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Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

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Re: Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

#271

Post by trcollinson »

dorian-graph wrote: post #268
lukeholder wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have the book of mormon available on that api?

I'm guessing you're an LDS? I've always wondered if the church will release an API of sorts.. It would be nice to use for apps and who knows what else. A lot of the URLs on lds.org are quite SES/nicely formatted already, e.g. https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1973/10/behold-thy-mo... , and if they just added the option to return it in a different data format like JSON that'd be neat. ;)

Unless something has changed in the last 3 years, which knowing the internal systems of the LDS Church it is highly unlikely anything has changed, there will not be a JSON feed for the Book of Mormon anytime soon. They store all of the scriptures in proprietary XML formats inside of a large XML data store called MarkLogic. Although they could transform them into JSON, I just don't see them making that a priority.

However, I will also note that the Book of Mormon itself is no longer under copyright. The footnotes, indexes and chapter summaries are copyright protected but the book itself is not. So, really, it wouldn't be particularly hard to make a Book of Mormon rest api.

Re: Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

#272

Post by DonHopkins »

PakG1 wrote: post #270
DonHopkins wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck changing the Church of Scientology from within. Or lecturing the Pope about preventing AIDS by distributing free condoms, for that matter.

I believe the current pope has gone on record saying that the Christian world pays more attention to sexual issues than is warranted, when compared to other issues that exist in the world. I'm not a Catholic, but am quite impressed with this guy so far.

You're awfully easy to impress, if only by the slight contrast to how absolutely evil, horrible and immoral the previous pope was.

Not even the current "liberal hippie pope" is having much success changing the Catholic Church from within, so what makes you think anyone who's not its most powerful leader could ever possibly have any success? Anyone claiming they haven't resigned from the Catholic Church in disgrace because they want to remain inside to be an "agent of change" is totally full of it, and guilty of perpetuating the problem.

Does it actually impress you that the current pope wasn't personally the architect and prosecutor of officially covering up and perpetuating all the terrible widespread sexual abuse systematically perpetrated by the Catholic Church, who wrote and enforced the official church policy of protecting priests who rape children, and excommunicating anyone who speaks out about it? http://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/aug/17/religion.childp... http://thewe.cc/weplanet/news/europe/vatican/papal_evil.htm

If the pope's desire to cover up sexual abuse is what you mean by "paying more attention to sexual issues than is warranted", can you please justify why you think the Catholic Church should pay less attention to their longstanding issues of raping children and protecting the rapists from prosecution? And why you think it's a good thing that the current pope doesn't think it's such a big deal that requires much attention?

Re: Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

#273

Post by DonHopkins »

tptacek wrote: post #21
maga wrote: post #18

What if my church is called a mosque?

Or a temple, synagogue, cathedral, monastery, abbey, tabernacle, or center? "Church" is just the generic English word for "place of worship".

In the same sense that "Caucasian" is just the generic English word for "human being", and "heterosexual" is just the generic English word for "acceptable lifestyle".

Re: Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

#274

Post by tbrooks »

walterbell wrote: post #260
tbrooks wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who owns a business that sells exclusively to churches ( https://simpledonation.com ), I know what that uneasiness can feel like -- the seemingly diametrical goals of building a business to return shareholder capital and serving a market need. And also the denominational thing... I have by no means figured it all out, but it's been an area in which I've sought counseling and grown considerably. A constant…

Some US states have introduced a new corporate form for businesses which have both financial and social objectives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benefit_corporation

Yeah, I believe those started after I formed corporately. Not sure what the extra benefit is for me at this point.

Re: Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

#275

Post by tbrooks »

frogpelt wrote: post #242
tbrooks wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who owns a business that sells exclusively to churches ( https://simpledonation.com ), I know what that uneasiness can feel like -- the seemingly diametrical goals of building a business to return shareholder capital and serving a market need. And also the denominational thing... I have by no means figured it all out, but it's been an area in which I've sought counseling and grown considerably. A constant…

Do you get feedback from organizations on how much of an increase in donations they receive by going online? I'm curious what the percentage differences are in total donations.

Yeah, at a minimum they see a bump of 5% in online giving.

Some churches use it specifically for 1-time giving w/o logging in and they see a much larger increase for that type.

I ask people to cancel if they don't see ROI in 3 months. Only 2 cancellations in 2 years.

Re: Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

#276

Post by tbrooks »

hndamien wrote: post #245
tbrooks wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who owns a business that sells exclusively to churches ( https://simpledonation.com ), I know what that uneasiness can feel like -- the seemingly diametrical goals of building a business to return shareholder capital and serving a market need. And also the denominational thing... I have by no means figured it all out, but it's been an area in which I've sought counseling and grown considerably. A constant…

One way to fix this problem is Bitcoin tithing. http://www.yoism.org.au/blog/bitcoin-tithing

In the past, I've polled my customers and asked about both Bitcoin and Dwolla as low-cost tithing avenues.

They are met with blank stares. Doesn't seem like a felt need at this point.

Re: Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

#277

Post by tbrooks »

callmeed wrote: post #181
jashmenn wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our church also uses The City and I'd say it's fine but not great. There's a lot of room for another startup in this space - I've considered it more than once. The problem for me, on a personal level, is that it's very hard to mix business and the church. On the one hand, the technology used in the church generally lags far behind what is available and there are real benefits to the church body by having tailored tec…

Well said. I actually built an MVP for a "Kickstarter for Missionaries" crowdfunding project a couple years ago. I thought (and still do, to some degree), it could be a good way for churches and missionaries to get steady/predictable support (which has always been a problem for my friends who do it). But, the same dilemmas exist. Figuring out a business model I was comfortable with seemed hard. And, like you said, th…

I'd be interested in working with you on this. I've thought a lot about a product like this and could sell it pretty easily to my existing customer base.

Re: Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

#279

Post by joeclark77 »

timmorgan wrote: post #230
peeters wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No love for the Apocrypha though it seems ;-). Not being Catholic, I don't know how much teaching is done out of those books, but this might reach a larger audience if the books to show were configurable.

OneBody is powered by another of my projects http://bible-api.com ( https://github.com/seven1m/bible_api ), which just needs a little bit of code to return verses from the Apocrypha. If there's interest, I'd be willing to make it happen or show someone where to get started!

Part of the trick is that verses are numbered differently, for example, the Psalms. And Catholic Bibles have more chapters in Daniel and I think Esther. An API that would allow people to match verses across the two types of Bibles would have to have some kind of durable primary key for each verse in addition to its nominal address.

Re: Show HN: OneBody Church Directory software I've been hacking on for 7 years

#280

Post by timmorgan »

bencollier49 wrote: post #251
timmorgan wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's used primarily by small groups that meet in homes or whatever - that way the church as a whole can engage with anyone who stops attending (sometimes sign of personal/life issues that the church should be there to help with).

Genuinely fascinated by this. Wouldn't the members of the small group notice that someone had stopped turning up and drop them a line? Or does customer retention go up to corporate like a sort of Comcast "I want to cancel my contract" call?

Well, yes the small group itself should notice and act, but it's also nice to have an overall picture of the health of your small groups and class participation.

We have an "Involvement Minister" who watches churn rate so to speak, so hopefully he can help organize better/different small groups or help improve existing ones.

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