Simple Ministry
There has been a lot of talk recently regarding all of the new generation of “simple applications.†Recently, Brian Glass posted about . He names 4 different tools he uses: in-house terminal based applications, vim/vi, Blender, and system administration config files/tools.
So what’s my point? Don’t judge software by its ease of use. Sometimes the best software takes an investment of time.
While I agree with his assessment (and would toss Emacs into the mix), there are things to consider with his examples:
- They are non-simple tools for a reason – they solve non-trivial problems
- Engineers tend to think that they know what the general user wants and what their pain is, when they are really targeting other engineers like themselves
- Many of the simple applications today still target a technical audience, but the technical hurdles has been reduced dramatically and has now created a wider audience and as a result a larger customer base without dumbing them down
How many church leaders you know use Microsoft Project? Not many, probably. But every leader has to deal with managing non-trivial projects. The simple task or project management applications available today tend to more broadly appeal to these types of user, as there is a smaller learning curve and people can be successful faster. It isn’t about meeting the lowest common denominator – it is about meeting needs that haven’t been met fully.
Now, apply the same principles to your church or ministry: are you simplifying your process such that a wider audience can sign up? If you aren’t, then you are both limiting the audience you are targeting, as well as limiting the opportunity for volunteers to assist you. Remember: people only sign up with successful initiatives. If your ministry requires a large effort to ramp-up a new volunteer or to utilize its services without opportunity for early success, people will walk away. So, use those harder tools by the minority of your team and make sure they help you get to the end faster, as Brian indicated with his list. But if you generally try to make things easy and generate successes early and often, you will realize a more effective and agile ministry.
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I guess what I’m saying is that too often people look at an application and if they can’t figure it out in 5 minutes throw it out.
If you are going to be using the software for something you do all the time, it may be worth your while to give the more complex software a chance instead of looking for the “simple” solution. It may save you time and effort in the long run.
Thanks for the clarification. I agree that sometimes you need a more complicated solution for some problems. I am also excited that some of these 80/20 solutions are starting to emerge for the simple fact that a wider audience is able to consider using them. And given that they offer a subset of features, they are often far cheaper, allowing churches or ministries to consider packages that were previously out of reach. I see it similar to the introduction of the sub $1000 PC (followed by sub $500 PCs).
So, I agree with what you are saying – some consideration should be given to the more complex packages. But by selecting those packages, it could make it harder for church-wide adoption. So, we cannot discount the need to evaluate both features and the trainability of a software package for our target users within the church.
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