For your adoption plan, you certainly could have a core of “enthusiasts” that reaches out and evangelizes the system… but can you guys handle the financials? Is it the “best” system for what you really need done?

And that's a good start… what's the end goal?

Has anyone used ning or ?? to have their church embrace such a social interaction in their church? Also, we are a smaller congregation — for now with a desire to become connected and effective.

Can you discuss adoption and integration of a congregation to these new technologies? Suggestion for alternatives to try? I like you just want it to work, heh!

So glad you added your thoughts and I am very encouraged to hear about your results! My thoughts, again, were from a technological perspective… and technology, in and of itself, never knocks out-for-the-count “success” of adoption on it's own limited merit.

And, this is obvious due to your testimony! Thanks so much, again, for chiming in. Invaluable, and I hope that you're able to provide great feedback as well as best-practices for others seeking to adopt it as a ministry tool.

One final thought is as your congregation begins to use it and begins brainstorming “other” possibilities, you may find yourself quite limited because of the technology, but perhaps you may never need more than the core offering gives…!

These were our 2 primary goals. I was initially skeptical, but decided to try Unifyer. I really didn't see what it could do that Facebook couldn't. Today I can confidently say that not only have I been proven wrong – but there have been so many additional benefits that I would have a difficult time quantifying them all.

1. People responded with an overwhelming positive. Within one month, we have almost 400 users. Compare this to 75 Facebook users within one year. They like Unifyer because it is “contained”. Our Facebook users are using both tools – there is a marked difference between the fun of Facebook and the intimacy that gets created in Unifyer. People like that they can share certain things on Facebook that get shared with the rest of the world – but when they want to talk about a problem in their life, or a prayer request – they might not want that global for their school and work friends on Facebook.

2. For the first time, ministry leaders and staff and taking complete responsibility for their announcements. The level of creativity and ownership that they are taking is amazing and is bringing so much power to the process.

3. People are sharing their stories – even by commenting on an announcement. This alone is amazing.

4. I've had people come up and introduce themselves to me during a weekend service and I've said, “I already met you.” They have to remind me that we have only met and conversed in Unifyer. That's how seamless it feels to connect with people using Unifyer.

5. While there has been some concern with Flash, and a few people have taken awhile to get up and running…once they are, they love the Interface. It is so clean and easy-to-use. At first, one might look for tons of features that are Facebook-esque. However, the more you use it – the more the simplicity shines and keeps the tool focused on what it does well.

6. Oh yes, and our final goal of launching LifeGroups. Without Unifyer, I can't begin to imagine how we would have done this. With Unifyer, we are seeing hundreds of people flowing into groups.

I'm sure the folks at Unifyer will continue to add and improve features, but just as it is – it is the single most powerful tool that I have introduced to our church in the last 10 years.

Cyndi Roberts
Communications and Technology
Montrose Church

Great thoughts here. I totally forgot about the data-control-issue… nice!

thanks for your thoughts.

The challenge is in educating the older offline crowd and pulling them into the online community while not frustrating the others by making them get all their communication through Sunday bulletins and newsletters.

I love the concept of Unifyer. There are 3 reasons I’m holding off at the moment: 1) the heavy use of flash which will frustrate folks on dialup, 2) cost – would be cheap for us now but if it does it’s job and the # of users grows we will not be able to afford it, 3)75% of the current membership just isn’t ready for it.

I’d like to see Unifyer move away from flash and take a more Google-esque approach to the UI. The feature wish-list from M. Frazier looks awesome. I’d also like to see a pricing structure that makes more sense. Maybe a free, Plus, Pro sort of pricing scheme. Or a one time fee for the software and churches could host it themselves. I’m more comfortable hosting apps on my own server anyway because then I control my own data.

Thanks so much for dropping a line! It’s great to hear from you and some of your plans for Unifyer.

Couldn’t agree with you more about the “Rome” bit… definitely true, and I’m all about honoring God in Kingdom building via technology! Rock it!

Would you have time to take the discussion further? I’d love to chat.

Great point. A huge portion of what we have to do is educate. I’m sure that Unifyer will have to spend just as much time as many other properties educating those that may need it most.