{"id":6078,"date":"2014-09-21T12:52:40","date_gmt":"2014-09-21T18:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=6078"},"modified":"2014-09-21T12:52:40","modified_gmt":"2014-09-21T18:52:40","slug":"thou-shalt-be-disrupted-welcome-to-the-silicon-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/?p=6078","title":{"rendered":"Thou shalt be disrupted: welcome to the silicon church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/6e2944c4-2dc9-11e4-b330-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz3DygOZ3tM\">Sally Davies:<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Think of them as God\u2019s back-office. Technology start-ups have spied an opportunity in helping Christian clergy manage their organisations \u2013 from using apps to harvest data about their parishioners, to administering assets such as cemeteries and church organs.<\/p>\n<p>California-based Kaleo Apps offers a host of smartphone features to churches, including Facebook-like \u201cprayer walls\u201d and a service that lets churchgoers donate via SMS. The company says its tools have increased giving by up to 40 per cent.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cChurches have been managing themselves for thousands of years, but they\u2019re being challenged on their story and their relevance,\u201d says Klaus Nyengaard, chairman and investor in Danish start-up ChurchDesk. \u201cThey need to spend less time on administration and more time on the values they have and preaching the Gospel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr Nyengaard, who was previously chief executive of London-based online food marketplace Just Eat, says priests are working harder than ever before to \u201csweat\u201d underutilised assets and get local community groups through the door by offering space for events, creating an ever-greater need for efficient management.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sally Davies: Think of them as God\u2019s back-office. Technology start-ups have spied an opportunity in helping Christian clergy manage their organisations \u2013 from using apps to harvest data about their parishioners, to administering assets such as cemeteries and church organs. California-based Kaleo Apps offers a host of smartphone features to churches, including Facebook-like \u201cprayer walls\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6078"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6078"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6079,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6078\/revisions\/6079"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zmetro.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}