Community portal extension?

Congratulations on new look and feel of the PPAC Web Site. Great job!

Just about couple weeks ago I contacted the office with the idea about a Web Community at PPAC which may IMHO greatly benefit the members. They responded to me with a suggestion that the new Web site may have some interactive functilnality already. Which is great as I can now see!

However, I think it can be taken even a bit further

The idea resurfaced again prompted by the recent the incident at the 9 o’clock service, when a gentleman had heart attack and there was an immediate need for a doctor. The pastors and staff knew immediately who to call from the congregation. While everyone was praying that the gentleman would recover soon,  it also occurred again to me that sometimes it is pretty difficult to get to know over 2000 people that call PPAC home and yet many of us may be in need of something that other members can provide.

For example, when I need a lawyer or a doctor or a plumber or a car mechanic, I would love to talk to somebody from our Church first. From this point of view it could be really nice to have some sort of a Web community portal  which would allow the community members to share information about themselves, their profession, talents etc – anything that they would like to offer to the community (and not necessarily in a charitable fashion), sort of like a bulletin board with posting and reading privileges restricted only to the community members. That could be especially useful for those people in our church who are looking for a roofer, or carpenter, or babysitter or a guy who fixes computers etc… As I said, we’d all naturally trust more to someone who is a brother or sister in faith and a member of the same Body. 

In the new portal there already seems to be a good deal of communication tools: groups, forums, personal pages etc. - even classifieds! However I couldn't find where to the classifieds are posted on the site. And it seems like rather than the classifieds that new extension should be more like a directory or yellow pages. Ability to connect by interests or by personal talents will make the site even more useful!

I’ve heard the need of something like that from quite few people. In fact, I think even the Apostle Paul provided support to the idea with the following words: “So then, while we have the opportunity, let us do good to all men and especially to those who are of the household of faith“ (Gal 6:10), emphasis mine). While may be a little stretched to support the need for a Web portal, this quote still gives us insight to help one another and the Web portal will just help us to do that!

I think if we hear more about it from the other visitors of the new Web site, we may get even better ideas!

Best regards,

Anthony