Life Church announced the upcoming launch of YouVersion.com today. From visiting the site and reading the blog post, it appears that it will be similar to eBible.com with more substantial community features (the ability to upload digital files, for instance).
I'm interested in this for several reasons:
1. Virtually everything Life Church does is done really, really well. I expect this to be no different. I'm sure it will be a blowout service.
2. Launching any kind of social network is intensely difficult from the standpoint of generating a sufficient user base to get real traction. Life Church has a significant built-in potential user base simply because of the size of their church. I'm sure that will go a long way to getting traction--not to mention other ministry leaders who pay close attention to what Life Church does.
I have no doubt of their capacity to make it happen, but I'm sure they recognize the enormity of the task.
3. Given the parallels with eBible and the fact that eBible has an open API, I'm curious as to why they didn't simply piggyback on what eBible has already built. I'm sure there are good reasons. I'm just curious as to what they are.
4. This sort of project raises some incredibly interesting questions about the intersection of church and business.
Consider this: Suppose YouVersion has 100,000 users within a year or so. That's not just a cool service. That's a pretty valuable asset.
Of course, churches have owned assets for years in the way of real estate. But if a church owns real estate, it doesn't necessarily have to do anything for that asset to appreciate. Not so with a web property. Software upgrades, maintenance, etc. are all labor intensive--they require expenditure of financial and human resources.
But this is a service--a real ministry. Nothing wrong with devoting time and money to development and upkeep. A huge percentage of the user base will likely not give anything back to Life Church.
Unless it sells.
Of course, I have no idea whether or not Life Church would ever have any desire to sell YouVersion if it exploded and had massive traffic. Knowing their strong disposition toward giving stuff away, I would be surprised if they did.
But suppose it did sell (or suppose it was monetized through ads or sponsorships). Shareholders wouldn't benefit because there are none. But stakeholders would. Additional staff could be added. New facilities could be built. New web properties could be developed. Heck, it could fund Life Church Labs--a division of the church staff devoted to building new web properties. (I like the sound of Life Church Labs, by the way. That's catchy.)
Here's my takewaway: This feels like a business embedded in a church. Even if that's a million miles from the intentions of Life Church, it's a VERY short putt for other churches to get there.
The implications range from 'that just feels weird' to 'will the IRS be okay with that?'
Am I being overly sensitive? Am I out to lunch? I have mixed feelings--great idea; scary idea. Can anybody help me see this more clearly?