The Battle for the Church (Market)

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 4:58 pm by Tony Jones

The Battle for the Church (Market) 2015-03-13T16:58:44-05:00 Tony Jones

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

There’s a battle brewing in the church in America. It’s not over gay marriage or abortion or whether to do away with ordination (much to my chagrin). No, it’s over who will capture the church market with their church community software. There are three contenders, as far as I can tell, and a whole lot of money at stake — both money that’s already been spent on development, and money to be made on future sales. The three are:

The Table Project – developed and owned by YouthWorks, a non-profit mission organization;

The City – developed by Mark Driscoll’s Mars Hill Church and now owned by Zondervan, a subsidiary of HarperCollins, a subsidiary of Newscorp;

SoChurch – developed and owned, as far as I can tell, by the SoChurch team.

Full disclosure: I used to work for YouthWorks and I have published books with Zondervan. But no one has asked me to blog about this, nor has any of these groups offered me a look at their system.

I don’t have a dog in this fight, but it seems that others do. Last week on the SoChurch blog, Ben Forsberg wrote a quite aggressive post, replete with fighting rhetoric, in which he accused The City of “buying our Google AdWords and following our Twitter followers.” He writes,

To be fair, we are only continuing a battle that had already been started. When our competition began buying our Google AdWords and following our Twitter followers, we weren’t offended. On the contrary, we discovered a worthy competitor. One who seemed ready to battle head-to-head and see who would come out on top. While a winner is yet to be determined, the journey to victory is laced with excitement, endearment, and clarity.

Our goal with the direct approach we have chosen is not to condemn nor criticize our competition, but to go head-to-head, toe-to-toe, in an arena we have all entered willingly. Just as a prize fighter respects their opponent and hugs them after the bout is finished, so too we embrace our rivals and welcome them into the arena of ideas.

I admit, I had to read the post a couple times, for it’s rare to find such honest talk in the church world. Indeed, Ben ends his post asking, rhetorically,

Do you think that some healthy competition is a good thing? Or would you rather we all played nice and masked our messages in euphemism?”

What’s odd is that his blog post is, in fact, full of euphemisms. It’s just that they’re euphemisms of fighting and such and not the usual churchy euphemisms. In fact, their site is jampacked with hipster lingo and funny, snarky headers. That, I admit, I appreciate.

There are big differences between the three services mentioned above, beyond their rhetoric. The Table Project, for instance, is free, but it hasn’t yet been released widely. The City and SoChurch are social tools but also church management software, which The Table is not. In another post, SoChurch accuses The City of hiding its pricing.

In that same post, SoChurch says that The City builds walls around church communication, but The City’s site says it offers full integration with Twitter and Facebook. And full integration with other social media servies seems to be a hallmark of The Table, though that’s still somewhat unclear since the product is in beta and the website doesn’t say much — even their video doesn’t give a tour of the product (and don’t get me started on the historical inaccuracies in it).

So, I’ve got some questions: Do any of you, dear readers, use one of these three services? If so, what do you think about it?

And, for the rest of us, my big question about these third-party church apps is, Who, Why, and How? That is:

Who will use these? What churches will really see the benefit of them?
Why would you opt for a new social networking app for your church when everyone is already on Facebook?
How will you get people in the church to use it? From my experience of running Social Phonics Boot Camps for church leaders, this seems like the single greatest hurdle. I would think that, as a church leader, it would be very hard to convince a run-of-the-mill parishioner to add another social media log-in to their lives.

Previous Post

January 8, 2011

The Future of Youth Ministry Publishing

Next Post

January 13, 2011 A Doctor of Ministry?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category bible blogging books christianity in america church church history dissertation divorce Dog Training education emergent church essay family funny glbt jopa productions ministry minnesota movies music parenting philosophy politics Prayer publishing Questions That Haunt random same sex marriage speaking spirituality Teaching technology television theology Travels Uncategorized writing youth ministry

Select a Month January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 June 2006 May 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 June 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 August 2004 February 2004 January 2004

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What Christian holiday celebrates the visit of the Magi to the baby Jesus?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Trinity Sunday Advent Epiphany Pentecost