Think like a small group leader for a moment if you're not one...

I want to create a cheap or free iPhone app for small group leaders. I know pastors would love to see a super-easy way for group leaders to send them a report about meetings and the health and needs of the group, but this is a need and want for pastors, not group leaders.

Frankly, I think small group leaders couldn't care less about submitting reports!

But they might submit them if this was one feature of a cool app for their iPhone.

So, what I need to know is this: What kinds of things would small group leaders want in an iphone app?
• A way to tweet to all their members simultaneously?
• Pull member info together from the address book?
• Track discipleship?
• Keep prayer requests for each member?
• Keep calendared items for the group?

What else might the see in an iphone app and say, "I gotta get that!" ???

2 comments:

Dennis Beckner said...

Great idea! If you could partner up with SimplyYouthMinistry.com and YouVersion.com, you could include the following:

1. Curriculum
2. Quick Bible references to answer students' questions

Another cool feature would be automatically generated push notifications such as "Johnny hasn't been at your group for 3 weeks. Give him a call. His number is..." or "Samantha's birthday is today. Text her at..."

Anonymous said...

I think this is a great idea as long as you have group leaders who have iPhones or some sort of smart phone that can use the app.

I'm still a bit skeptical about group leaders giving a report back unless asked personally.

If it were to work, I think you would want to have:
- the ability to track prayer requests that could be emailed out to the group
- a group calendar for events, including who is doing what (e.g., leading, hosting, bringing snacks)
- a group address book that can be updated by anyone
- a way to track attendance at the group (leader only)
- way to track personal growth

As a pastor working with groups, I think it would be ideal if there was a way to integrate this with church database tools (e.g., Fellowship One, ACS) or some of the developing spiritual growth tools (e.g., Monvee).

That's a lot, I know.

Matt Erickson
Associate Pastor
Brooklife Church
Twitter: @mathyouerickson
Renovate blog: http://mwerickson.wordpress.com
Brooklife groups blog:
http://brooklifegroups.wordpress.com