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Intelligent Design

Technology with a purpose

A common theme you'll probably hear about from many of us at Fellowship Tech is how we desire to use our talents and skills for a purpose.  Not just any purpose will do, either.  We want that purpose to ultimately be God's purpose for our lives.

I just want to give a short expression of that passion from a developer's perspective.  Development is a wonderful thing.  It's a bit frustrating having a mindset that is always breaking things down, analyzing scenarios, and trying to come up with better ways of doing things - such as why, with all of our vast technology, traffic lights still stop you at 1am when you're the only person on the road.  I bet most people don't think long and hard about how to improve the flow through a buffet line either. 

While it has its downsides, there are also a lot of benefits.  The greatest and most enjoyable for me is the creative aspect.  You start with nothing, and you create - something, something that does something.  Hopefully that something is useful, beneficial, and improves someone's life.  It's even better if it leads people to the Lord or meets people's practical needs, just like He does.  I'm glad the Lord is using my skills to help His church.  While I have the common developer's desire to create something elegant and useful, I also have the greater desire to reflect the glory of God and be used by Him. 

I feel blessed to be able to do both, and humbled by the fact that both are still very much a process.

 

Published Thursday, September 07, 2006 7:49 PM by thardy

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ejaffe said:

I need your feedback.. We are looking to up our web technology/internet campus to the next level. What 3-5 church websites out there do you feel are the most cutting edge? Especially if they exhibit a multi-site church flare? What 3-5 web technologies are out there that every church must integrate?
October 10, 2006 10:11 AM
 

thardy said:

I haven't done enough research on church front-end websites to give a conclusive list. Both www.fellowshipchurch.com and www.saddleback.com are good examples of websites. Saddleback's homepage is a bit busy for me, but the spin-off sites are very creative. Fellowship's site is very clean and a good example of a multi-campus website. And no, I don't attend Fellowship Church. As far as technologies, I think it's more about delivery than technology. An end-result product that is compelling, easy to use, easy to maintain, and easy to extend can be created in just about any technology. Some of my favorites are: Google (Calendar, Maps) - I think they use Java for the web stuff and C++ for the back end 37signals (Basecamp) - Ruby on Rails My Bank website - .NET There isn't a technology or even a service (yet) that is a "must have". The best tools and services currently simply do what they intend to do really well. Mashups are becoming popular and are great for end-users. They take one or more best-of-breed services and seamlessly integrate them into a useful app. An example would be integrating with Google Maps or Flickr APIs to handle your mapping or photo gallery functionality. Give me more info on what user needs you're targeting, and I can give you more specific ideas. As to web technologies that every church would want to integrate, that's exactly what our long term goal is here at FT, from a service-oriented perspective.
October 10, 2006 2:09 PM

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