Renewing Mind: July 2008

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Kung Fu Panda

We don't get out to movies much, and this certainly wasn't at the top of our list, but since we are on vacation and looking for things to do with Renee's girls while we are out here, we caught this today. This movie is all but gone from theaters. We were the only ones in the theater for the last showing if the day, right around lunchtime... So I assume if you're reading this, you are wondering if it's worth the rental or if it's worth buying in DVD.

The movie is entertaining, and the girls seemed to enjoy it. It also has a good message about self confidence & belief. What Kung Fu Panda is missing is that second level of humor (one that the kids don't get but the adults do) that is often to me what makes kids movies enjoyable. The movie also is slow at points, because there is only so much you can do with animals and kung fu...

Worth renting? Sure. Buy it sight unseen? No.

Joel

Monday, July 28, 2008

Taking a break

This week we are on vacation, so there won't be any ChMS updates. We are in North Carolina hanging out with Renee and the family. It's nice to be back here and able to just relax and enjoy hanging out, the last visit was rather traumatic...

It won't be an activity packed vacation, but it should be a nice bit of downtime. When I return, the software search will continue in earnest.

Joel

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

ChMS - People Driven Software Revisit?

As is always the case, things never go as we plan...

I just received an email from People Driven Software with answers to my questions, and I have updated the post on them. But what is really interesting is that they have a new product called PDS Live which is a web based product with an MS SQL backend. Since my biggest problem with PDS was their use of Access, this is big news.

Sigh.

So my "top six" may become a top seven. I'll have to do more research into PDS Live and let you know. The nice thing is I didn't set out to have a top six, I set out to find which solutions merited the time investment for a full analysis.

I'll keep you posted.

Joel

Update: I've looked over everything they have available on their website regarding PDS Live. At this point it is still a young product and it requires a windows based client to use effectively. If the product had been out longer in the marketplace and there were a lot of churches I could talk to who were using it, I might be willing to go further. However, the product is still in its infancy and would require a significant investment on our part to utilize the windows client (we use Mac OS X, so purchasing windows + VM software like Parallels or VMware for each client, plus the added support costs). Not the right solution for us.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

ChMS - And the finalists are...

If you're still with me, I've shared my notes on what I called my "Level 2 Analysis" of 16 church management solutions that are not right for us. I started with a list from capterra.com of 147 software companies, and narrowed it down to 44 (later 46) that I took the time to do a cursory glance of their websites to get an idea of whether or not they could meet our needs. From those 46 I selected 22 for a larger analysis. To catch you up to speed we've had:

Joel's Quick Summaries of 44 Church Management Software Solutions

and then I explained a bit of what we are looking for:

A quick summary of our needs

Next I posted sixteen reviews of companies that weren't right for our particular needs:

Church Growth Software
CMS
EzRA Church Management
Connect Our People
E-Church Essentials
Five Talent Church
IconCMO
Kingdom Tools
Excellerate
Member Systems
Arena
CDM+
Membership Edge
People Driven Software
Church Office Online
Member Connect

If you want to see everything as one long page, click here.

So, without further adieu, here are the six solutions that I have chosen for the complete analysis:

Ascribe Data Systems - Ascribe
Church Community Builder "CCB"
ConnectionPower
Fellowship One
PurposeWare
myFlock.com

Some of these are obvious, some not so obvious, and some are probably a surprise. Each of them presents different strengths and weaknesses. The one common thread is that each of these is a SAAS, or "Software as a Service" solution. I intentionally did not set out with this as a goal. I have a very nice server room, and an excellent IT staff who is very competent to maintain servers. At our size, the purchase and maintenance of a server is generally less money than an annual SAAS fee. I focused solely on what the software could do for us and the companies behind that software. The end result was six SAAS solutions.

Not all of these companies are huge. They range from a customer base of about 20 to a customer base of over 1000. From very small to over 50 employees. All of them started after 2000, which makes sense as they are all selling web solutions and the tools to build these products didn't exist in the 90's. In the case of the smaller companies, the product is compelling enough to be worth working with them to insure the long term security and stability of our data.

I'm very relieved to be through stage 2 and on to stage 3. This is where the real work begins (although the last stage was rather exhausting!). I will likely post the review for each of them one at a time as I do them. Let the fun begin!

Joel

ChMS - Member Connect

ChMS - Church Office Online

ChMS - People Driven Software

ChMS - Membership Edge

ChMS - CDM+

ChMS - Arena

If you haven't already, you MUST read the summary of what we are looking for. This is critical to understand my comments. The vendors being reviewed work hard to provide a good product to serve the church, and they should be commended for that. Our needs are very specific, and just because a product isn't right for us does not mean that it isn't perfect for your church. By the same token, just because we didn't like a product does not mean it doesn't meet needs or provide genuine value to its clients. The blurb and "target market" are taken from the capterra list I referenced in my first post. Finally, my thoughts are my own and not an official position of my employer. Thank you.

Based on the information they had online I had a very incorrect view of what Arena had to offer. In my initial pass I ruled Arena out based on this information. After some discussion with the folks from Arena, I gave them a shot at a full demo and I'm glad I did. You can read my impressions here. I am leaving this post in since I had already made it, but they are now part of the finalist group.

Shelby Systems - Arena
Ministry software that also authors your website; accommodates multiple websites and even sub-domains.
Target Market: Mid - Large
Quick Summary - Interesting but probably not us.
http://www.arenachms.com/

Level 2 Analysis:

How big? - Shelby is the second largest (I think) behind ACS
How many customers? - 8000 or so for Shelby, not so many for Arena
How long in business? - Long, long time
Are they profitable? - Yes
Technical Details - MS SQL 2005 & .NET

Volunteer Management - Excellent, with room for improvement.
Web Integration - Arena integrates very well, providing member access and updates where appropriate.
Attendance - Both through checkin and manual processes that are fairly streamlined. More research needed.
Assimilation - Excellent, with room for improvement.

Level 2 Summary - Arena is a very complete product that deserves consideration from any church that is able to put the time and resources into a solid solution. There are concerns though. Even though it is a web product, Shelby as a company is very windows centric. Also, the forum has a total of 268 registered users (and no posts to speak of), the blogs are very dead, and the community appears to be a non-starter. Hopefully I'm wrong on that count, we'll see as I move forward.

ChMS - Member Systems

ChMS - Excellerate

What is all of this???

If you are wondering what happened to Joel's regular blog, I am sharing my research into Church Management Software. This has been an amazingly time consuming process that has dominated my life for a while. It is not done, but I'm working hard to draw it to a close. Each of these entries is about a single solution. If you have no interest in church software you can skip all of the postings that start with ChMS.

The last non-ChMS posting is here.
There will be more, I promise!

If you are coming at this mid thread, the ChMS discussion begins like this:

A serious technical detour
A quick summary of our needs

Following those two posts are 22 separate entries representing the 22 solutions I researched. The easiest way to see everything on one page is to click on the word "July" under blog archive.

Joel

ChMS - Kingdom Tools

If you haven't already, you MUST read the summary of what we are looking for. This is critical to understand my comments. The vendors being reviewed work hard to provide a good product to serve the church, and they should be commended for that. Our needs are very specific, and just because a product isn't right for us does not mean that it isn't perfect for your church. By the same token, just because we didn't like a product does not mean it doesn't meet needs or provide genuine value to its clients. The blurb and "target market" are taken from the capterra list I referenced in my first post. Finally, my thoughts are my own and not an official position of my employer. Thank you.

Kingdom Tools - Web-Based Church Management
Web based church management system gives designated users the ability to manage website, members, schedules, events, etc.
Target Market: Small - Large
Quick Summary - Deserves Further Consideration
http://www.kingdomtools.com

Level 2 Analysis:

How big? - Small. I called all four extensions and got no reply on any of them. They ask that you contact them directly for more specific details.
How many customers? - Enough to be a solid company worth working with. Contact them for specifics.
How long in business? - DNS entry created in 2004
Are they profitable? - Yes.
Technical Details - MySQL, Ruby, Javascript, AJAX, DHTML

Volunteer Management - Not sure.
Web Integration - Seems good, not sure how it all works.
Attendance - Three ways, seems well thought out.
Assimilation - Flexible, define roles, processes and permissions

Level 2 Summary - No easy way to contact them on their website. Called all of the extensions and got no answer at any of them. I did get a reply via email the next day. The company is small, but seems to have a good attitude and approach. I’m concerned that, for us, this company is a bit too small, but it seems that they have a good product on a solid foundation, and is a company to watch as they continue to grow.

Update: I have been contacted several times by the good folks at Kingdom Tools. Their view on my attempts to contact them is a few phone system issues that have been resolved coupled with bad timing and luck on their part. They also requested that you contact them directly for a couple of details they had given me, so I have honored their wishes in that regard.

Update # 2: In the interest of leaving no stone left unturned, I decided to go through a demo of Kingdom Tools. It is a good product. I didn't care for the interface, but that is one of the easier things to change as time goes on. The database they offer is very customizable, and they seem eager to work with clients to provide a solution that will meet their needs. They have a very creative approach to email forms, and the ability for those emails to update database information is unique, from what I can tell. There were some issues for us in the areas of recording attendance and donations, and it is not the right solution for us, but on the whole Kingdom Tools is worthy of your consideration.

ChMS - IconCMO

ChMS - Five Talent Church

ChMS - E-Church Essentials

ChMS - Connect Our People

ChMS - EzRA Church Management

ChMS - Church Management Solutions "CMS"

If you haven't already, you MUST read the summary of what we are looking for. This is critical to understand my comments. The vendors being reviewed work hard to provide good products to serve the church, and they should be commended for that. Our needs are very specific, and just because a product isn't right for us does not mean that it isn't perfect for your church. By the same token, just because we didn't like a product does not mean it doesn't meet needs or provide genuine value to its clients. The blurb and "target market" are taken from the capterra list I referenced in my first post. Finally, my thoughts are my own and not an official position of my employer. Thank you.

Church Management Solutions - CMS
Church management software that tracks membership, contributions, attendance and outreach. Includes fund accounting.
Target Market: Small - Large
Quick Summary - It's improved, but the web side seems tacked on
http://www.churchmanagementsolutions.com/

Level 2 Analysis:

How big? - 44 People
How many customers? - Lots
How long in business? - Long time
Are they profitable? - Most likely
Technical Details - Windows

Volunteer Management - Nope
Web Integration - Total afterthought
Attendance - Probably
Assimilation - Nope

Level 2 Summary - After looking at products like Ascribe and CCB, CMS seems positively archaic. We never used their membership software before (we used to be a finance customer), and I don’t think it has gotten much better. We are looking for the next generation of church management software, and CMS is not that product.

ChMS - Church Growth Software

Ok, here we go. First off, if you haven't already, you MUST read the summary of what we are looking for. This is critical to understand my comments. The vendors being reviewed work hard to provide a good product to serve the church, and they should be commended for that. Our needs are very specific, and just because a product isn't right for us does not mean that it isn't perfect for your church. By the same token, just because we didn't like a product does not mean it doesn't meet needs or provide genuine value to its clients. The blurb and "target market" are taken from the capterra list I referenced in my first post. Finally, my thoughts are my own and not an official position of my employer. Thank you.

Church Growth Software - Church Growth Software
Purpose Driven Church Management Software that helps record Membership, Attendance, Finances, Follow-up & Prayer Requests.
Target Market: Small - Large
Quick Summary - Looks very windows centric, but could be good.
http://www.churchgrowthsoftware.com/

Level 2 Analysis:

How big? - My impression is small, possibly one main programmer and small staff
How many customers? - It seems focused on church plants, no idea
How long in business? - Seems relatively mature
Are they profitable? - Probably
Technical Details - Windows software

Volunteer Management - Highly reliant on the S.H.A.P.E. methodology of Saddleback.
Web Integration -None that I could discern.
Attendance - Seems cumbersome by manual, but probably ok.
Assimilation - Oldschool approach.

Level 2 Summary - This is not a good choice for us. It is windows software that is highly reliant and integrated with Saddleback’s approach to ministry. It does not appear to accommodate other ways of doing things. It also appears focused on church plants, which we are a bit beyond. No further research needed.

ChMS - First, a quick summary of our needs

My level 2 analysis is done. BIG sigh of relief. In the end, I gathered information on 22 different ChMS solutions. In most cases I spent between 30 minutes and an hour. In a few cases I spent less time because the answers became apparent pretty quickly. This second level of research was done to bring us down to a much smaller list of companies to analyze in depth. The third level involves making appointments for guided demos, watching videos, reading manuals, and talking with references. I am budgeting at least one day per company at this point, so moving a company to level 3 is a significant time commitment.

So what did I look at for level 2? I laid out a set of questions, 9 in all, as well as trying to get a general sense of the overall products. I read every feature list I could find, looked at every screenshot, tried to gather as much information as possible. Where available, I looked at customer sites. But mostly what I was focused on at this level was (1) Was the product worth pursuing and (2) Was the company the kind of company that we want to work with.

Changing ChMS systems involves a serious commitment on our end. At its most basic level I have to pay for data conversion and setup fees, but it's really much, much larger than that. I anticipate that all of our data won't move. Specifically our current database has a confidential comments section that I anticipate will not make it across in a standard conversion. If the data doesn't make it, we will have to have staff re-enter it. Because of the nature of the data, we cannot use volunteers, nor can we use just any staff. Once the data is over we have to re-train the entire church staff on the new systems. We have to train volunteers on how to use the system. We have to train small group leaders. We have to adapt our culture to utilizing the new tool (a very, very big issue). In short, it's a mammoth task. If the company we chose went out of business in a couple of years, we would have a huge problem and will have to start over. We want to avoid this if at all possible.

Now, on to the questions. I tried to answer each of these questions on my own, and when I couldn't find answers I emailed the company for more information.

(1) How big is the company. Specifically, how many employees.
(2) How many customers do they have.
(3) How long have they been in business.
(4) Are they profitable. - Without a sustainable business model, they will be out of business and our investment is shot.
(5) Technical Details - What makes the product "tick" so to speak.
(6) Solid volunteer & staff management - We need to be able to assign tasks (Call these five visitors, for example) and be able to automatically see that those tasks have been completed. If they have not, that should be readily apparent as well. It should be easy to re-assign tasks if they are not getting done. Once the task is done, there should be a record of the conversation or at least the attempts made at contact.
(7) Attendance - Our people turn in welcome forms each week, allowing us to track their attendance. While it's far from 100% and far from perfect, it gives us a way to know when people come to the main worship service. This is hugely helpful to see someone's involvement in that part of our ministry, as well as giving us a way to find if people attend our church at all. We are a big church, and a lot of people claim to come here that we have never seen. We need to be able to enter this attendance quickly and easily. We also want automated check-in for children's ministry that will record that information and streamline our recordkeeping.
(8) Assimilation - We want to know who is not going anywhere. We want to be able to help people get involved. If they tell us they want to get involved, we want our software to help us accomplish that. Furthermore, we want there to be accountability for the staff & volunteers who are supposed to help these folks along. We are trying to stop people from falling through the cracks, a significant challenge. It isn't just about pushing people through programs, it's about trying to get them involved at any number of levels and growing in Christ.
(9) Web Integration - If a member moves, they should be able to update their own record. If they change their cellphone number or get a new email address, they should be able to update that data themselves. Small Group leaders should be able to record attendance directly, and contact members of their group using our database. Ministry leaders should be able to work from home facilitating contact with groups of people. As a secondary goal, social networking fits nicely within a church. Not sure if we should simply embrace facebook or something like it, or work on creating our own space. More thought is required here. A couple of products address that particular need really well.

With the nine questions answered as best as I can answer them coupled with my overall impressions of the company and product, I drew conclusions for each product and either moved them to the next round or set them aside.

My next batch of posts will be my findings on each of the companies. I am going to break them up so that if vendors wish to reply we don't end up with one giant confused bunch of comments...

Joel

Friday, July 18, 2008

A serious technical detour

I rarely talk about technical issues on my blog, but I've been putting so much work into this I want to share the effort with others, so bear with me. Our church currently uses a combination of products to meet our Church Management Software (ChMS) needs. While things haven't been perfect, we have been able to get along with them for quite some time. We have been using Roll Call to handle our membership database needs for over ten years. In 2007 we switched from CMS to CDM+ for our accounting.

CDM+ has done a decent job as our accounting software, although we do have a few complaints. My biggest wish is that they had a more expensive support option that would provide me with instant access to help when we need it, as well as making tracking down and fixing bugs we find the highest priority. I think we are one of the larger churches using this software, and we seem to find issues that nobody else has, but they are show stoppers for us at times. Other than that, I do like the software.

However, on the other front, we really need a lot more from our software than Roll Call can provide. We need to move forward, way forward, to something that will help us minister to our people more effectively as opposed to simply facilitating mailings and contribution tracking. Thus began the journey I'm about to take you on...

I searched for Church Management Software on Google and found this helpful list. 147 solutions listed. 147 products somehow related to my problem. Hoo boy, this is going to take a while. I read the brief descriptions and visited the website of almost all of those companies. From the site I made a list of anything that looked even possibly usable. Then I looked them over and made a quick summary.

Before you look at my notes remember these things: We are a large church. We are looking for the "next thing" not the tried and true. We have complex needs, and I expect the software to be expensive. I am looking for a company that we will partner with and that will be around for the next ten+ years. Also, we are 100% mac based, so a windows only solution or something that is pure microsoft is of little interest to me. With that in mind, here are my comments from round one:

ACS Technologies - ACS Church Management Software
Quick Summary - Old School

Advanced Church Technology Systems Group - ProVisionCRM
Quick Summary - Microsoft All the Way

Ascribe Data Systems - Ascribe
Quick Summary - Young Product, looks decent.

CCIS Software - Creative Church Information System
Quick Summary - Windows only, not for us

Church Community Builder - CCB
Quick Summary - Very full featured, looks excellent, worth Consideration

Church Growth Software - Church Growth Software
Quick Summary - Looks very windows centric, but could be good.

Church Management Solutions - CMS
Quick Summary - It's improved from when we ran it, but the web side seems tacked on

ChurchRadius.com - ChurchRadius.com
Quick Summary - free? really, really basic.

Client Management Solutions - EzRA Church Management
Quick Summary - Nice, odd, but intriguing.

Congregation Builder - Church Management Software
Quick Summary - Low End

Connect Our People - Connect Our People
Quick Summary - Facebook for church. Good idea, but is it still alive? Who uses this? More research needed.

ConnectionPower - Church Ministry Software
Quick Summary - Worth Consideration, seems pretty complete.

Database Designs - ChurchPro
Quick Summary - hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Daymark Software Systems - Church Partner
Quick Summary - Out of business

E-Church Essentials - The Essential Solution
Quick Summary - Interesting, doesn't really work with Safari, more fluff than substance

Faith Partnership Technologies - Nativity
Quick Summary - Seems incomplete, kinda lame.

Fellowship Technologies - Fellowship One
Quick Summary - Killer product, expensive

Five Talent Software - Soul Management
Quick Summary - Intriguing, but looks immature

Groopik.com - Groopik
Quick Summary - Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot ... Software Company.

GroupStewardship - GroupStewardship Church Software
Quick Summary - Focus is on fund raising. Um, yeah.

Helpmate Technology Solutions - Church Helpmate
Quick Summary - Not exciting

Icon Systems - IconCMO & Revelations
Quick Summary - Worth Consideration

iMinistries - iMinistries Hosting Solutions
Quick Summary - Not church management, simply website.

Kingdom Tools - Web-Based Church Management
Quick Summary - Deserves Further Consideration

Kintera - Kintera Sphere
Quick Summary - Focused on Fundraising.

Last Days Software - The Lords List
Quick Summary - The worst name ever, and the software isn't much better.

Logos Management Software - Logos II Church/Donor
Quick Summary - Seems Fragmented, runs on Visual Fox Pro 9. Didn't know there was a version of FoxPro past 3...

Mdansby.com - Religious Suite
Quick Summary - Contributions management for $199!

Micro System Design - Excellerate
Quick Summary - Further Consideration

Ministry Management Solutions - Proclaim CRM
Quick Summary - Compatible with Vista! More "microsofts" per page than any other CRM solution. Oh yeah, and 404's...

Nspire Software - Nspire Software
Quick Summary - Pretty website, new facelift on old ideas.

ParishSOFT - ParishSOFT Family Suite
Quick Summary - Catholic software for catholic churches, looks better than you'd expect, but there have to be better options.

RDS Publishing - RDS Advantage
Quick Summary - Old School CMS

Scout Applications - MemberSystems
Quick Summary - One of the better looking options out there.

Serenic - MinistryView
Quick Summary - Like it says, financial management.

Servant PC Resources - Servant Keeper
Quick Summary - Don't forget the $7 for shipping...

Shelby Systems - Arena
Summary - Interesting but probably not us.

Shelby Systems - shelbychurch
Quick Summary - Windows only, everything + the kitchen sink, impossible to use.

SignUsUp - SignUsUp Suite
Quick Summary - Not a total solution, not sure they are technically there yet.

SmartDox - iChurch
Quick Summary - Includes special themes for Christmas and Valentines Day!

Suran Systems - CDM Plus
Quick Summary - We definitely need to look closer, need higher end support options.

TopLine Software - Advanced Church Parish Pro
Quick Summary - Probably don't need the Bishop PRO module, nor the cemetery management. Also make real estate software ?

Visual Data Products - SheepsPen
Quick Summary - If I cant' find them with google, I am not about to trust them with our data.

Weblications - Anatomy
Quick Summary - Apparently "full featured" doesn't include tracking contributions...

That's it. Remember that if you are a smaller church or have different needs than we do, some of the software that I panned may be perfect for you. Each of the people on this list want to create great software and have happy customers. Many of them are striving to save churches money on software costs, something that is not our first concern. But if you are similar to us, you might find this list saves you some time and gives you some direction. After round 1, I culled the list down to a smaller subset and created a set of questions to ask for round two. I will put those up next time after I'm finished with my research (it takes a LOT longer, and I'm only about halfway through).

Joel

Thursday, July 17, 2008

The House that Ruth Built

This is the last year for Yankee Stadium. After this season the Yankees will play in a new stadium being built across the street. The new stadium will be the most expensive stadium in America, and the third most expensive in the world, with a total cost of $1.3 Billion. It has a lot of cool retro features, and will do well to tie into the rich history of Yankee Stadium. But it will never be the House that Ruth Built. That stadium will be torn down.

I explained this to my wife this way: Imagine if they tore down the vatican in order to replace it with a newer more modern church. She thought that was a bit of a stretch, so I called my friend Jeremy and asked him what he thought. His take was this: Even if they were going to tear down the vatican, they wouldn't have played the all-star game there this year, so the end of Yankee Stadium is a bigger deal than that.

It's hard to argue with his logic! :-)

Joel

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Red Light Cameras

Victorville has been putting up red light cameras all over town. This is not unique, many cities are doing this. It's a huge moneymaker for the city and it's all in the name of safety right? Wrong. If you click that link you will see that red light cameras actually increase accidents, therefore endangering public safety all in the name of revenue. Oops.

Thankfully the state of Minnesota has outlawed them. Unfortunately, I do not live in Minnesota. I live in California where they are still legal. There is something inherently wrong with photo enforcement. It completely disregards and flies in the face of the presumption of innocence, a foundational point of law worldwide. In talking with a friend of mine his comment was that they are "unamerican" which I believe is right on the money.

Red light cameras and photo radar are not about freedom, and they are not about public safety, they are a public tax that hasn't gone through the regular channels, processes and such that are required before taxing the people. To make matters worse, they always are sold with long term contracts, meaning that if you vote out the city council, the city will still have to pay the cretins that sell these things for years to come. They ignore the foundational principle of law that we are innocent until proven guilty, and they differ from every other form of traffic enforcement in that you are not arrested by an officer and allowed to discuss the situation.

I am not for running red lights. It's dangerous. But these cameras solve a problem that didn't really exist in the first place. People do not run red lights as a matter of course, and installing these cameras creates accidents rather than reducing them.

I found one site that I really like that talks about the issue, highwayrobbery.net. These things need to go away, they are an assault on our freedom.

Joel

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Do we overemphasize church?

Years ago when we would do baptisms, people would spend a lot of time in their testimonies talking about how great this church was. While that is way cool, it always made me uncomfortable. Our faith is in Christ, not the church. Christ is our redeemer, not the church. He is risen, we merely point to Him.

It's not that the church is bad, or shouldn't be praised. Indeed Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for Her. But I think sometimes we get too hung up on church attendance and forget that attending church is not what is important, following Jesus is what is important.

As I get older I realize that people experience God in different ways. For some it is being at church, but for others it might be in serving the poor, or gazing upon a mountain vista, or leading a small group, or singing songs together as a family, or any other number of things. Church is important, yes, but do we focus so much on going to church that we create a belief that this is the only way to connect to God?

I'm not advocating that attending church is not important. It has been my experience in life that many of the people who claim that going to church is not important seem to use that as an excuse to not follow God. I believe that time together as a community of believers is extremely valuable to our spiritual walk. But when we become legalistic about it, I think we dilute it's impact and create a culture of obligation rather than worship.

Just something I'm pondering these days.

Joel

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