Goodbye Old Mennonite.net, Hello Caravel by Michael Sherer
New Horizons in Denominational Communication by Michael Sherer
Mennonite.net Turns 5 by Michael Sherer
Building the Church Website, In Sunday School! by Michael Sherer

When Mennonite.net began in 1998, its database-driven websites were ahead of its time. But by the end of 2001 it had become clear that the first generation architecture was holding Mennonite.net back. A ground-up rewrite ensued that evolved into the Caravel Web Content Management System. In September of this year, users of the old system were migrated to new Caravel-based sites. "It was painful, but it had to be done," explained Executive Director Michael Sherer. "It's like a brain transplant--a very complicated procedure, but afterwards hopefully the patient is a lot smarter," he said with a wry smile.

The Caravel development team is hard at work fixing bugs, adding online help and refining the user interface in preparation for a broader roll-out to the denomination early next year.

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This simple online newsletter may not look like a revolution, but consider this: using a single Publish command in Caravel, this newsletter was published on hundreds of congregational websites instantly, at no cost. This kind of communication infrastructure was unthinkable only a few years ago, but hold the potential of bringing congregations, conferences and denominations closer together, and dramatically lowering costs in the process.

And that's only the beginning. Mennonite.net and Caravel also offer organizations access to RSS channel creation, publishing and subscription tools. RSS channels are widely used to deliver dynamically updated newsfeeds to websites. We believe RSS has tremendous possibilities for speeding up the flow of information on things like service opportunities, job openings, news releases, upcoming events, and more.

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It began in 1998 with a simple request for funds to buy "good domain names for Mennonite organizations," to help them get on the web. One of those good domain names happened to be mennonite.net and the rest, as they say, is history. Born in the era of dot-com high flyers, Mennonite.net has weathered the separation of the Mennonite church along national lines, the dot-com implosion, the birth of Mennonite Church USA, independence from Mennonite Mutual Aid and Goshen College, and a ground-up rewrite of its underlying software. Now at age 5, Mennonite.net looks to the future with a growing national internet service, a newly-minted web content management system (Caravel), and a commitment to give websites based on that system to every congregation and organization in the Mennonite Church.

"The vision behind Mennonite.net has always been compelling," explains Michael Sherer, Executive Director of Mennonite.net, "shared technology infrastructure for churches and organizations that lowers costs, increases communication flow and promotes collaboration. However, it's taken us five years to make the technology behind that vision compelling. I think we're finally there."

What Sherer hopes congregations and organizations will find compelling is Caravel, Mennonite.net's new system for creating and maintaining websites using just a web browser. Eliminating the need for specialized web editing software can save an organization hundreds of dollars. Caravel also streamlines repetitive maintenance tasks. A church can create a weekly upload set that updates the bulletin, newsletter, sermon, calendar and archives with a single click.

Before Caravel, Sherer found that churches who wanted a good website often became frustrated with limitations of Mennonite.net's first generation web design software and switched to custom sites. Now, however, he says churches are beginning to move the other way. "Churches are often able to create very attractive custom sites; however, the burden of maintaining those sites invariably falls on one person, and passing on those responsibilities has often proved difficult. Caravel makes it much easier to spread the maintenance responsibilities around and weather those inevitable transitions," added Sherer.

The initial release of Caravel offers word-processor-like editing tools, a tabbed navigation system, members-only sections for secure content, multiple calendars, RSS channels, group mailing lists, content subscription, content scheduling, archiving, Bible gateway search, Google internet and site search, a cookbook, email accounts and more. Mennonite.net plans to add new features as resources and interest dictate.

Caravel ( http://www.caravelcms.org ) has also been generating interest outside the Mennonite Church. According to Sherer, Caravel is in use at an Indianapolis school district, with several other school systems and colleges expressing interest. "Organizations large and small are struggling to keep their websites current. When people see Caravel in action, they want it."

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For the past five years, Mennonite.net has been attempting to eliminate barriers that prevented churches from creating effective websites. Initially, that meant eliminating the barrier of getting on the web, by generating websites for every congregation in the Mennonite Church. Next came the template website, an easy-to-use framework for creating church websites that goes beyond what any individual congregation could do on its own. And, most recently Caravel, a web content management system that adds greater flexibility and power to the template.

However, eliminating the technical barriers, it turns out, is not enough. Churches need well-defined processes that help them overcome the natural inertia that plagues most congregational websites, preventing them from becoming vital congregational ministries. To do this, Mennonite.net has partnered with Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship to form what is probably the world's first Sunday School class devoted to maintaining the church website. In the weeks to come, you can follow the progress of the Berkey Avenue website as it evolves and changes, both in this column and on the web at http://berkeyavenue.in.us.mennonite.net .

Why Sunday School?

The journey to Sunday School as the best venue for creating a vibrant web presence began with some personal soul searching. Why had I, as founder of Mennonite.net, been no more successful at getting my church, Berkey Avenue, to maintain its website? Berkey's and my answers were no different and certainly no more compelling than any other church in Christendom--people are busy, there was no clear mandate from leadership to do more with the website than already had been done, paid staff use technology but to go further require training and encouragement that no one has had time to give them. Using Sunday School as a venue for maintaining the church website addresses all of these problems in tangible ways

• It taps into time people have already committed to the church and could perhaps attract people who weren't interested in standard adult Sunday School curriculum
• Starting a Sunday School class doesn't require changing the church bylaws or any time-consuming bureaucratic process to get going;
  Paid staff can participate and whatever level they are comfortable. At some point, they may take over certain weekly maintenance chores, but there's no rush.

In some respects, maintaining the church website becomes analogous to counting the offering after the service--a mandatory activity that certain people devote themselves to Sunday after Sunday. Some congregations may feel uncomfortable with this use of the Sunday School hour, and should feel free to choose an alternate time or model. This could easily transfer to a small group setting analogous to the Church of the Savior's Mission Groups.

Why Mennonite.net?

Beyond my obvious connection to Mennonite.net, we wanted our experience to benefit the entire church. Mennonite.net provides congregations with a consistent approach to building a church website. This consistency allows you to build a common curriculum and know that each congregation's success is fully replicable. In the coming weeks, this column will address curriculum ideas and discuss frankly our successes and failures as Berkey Avenue sets about improving its website. Next article: "Getting Started"

About the author: Michael Sherer is Director of Information Technology at Goshen College, founder of Mennonite.net, member of Berkey Avenue Mennonite Fellowship in Goshen. His wife, Patsy and daughters Monica and Melinda graciously tolerate his obsession with churchwide technology infrastructure.