If you are looking to have a community site mychurch is a great place to start. It's great for those who aren't tech savvy. You can create a community rather quickly, bring people in around your church, moderate content, and all kinds of things you'd normally want to do.

The think I'd take note of is the feature set. Make sure it meets the needs of what you want to do. If you want a podcast you're out of luck. If you want to have massive image galleries it will cost you. So, just make sure it's workable.

Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com

I've also just found out about OneBody a "free, open-source, volunteer-built software that connects churchgoers on the web". It looks quite interesting too.

Thanks for the link to this. OneBody looks pretty cool. We have a very small Church and often the Church directories are handed out on a simple excel sheet print out. This looks like it might be a fun way to do it differently.
I'll have to read up a bit more on it.

I've got to say that this looks good. I mean I really like the way the design feels. So much white space, big letters, and all that stuff.

This could be used to do some very good stuff.

The only problem I see is that while it is a great tool I don't think it will connect churchgoers to the web. No matter how cool a app is I think it's people that connect other people in church communities. Though, this does have some sparkle factor.

Matt Farina
Geeks and God Co-Host
www.innovatingtomorrow.net
www.mattfarina.com

Matt, you are right, kinda. OneBody doesn't just magically connect people on the web, but at my church (where we built OneBody), other people who are already using the web for everyday stuff are able to connect to the non-geeky people easily enough. And once those people start sending messages and posting on the wall and in groups and such, then the other, non-geeks are pulled in to see what the deal is. It's really quite interesting to see it all play out.

Plus, at our church, we've done a lot of "Technology Evangelism" so to speak, meaning the tech team goes around to different Sunday School classes and small groups and explains what the online system is all about and how it can benefit their group. Some of our biggest growth in use of the system has come from a few small group leaders pushing the use of the website as a way to keep in touch through the week. They send out reminders via the site, they do prayer requests via the site, etc.

So, while you are right that OneBody doesn't make the connections on its own, the people do make the connections, and OneBody is there as the tool to make it easier.

If you have questions, feel free to drop me a line at tim at timmorgan dot ORG.

Sorry, Matt, I missed this statement: "No matter how cool a app is I think it's people that connect other people in church communities."

So I could have just said: "Agreed." :-)