Codex ContentThe City Update
After a few weeks of silence, it’s time for an update on all the activity going on behind the scenes in The City Labs. In short, we have been very busy, which only makes sense as we are launching to the first Community Groups on February 18th! We still have quite a few things to do before we’ll be ready, but the Lord has blessed us with alacrity and features are getting implemented pretty handily.
What are some things we’ve recently worked on? Well, at the top of my list, even though it was trivial to build thanks to the hard working crew over at Crossway, is a little feature that allows anyone in The City to reference Scripture in a very easy fashion. Here’s my announcement from The City:
We also implemented some customization tools, so those of you that are coming from a Facebook background will feel right at home as you can drag and drop things on the screen and hide certain portions, if you want. All of this The City remembers for you, so the next time you come back, you see just the things you want to see.
In the events portion of the site, it now supports an easy to use date entry (no crazy click on the calendar and spin the wheel sort of thing), just type in human-speak and the system turns it into computer-speak. You can also see the potluck system in the screenshot below (allows you to identify items for an event, and attendees to sign up to bring them).
We have also extended the neighborhood concept so a new person in The City can see the groups and people around their home or work address and reach out to join those communities. Pretty simple addition with all the nifty mapping capabilities out there but one that reinforces the locality of each person.
I have alot of help pages to write before the 18th, so I’m going to keep this somewhat brief. If you’re in the Greenlake area, I look forward to seeing you in the first wave!
Zach,
Is the idea to keep the city proprietary in Mars Hill, or are you considering rolling it out beyond to A29 or even just churches in general?
I’m excited that Mars Hill is growing to the size to support this kind of thing. I pray that God will use what you’re doing. If you need any mock-ups or design work, drop me a line and we can talk.
It is such a blessing to have such a talented team of technologists at Mars Hill. I cannot wait to see how this is all going to turn out. I’m praying for you guys!
Matt
This looks cool and promising. I’m interested in hearing the answer to Mike’s question. I’m not currently a member but will be soon (halfway through Gospel Class)…but in the example given above, someone who is not yet a member and attending a community group might be a bit out of the loop if the group is using The City for event planning if the non-member could not access the site. Something to think about, though you guys are sharp, so you probably already have (there’s a few things in the blog that infer that it would be open to new folks searching for a community group, which in many cases is non-members). Just looking for clarity on that.
I too am wondering if The City is going to be available to other churches. Further, will it be closed- or open-source?
Our team has been hard at work on our own bit of software for churches, OneBody: http://beonebody.org
I still don’t know quite how our project and The City differ and/or are similar, but would be nice to know if I should keep an eye out for a competing open source project
@Mike - we’re still figuring out where the Acts 29 churches will be in this whole process. I believe that if we can enliven community through The City at Mars Hill, that it would be a natural next step to offer this to Acts 29 as a piece of our partnership with the Global Church, but we’re still in the idea phases of that.
@Matthew - actually the City is not a “member’s site” or a “church directory”, it spans the reach of everyone that comes through the doors and potentially even those that are a part of the Mars Hill Underground. So if someone comes to a Community Group, that leader would be able to invite them into The City. The idea is to welcome into community and the life of the body.
@Tim - I’m still thinking about the long-term availability of The City, nothing to say at this point. Being involved in open source projects, I’ve got a feel of the pros and cons of that approach.
Is that code available for inclusion on other (my?) church web site?
Thanks,
Jim
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Chronic is off the heezy, my neezy
In case anyone is wondering, you can get the natural date parsing library here: http://rubyforge.org/projects/chronic