. “Redeeming The Time” button. Allow them to read or submit constructive tips on finance, recycling, or other “social” help functions (think of it as a public – yet moderated – “graffiti wall” of helpful hints. Would probably require a moderator’s API of some sort.
Thanks for the great ideas for the iPhone app! We are just putting the finishing touches on our web app for Westwinds and this article was a lot of help! You can see it at http://www.westwinds.info
Thanks!
[...] the blog, and links to location service times and how to give. I blogged about iPhone apps befere here. Several church apps have shown up in the app store since then, but the new Mars Hill app takes the [...]
http://www.truthcasting.com/iphone.asp
check out the NETBible on line web environment see http://net.bible.org use the search to find your favorite passage in the translation you like or do a word study. See also webmaster tools at http://labs.bible.org You can get widgets likeverse of the day, facebook widget and the NETBible verse tagger that popups the verse when you mouse over a verse reference in a document on your web page..