As someone who works in the field of information technology I am fascinated by the concept of Open Source Software (OSS) development.  OSS is primarily the principle that by allowing anybody the chance to work on your source code you’ll end up with better code. Another name for it is community based development. Sure there is the possibility that someone sabotages your project, but most people that care about the project will treat it with respect and actually help to make it better. The thing that makes OSS work isn’t that it’s (largely) free software, it’s that communities develop around specific projects and these communities work together to make the project better.

Recently I’ve been thinking about the development of the church in terms of open source.  Initially the two seem to be polar opposites, church and software development, but the more I’ve thought about it the more it makes sense. Read the rest of this entry »