Do Not Read This Post-until you read the new idea post below

Please read the new ministry idea post below first or this won't make any sense!!!

OK, last night was an equally bad night's sleep around the McComas household. I was in and out of dreaming and sleeping so much that the characters in my dreams were getting annoyed. But again I was struck with several additional ideas during the night that I wanted to get into words before they were lost forever. These ramblings are not designed to be anything profound, and I don't really think I have stumbled onto anything close to alchemy, but this is just an idea for discussion like Tym's design website, Josh's beard growing, and Stuart's hemp-powered car.

Church Netwoking Idea update #1-

The idea has already morphed into a multi million dollar enterprise whereby we "christianize" the whole myspace/facebook phenomenon for easy access for churches. We would design (read that steal) software that would be a starting point and then for free allow churches to use it to generate an online directory of their members. Churches already have directories, so this won't be a huge leap, but many of the older generation are scared of new technology so it would need to be very user friendly, etc. This database would include email and phone texting capabilities and would be searchable and churches could use it for prayer chains, mass emails, cancellations, activity reminders, etc. Each church would pay a flat fee for the software and data entry piece. Once we have the directory done, this is where things could get fun.

Certain churchgoers might be interested in having their own page within the database/site where they can edit their information, post photos of whatever, display their interests, post music/verses, etc. and this might be a fee for service thing. They could choose if it was available to just their church, all churches in the city, state, or all, or to the web in general. Family safe!

Then we could implement the idea below where interested couples/families/singles could fill out specific demographic and other information and allow their information to be crunched with certain other families/couples/singles returning as matches for potential friendships within just their church or within a searchable geographic area. Essentially allowing for community building to happen across denomination lines as people are paired with people with whom they are likely to forge friendships through common interests, etc. This could be a fee for service piece as well or we could just let the thing blow up and then sell ad space to specific church related companies. "Try Johnson communion wafers for that sweet but dry "Jesus" taste".

Again, I do not think this is genious, and this has already probably been done by someone else, so it is just in keeping with our crazy ideas that we discuss that will not go anywhere thing that we do. But maybe if this is a new idea, or we think we can sell it better than anyone else (remember Bill Gates did not develop the QDOS program he sold to IBM, he just bought it from someone else and pitched it better). Something to think about. There are hundreds of churches in Fort Wayne who are looking to stay "edgier" and try to reach out in new ways. We could pitch it as a way for church members to stay in touch during the week by allowing for message boards and blogs within the site to discuss the sermon that week, etc. This would be a way to meet that need and yes maybe unfortunatly make some money possibly in the process. We could have church volunteers help with the data entry, etc. we would just need to design the software/get a website domain for the whole thing/ and start pitching the idea to get our first customer. Some initial domain name suggestions would be mychurch.org or churchbook.org (see what I did there?) or ironfinder.org OK, I am definitely off the deep end with this idea, someone please shoot it down and throw me a lifepreserver!!!