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July 8, 2005
Google Church Map
(Filed under: Technology)
Check it out: All the churches in a 500 mile radius of my zip code with a Dallas Theological Seminary graduate as pastor. Well, sort of. It appears to be U.S. only, and I can tell you that most of Kansas, Missouri, Kentucky and farther south are definitely more than 500 miles away. But it's still cool.
The DTS Church Search is a potential new feature for the DTS web site that they're currently testing. John Dyer blogged about setting it up and passed it along to us. It uses the Google Maps API, which is technically speaking over my head, but the application is that just about anybody can use a Google map on their web site. DTS came up with a pretty cool use, but I imagine any church could use a slick map.
Imagine the possibilities: You could plot the locations of your church members (OK, creepy) to organize geographic house groups. Or you could plot every church within one mile of yours and team up to reach your community. It seems more like a fun toy than anything, but sometimes a fun and useful toy will make people come back.
Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at July 8, 2005 6:39 AM
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Comments
Kevin,
Thanks for the link! I updated the search algorithm to use a more accurate distance calculation. Now you won't have to see any of those pesky Kentucky churches in your 500 mile search around MN :)
Great site by the way. I love it.
JD
Posted by: John Dyer at July 11, 2005 11:27 AM
Great ideas. I blogged about it tonight.
Posted by: Doug at July 11, 2005 9:58 PM
The ChurchInsight system also uses the Google Maps API to plot the location of church members on a map...but we've got round the "We know where you live" creepiness by making this a report available only to selected administrators in the Web Office.
(Logged-in church members already have a secure online Address Book that links individual addresses to a map.)
More at www.ChurchInsight.com
Posted by: Mike Schorah at August 4, 2005 9:00 AM
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