In recent years a team of Christian software developers have been diligently working on software that assists in making disciples. The software is called Disciple.Tools and it is being used successfully all over the world. It is a free scalable web based data base program similar to a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM), that has been tailored for tracking disciples rather than customers.
Contact names, contact information, and faith journey specifics can be recorded securely and shared discretely as desired. As disciples grow and actively start making their own disciples, they can be given appropriate access to Disciple.Tools as well. In this manner, those tracking progress and those seeking to maintain security can both be satisfied. Similar to contacts, affinity groups can be recorded and progress tracked toward becoming multiplying churches.
Disciple.Tools can be customised as desired so that virtually anything can be tracked when deemed important to the team. Customisations can be shared with the wider Disciple.Tools community so that more teams can take advantage of such work.
Here are a few key things about the Disciple.Tools software.
Conceptually
- A contact management software (CRM) for individuals and collaborating teams.
- A group tracking software for church planting.
- A generation and leadership tracking software for movements.
- A saturation strategy and mapping software for church planting efforts.
- A media to movement software for connecting online seekers with offline disciple makers.
- An open software that releases ministries to customise or expand tracking according to their needs.
Technically
- A web application built in PHP, Javascript, CSS and HTML using MySQL as a database and a REST API to power a modern user interface.
- A custom theme built for WordPress and benefits from the WordPress framework of expansion by plugins.
- A web software that needs to be hosted on a WordPress server.
- An open source web application that is freely distributed and is intended for ministries to self-host their system, keep their data private to themselves, and expand to their own requirements.
- A core WordPress theme (disciple-tools-theme) expanded by WordPress plugins and plugins designed for the Disciple.Tools theme.
Aspirationally
- A software to improve the quality of evangelism follow-up and intentionality in the hard work of disciple-making.
- A marketplace for ministries to build plugins for what they need and share those plugins to benefit others in the Kingdom.
- A community of developers contributing their time and talents to Kingdom wide projects.
- An environment of innovation in using technology to accelerate movements.
The software is free and it needs to run on a website that has WordPress installed. Many people use it on their own servers but it can also be used as a hosted service.