I love the open-source code concept. To borrow from the field of software development, open-source simply means you allow anybody and everybody to improve an idea. It helps you work the bugs out of software and develop a better code. It's software synergy.
I believe in open-sourcing blogging. I believe in open-source churches.
One reason why I'm posting evotionals and video illustrations and trailers and graphics from our sermon series is because I want people to "steal" them. I'm not saying "copy" us. I am saying:
Take our ideas.
Make them better.
Let's play leap frog!
I want my blog to be an open-source blog. That's why I allow anonymous comments. It allows people to just say what they think. Or be lazy :)
For what it's worth, I want the Buzz Conference to be an open-source conference. Most conferences have a similar format: listen to the experts. There is nothing wrong with that. But I think everybody has something to teach and everybody has something to learn.
One of our ideas is to have every Buzz attendee submit a "best idea" or "best video." We'll compile them into a "top ten" list and share them with attendees. If everybody is contributing we can improve the church code so it gets better and better. I think some of the most creative churches in Christendom are in existence today. But I still think there are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet. There are more incarnations to come!
Once a church becomes closed-source it's the beginning of the end.
I believe in open-sourcing blogging. I believe in open-source churches.
One reason why I'm posting evotionals and video illustrations and trailers and graphics from our sermon series is because I want people to "steal" them. I'm not saying "copy" us. I am saying:
Take our ideas.
Make them better.
Let's play leap frog!
I want my blog to be an open-source blog. That's why I allow anonymous comments. It allows people to just say what they think. Or be lazy :)
For what it's worth, I want the Buzz Conference to be an open-source conference. Most conferences have a similar format: listen to the experts. There is nothing wrong with that. But I think everybody has something to teach and everybody has something to learn.
One of our ideas is to have every Buzz attendee submit a "best idea" or "best video." We'll compile them into a "top ten" list and share them with attendees. If everybody is contributing we can improve the church code so it gets better and better. I think some of the most creative churches in Christendom are in existence today. But I still think there are ways of doing church that no one has thought of yet. There are more incarnations to come!
Once a church becomes closed-source it's the beginning of the end.
2 Comments:
As a software developer, I've contributed to a couple of open source projects and used many different open source software packages over the years. For example, there hasn't been a day in years that I haven't used the Apache's Ant tool or Eclipse at work to help put together the pieces of commerical-grade software that we're writing.
The open source movement has been a great addition to the software industry - it really does lead to innovative new ideas and is often able to be more responsive to technological advances than commerical software.
That being said, most open source projects tend to struggle with 2 things, (at least at their outset) - documentation and communication. It can be tough to motivate developers to document in plain English the use of the software they've written ;) And, it can be equally as tough for developers to communicate and work together on software remotely - it definitely takes some discipline and a good framework.
I love the idea of open-source blogging - it's a natural (well, at least for techies like me) way to bridge that communication and documentation barrier for open-source churches! Let's keep writing and sharing ideas!
Thanks for the backdrop on open-source code, Erin!
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