The future of Logos and Faithlife: Help us make the right decisions!

James Macleod said:

I wonder if anyone is using the sermon tool.

The power in the sermon editor is it's automatic export to powerpoint/proclaim and FL Sermons. It saves me hours every time I teach. Formatting really shouldn't be done in the sermon editor. You sermon really should be bullet points and references and the theme should handle the style of your presentation.

Though, I do agree with the premise that some features in Logos should be improved and fully baked before new ones are introduced. It's Bob's prerogative where he spends his development dollars. I do see how it can be beneficial to invest their capital in core features that would introduce everyday Bible users into the FL platform. However, the "Logos Pro" seems to be their core customer and also the best entry into the everyday bible user market.

David Ames said:

So how much of the "awesome potential of Logos" was showable using the free "basic program" with no addons?  

 [[Silver goes for $999.99]]

There is plenty that you could show a new person with Logos Basic.  Of course, I encourage them to eventually add to that, but the point is for them just to get their feet wet and see how much more this can do than Strong's Concordance--and how much faster and easier it does it. In fact, I started the presentation by talking about Strong's and how it has served the church well for 100 years.  But then I show the limitations. You can't easily find every occurrence of "Son of God" or "Holy Spirit."  I show them how easy this is to do in Logos. 

• Easily find every occurrence of words or phrases in the Bible.
• Find every time the Bible talks about Jerusalem, whether it is mentioned by name or not (then explain how a human being went through and added these tags for them).
• Find every time Jesus speaks to the Pharisees.
• Right click on any word and get access to the original Greek or Hebrew word behind it.
• I show off Bible Word Study, the Passage Guide & the Topic Guide. 
• I show off Lexham Bible Dictionary & the Faithlife Study Bible.
• I show them how I have added my personal notes to the program, how they show up in any translation and how they are saved in my account even if my computer crashes.
• I show them how to use reading plans, prayer lists, highlighting, etc.

If they are using nothing, or just printed books then this is a lot and, to start off, it's FREE!  How could any Christian who loves the word of God not be interested?  Of course . . . once you use Basic long enough, you just have to upgrade. )

I got Logos recommended by one of the users.

I started with 'basic program', after a while got to full trial version for 30 days, and that blew me up. And here I am with Brozne package, will probably go higher in the future.

As some are telling how their church could use Faithlife I will report:

Faithlife will never work in my local church - reason: cost.   Have about 70 members per week but we can only get about 20 to attend the study before worship.

A one named user for Logos would not work as the Pastor and the six Elders rotate preaching duties.   

Presentations: Powerpoint [pay once when buying new computer].  Visiting preachers bring theirs on a flash drive - and often arrive five minutes before service. [Some are early and also attend the study before worship.  They use a free Bible program to copy the Scripture reading into powerpoint on the Scripture slide.

Our denomination provided text files of all the hymns in our hymn book in a Word format easy to copy into the powerpoint hymn slides.   

Bulletin done in Word.     Noone does any preparation work at church.  The AV person of the week gets the Bulletin by email and updates the weekly service Presentation. 

The youth have everything on their smartphones -  the older members ask 'why are the "kids" always on their phones during service?'  

Does anyone know if Psalms Explorer works on Logos Basic?

Bob Pritchett said:

I'd love to head what you want to see to help it catch up in robustness. More widgets, or more designs, or more control over details?

A few things come to mind, and these are roughly in order of importance (for my preferences):

(1) Ability to re-size content/widget spaces.

(2) Some templates have content spaces that do not have all the widgets available (though it might be because the particular content areas are smaller in that template[?]).

(3) More freedom with color schemes. Some templates have more freedom than others.

(4) More freedom with font schemes, and (relatedly) ability to manually adjust Header 1, Header 2, Header 3, and normal formats.

(5) Video backgrounds and scrolling/rotating banner.

(6) A landing page for blogs so that they can be searched and sorted, similar to sermons.

(7) A way to more easily sort and filter sermons (strictly for our church) once landing on Faithlife serous page.  Perhaps a filtering/faceted (and searchable facets) a la Logos library.  Perhaps this is manageable to some extent now(?).  I tried a few churches already using Faithlife Sites - I could sort by sermon series, but as soon as I ran a search, it searched the entire Faithlife sermon archive.  Maybe there's a way to filter by one specific church and then copy that link as linked text or call to action widget(?).

(8) Fixed (or parallax) background images might be cool as you scroll down.

(9) Apropos cool features, maybe some ability to have widget text or content slide in - something a bit more animated as people scroll down.

Some of those are pretty trivial.  Again, it definitely covers the basics, and I really love that sermons, blogs, and events are automatically updated on the site.  We're also officially moving forward with Equip for our small church plant.  Even though we're going to be in the smallest tier to start, the feature offering is great and many of us are excited to have the content available for our members.

Karl

Hi power users:

Many interesting posts. I  see the whole bit from a different angle.

When reading about chaplaincy, I was surprised by the Corporate type. Working there in the trenches of daily work life, a corporate chaplain is not only helping the people there (many times over burdened with all kind of problems), and that are in dire need of knowing the Savior Jesus Christ in a more real way.

We all know that companies appropriate the surplus of value production, very little goes into corporate social responsibility that makes a real change.

The way I see it, It would only be great if FL could get involved closer with the development of excellent corporate Chaplains, and see if through networking, the same could be hired to provide a very needed service in modern corporate America.

Persons in need of good counseling and help with life planning and management could be reached, and introduced to Logos and some of the "for real life" resources and tools that can be used to get right with God, and start enjoying the blessings that He may bestow as He wishes.

There are persons struggling with addiction, compulsions, illness, aging relatives, misbehaving children, debt, exploration, past abuse, in work abuse and harassment, etc. 

A well trained chaplain can really make a difference in such situations.

Once the value of such initiatives is realized by corporate America, then partnership can be formed, where they can give back to society by backing FL, to continue developing tools, resources, personnel  as they will allow trained Chaplains to:

Be of help in making moral business decisions.

Help in the labor relations where godly due process systems can be a boost to moral in the workforce, and a blessing from God's point of view.

Truly help persons find proper and effective help from God to learn how to navigate through the difficult times in life when tough situations arise.

Help the Glory of God fill the Earth, as predicted in the Bible.

Allow persons to learn more about Christian responsibility and stewardship, and to appropriate of the wisdom God has revealed in the Bible.

Eventually, multiply the chaplaincy corps, as persons that receive help, decide to be a tool of help eventually in gratefulness to God.

Just a very different angle for further research, reflection and constructive comment as needed.

Corporate America, business profit, corporate social responsibility, and the like, are not inherently bad. No body more appropriate than Christians to help redeem the bad parts of it, and help expand the Kingdom, and help the sheep get back to the flock.

Peace and grace.

Hamilton Ramos said:

When reading about chaplaincy, I was surprised by the Corporate type.

An organization already exists for this - https://mchapusa.com/ Personally, I would prefer that Faithlife NOT devote resources to this niche. I prefer that Faithlife keep getting better at what Faithlife is already doing. 

Bob,

I tried to give a quick read-through of the other responses, so my response might not be too redundant.  I would affirm what many people have said.  Your customers appreciate the ability of giving you direct input.  However, I suspect that there are several who feel like I do, that the direction you are taking the company just happens to be different than what would best work for me, so my input may not be very helpful. However, you asked...

As a pastor, I would agree with those who say that most smaller churches won't want to wade into the water to try your church software, because it actually requires the church to jump in.  You have replied to these responses about cost.  However, when you say, "A lot of the functionality is 'free to test', but a small church can live in that zone just fine," I think you are missing some pieces of why many churches won't engage.  From you perspective, much of the software is "free to test," and your intention will be to keep the cost down fore very small churches.  However, that misses a couple of major issues for the average pastor/church.  Maybe first and foremost, many of the pastors on this forum appreciate figuring out and using more complex software.  However, most pastors I know are far too busy and disinterested to take the time to explore complex software. 

In my opinion, this has become a major problem with Logos.  I've been with Logos since 1996.  Back then, you marketed your software as a way to access (mainly scholarly) books, and it was very good at that.  Up to and through Libronix, I found myself talking up Logos to Pastors and Missionaries, without even trying.  I unintentionally converted dozens of ministry people, and even whole church staffs to Logos, because any pastor who knew the basics of computer software could begin saving huge time accessing their study material, right away.  While Libronix had begun to get more complicated, by version 4, most people I knew in ministry were no longer talking about how great and easy Logos made studying, but how they didn't have the time to put in, to get significant value from the program.  A common response to this by Logos has been "more training," often at a cost (and in fact you mentioned this in this thread, talking about access to training videos).  The problem is, that adds considerably MORE time required, so that I can potentially benefit from the software.  Also, many of the features I might learn how to use, if I don't use them regularly, than I forget how to use them, and have to spend hours going back and trying to find instructions/training on how to use those features, in the middle of trying to prepare a sermon, for instance.

I was always surprised because whenever I visited these forums, I read lots of pastors heralding all the new features of Logos, but I only knew a couple of pastors who felt that way.  Interestingly, a short time ago, there was finally a thread on this forum that addressed this, and I was surprised at how many of these same people who love the new features of Logos were expressing frustration about how complicated it is.  Also, when you moved to version 4, cost began to be a major factor.  I've had many pastors and missionaries tell me that the won't even consider Logos because of it's cost.

Sorry if this feels like a rant.  It is not intended to be.  I'm including all this because I think this is the very reason that you might have problems convincing many churches to try your church management software.  Like Logos, it takes time to learn and gain real value from a lot of new software.  Smaller churches have little to no paid staff. You mentioned that you'd like to make Equip as easy to use as Excel, which would be great.  However, you have to remember that for non-business people, Excel is often too complex to use.  However, it is so widely used in business that a significant amount of people already know how to use it's basic function.

So, even with "free to test" software, I have to take the time to figure out how the software works, and what value it would add to the church.  Then I need to train whichever office staff (mostly volunteer) to use it.  And, I'm doing this with "free to try" software, that might become no longer free at any point.  Or, if we grow, and use more of the capabilities, we will then have to pay an unknown future amount, and if we can't afford it, or the features aren't great for us, we will need to learn and retrain people to use some different software.  This is why churches (and pastors) particularly like buying/owning software, and specifically single purpose software.  It's not that we unsympathetic to your company's financial needs.  It's that the realities of ministry make spending large amounts of time, energy and money on software a negative, not a positive.  After all, the intended purpose of software is usually to REDUCE the amount of time, energy, and money it takes to minister.

Last thing.  For some of us long-time Logos users, the very thing that drew us to Logos is what is now concerning to us about the direction of Logos, and also makes people like me more hesitant to try this particular package from Faithlife with our churches.  I and many others bought Logos, and spend considerable money adding books in electronic form, because we were sold the idea that, "we are not selling software, we are selling books in an easier to access manor, and it won't cost you more to use them."  That's not exact wording, but that was the idea.  As Logos set it's sights on more advanced software capabilities, it required more staff, more costs on your end.  Like other software companies, there became a need for greater, and perhaps more perpetual revenue streams to keep the process going.  This lead to discussions of moving to subscription based use.  It also lead to massive, very expensive Logos programs, requiring cutting edge computers to work properly.  Add to that the practical need for constant internet connection for Logos to work well, and potential loss of ownership of purchased material, and many people in ministry are getting much more skeptical of Faithlife software.  What you are offering might well be beneficial for churches.  However, the nature of Logos, and potentially this church management software system, is that very quickly, one can feel trapped - it would be to hard/costly to go another direction.  While it might be easier to have the church's website, management software and sermon prep software under "one account," that means that if costs increase, or it quits being so beneficial for the church, it has already hitched it's whole wagon to that one account.  It would be much harder to switch for even one part of that process.  You could easily get too far in to make it worth looking at other options.

Sorry for the long post, but I appreciate your desire to get input for your customers, so I wanted to be really clear (I hope I was) 

So, all of this to say, for most churches, mine included, the software would have to be very quickly useful (of value), and not trap us into a particular direction in the future.  It's a brutal task to try to have software be of significant value and easy to use for a small church, and of great value for a much larger church as well.  I think the suggestion for modular options makes great sense here.  If I could get the church to try a thing or two that worked well, we would be more inclined to try more things from Faithlife as our needs increased.  We would not feel like any particular purchase puts us in a potentially tough place down the road.  Over all, we would much prefer to support a company that provides many specifically church based resources, with our business.  I very much appreciate that Faithlife's intention and perspective of truly aiding churches in ministry.  I hope that you guys can make the software more useful for us than what we currently use.

Thanks.

Hamilton Ramos said:

But maybe you know something that we do not know, and could illuminate us more on the details.

Only my personal experience as a law enforcement chaplain in 2 departments and an awareness of others who are speaking to the FWE (Faith Work & Economics) space. But not pertinent to Bob's request in his original post on this thread.

Bob,

That was a long and thoughtful post. Without spending a lot of time, might I add a suggestion that might help achieve your goal?

I have been with logos for over 10 years and it seems that 95% of the features added to the software are for Hebrew scholars (which the masses will never use) or church-wide software such as proclaim or equip (which many churches such as mine, which has 300 members, will not spend $125/mo for a subscription).

Here the profile of 95% of the people in my church and probably every other church:

1. Can't read Hebrew

2. Probably isn't interested in Hebrew

3. Probably isn't interested in the desktop full version of Logos

4. Desires the "best" mobile bible tool on the market

5. Happy with existing free ways to connect with church members (text messaging, facebook, a phone call)

I think your team should spend a LOT more time improving the features of the mobile apps to make them more layperson-friendly (while retaining the advanced features). I think there have been some wonderful advances such as the "reference scanner". But there are also glaring problems that probably do you more harm than good. The biggest issue is something I've already identified ad nauseam (ex., https://community.logos.com/forums/t/176232.aspx) which is a fundamental flaw.

I don't know if you are trying to "make more money" or just maintain the status quo, but the answer isn't through advanced Hebrew features which 95% of the church population isn't going to use. It also isn't through these social applications such as proclaim or equip because smaller churches, such as mine, will never pay the monthly fee. The way to make more money is to get your app to rank #1 on the app stores when people search "Bible" and make sure it's the best dog-gone mobile bible app on the market. If you do those two things and focus 100% on those two things for a while, your lay-users will start buying more resources and FL will make more money.

Matt Zimmerman said:

1. Can't read Hebrew

2. Probably isn't interested in Hebrew

3. Probably isn't interested in the desktop full version of Logos

4. Desires the "best" mobile bible tool on the market

Based on 1, 2, and 3, perhaps they wouldn't want the Logos version of the mobile app?

I suspect that's why FL offers seven different mobile apps, so customers can select the best FL app for them, between, say, reading the bible, basic bible study, and more technical bible study.

YouVersion probably holds the #1 bible app spot. I don't think the Logos mobile app could ever rank that highly, because it's designed to do much more than what most YouVersion/non-Logos users want.

To be honest this software is so expensive, cumbersome, troublesome, and difficult to use that I keep it for one reason....because I have had it.  I use other less expensive, easier to use, and closer to my theological training for exegesis in my counseling ministry.  Nor would I recommend this mess to another christian, a local church congregation, or a client to use in their own personal devotions.  Want me to spend more...than clean this interface up...lower its cost...add an option to get rid of predigested data basis...make the library easier to use (only the Divine knows how I am suppose to manage the pathetic library I have)....and perhaps be less "premiere" in advertising-yes I know I need just one more bundle to be able to fully use the product.  In the end my gut tells me, although I have no proof, that my license will one day be in the hands of a conglomeration that will try to sell me my favorite Kindle books along with a hefty discount on their newly acquired bible engine. 

Mark said:

and in solving the issue of a manageable Library

To be fair, there was significant progress in L8, what with the additions of facets and the ability to share collections.

Robert C. Beckman Jr. said:

Lobbying to remove, truncate, and simplify, and eliminate the features that get in the way of the novice leaves the professional preacher, exegete, scholar without necessary tools for doing what God has called us to don.

I do agree partly with you. In my mind, I think that professionals are a part of the Logos' core customer. However, I would broaden it to say that their customer is "leaders" in general in the church which would include lay-leaders (Elders/Pastors, Teachers...etc). I believe that it is around 80% of leaders in the church in the world have no formal Theological training. So, making it easier for leaders to get started and use their tools on a basic level seems beneficial in my opinion. If they could do that while improving the professional capabilities, I think it could be a win-win.

Robert C. Beckman Jr. said:

Professionals use professional tools ...

True. We just had a compressor replaced on our fridge. I watched ... he had an amazing set of tools he wielded, all scrunched up.

But (also not snark-ified), I'd not recommend Logos for our pastor. He's the best I've seen in my no-longer-young years. Logos would destroy his success (leading folks to God). But I'd happily recommend it to a lady that helps challenged folks ... she loves hebrew. Can't afford it, though.

It's hard to say why I see the distinctions that way.  Piper expressed frustration with his professionals. I agree. And last night, a post by Cynthia (Florida) was also good, in a similar light.

I love the ability to personally examine the Bible, in infinite detail. But Logos for professionals?  Maybe so.

Forgive this scattered brain dump; but I really wanted to share. I apologize if I ramble a little off-topic.

I've been using Logos since 1996. When I first began using it, only one professor at my Christian College had ever heard of it. Within two years, I had gotten ~12 professors and ministerial students to adopt Logos. At seminary I continued to promote Logos, and have ever since.

Almost all my family, friends, and clients are using Logos as per my recommendation and demonstrating for them. I've created a manual that moves slowly from basics, into more advanced, and finally into doing inductive bible study using paid versions of Logos' with advanced tools. Many of these folks are not necessarily more tech-savvy than the average person their age; and some of them are in their 70's. I created the manual so it imports nicely into Personal Books, and many of them enjoy using it that way. I've also used Logos as a powerful evangelistic and apologetic tool -- folks are blown away when they visually see the breadth, depth, and history of Christianity. Walking someone though Logos sparks so many valuable questions and interesting revelations for folks.

I think Logos is for everyone. It's simple enough for a newbie to the software (or to Christianity) -- but complex enough for theology professors. In recent years, Logos has done a great job of putting out high quality, easy to follow, beginner training videos. The first thing I point out to a newbie is the robust help files ([F1]) and the online videos.

I truly believe that Logos can, and does, cater to all audiences. It's akin to Microsoft Word or Excel in this way -- easy to use with a tiny bit of demonstration -- but incredibly complex and robust for heavy end-users. I think that segmented marketing, branding, and training is the key to get many more to adopt this amazing tool -- i.e. LOGOS.

With respect to church products / services / technologies -- I've done a great deal of implementing many various systems in different non-profits and churches. I've often been disappointed with many of the vendors I've used (whether talent management, online giving, church database, etc) -- I've rarely found entities that are both Christocentric in their values, beliefs, attitudes -- AND competent in their products / services. In fact, it pains me to say, most vendors I've worked with have lacked the values and the competency (compared to secular companies). That is to say, I'd love to see Logos become the leader in every service, product, and industry that fits within your call and capacity.

Since 1996 I've had a continued excellent relationship with Logos and have always been able to recommend you from both a competency stand point, and a customer / technical service standpoint.

On a personal note, I do understand why Logos has so many different divisions / brands. I really wish it were just one consolidated entity (e.g. "Faithlife" -- bible software powered by Logos... sort of like buying a Dell computer that has Intel inside). For myself, it's not a big deal... but for all the people I get to adopt Logos -- it's always a bit confusing for them.

Thanks for all you do. Logos has literally changed my life. One of my greatest joys is working with 2nd and 3rd world Christian business leaders and pastors -- and equipping them to enhance their ministries with Logos.

Every end user application...which we used (lol) to call "programs", long before they were "apps" is a child of its time. I remember getting my hands on Ami Pro, a beautiful "easy" graphical word processor for windows 3.1.  7 floppies to install. 300 pages of manual. 

Logos is old enough that it began in that age where full-service computer programs required some learning. Granted, Logos seems to have some learning curves which are a little sharper (read, hairpin) but that may be the price of power.

PetahChristian said:

 YouVersion probably holds the #1 bible app spot. 

Some folks I know (like my mom) use YouVersion like Facebook for Christians. It's so social -- and many friends / family members use it because they connect through it. They have Logos on the home computer -- YV on the phone. So, I have to install YV to stay connected with them. One really neat thing is that Christians can recommend readings to non-Christians and get them hooked on the bible in a very simple, easy, non-threatening way.

Don't know if Logos could ever get into this space? I mean, it's really all about the lay-level content that pastors and authors develop for YV. But it would be a total game changer if Logos could enter into that space (only have to have one bible app on devices) -- I suspect it would be complex to filter the content for different levels (e.g. lay, pastors, scholars). I may not be searching hard enough, but I have a very challenging time finding valuable content on YV (even the big name authors seem to produce things more on the simpler end).

Hi Rene:

I hear you. And that is why I think that  some business companies should be approached to help them in their corporate social responsibility area.

Think of it, many companies profit from doing business with a large christian demographic, is not fair that the surplus created is ill distributed.

Serious companies know that is correct to give back to the community. Investing in development of chaplains that help improve the lives and morality of persons makes only good business sense.

I do not think that the Logos software is overly pricey, the workers that develop it and the creators of the platform deserve to be paid in a dignified way.

Another concept needs to be reinforced:

God is the owner of all gold, silver, riches, Earth, the Universe, the devil has nothing, all his minions got was by lying, cheating, stealing, killing.

God promises that His heirs will inherit all. God gives believers creativity to do things and prosper. 

Money, wealth and prosperity are not the problems. 

How can someone say that is a devout son of God, and then not have enough money to get a decent package in Logos Bible software?

See previous posts of mine to know how in developing countries, innovative socioeconomic activities have allowed groups to build Churches autonomously.

The idea of creating a staging HQ place for learning platform to develop leaders in the future applies not only to developing countries. There are regions in the States where innovative socioeconomic initiatives can be developed, and with the help of Logos platform, the multiplying of believers and disciples can  get going in a better way.

Peace and grace.

I love Logos and have invested quite a bit into my library. And I really appreciate the leadership of Bob and the way he runs his business.

My main criticism of Logos is its usability. The search functionality has significantly improved but if I need to find something quickly, I still use Google to search the Internet. Then when I gathered more information, I go back to Logos. Google just seems to know what I am looking for by just typing in a few words. I know that Logos does not have the user base of Google, but in the end, we have come to expect such smart search engines. Faithlife Assistant is not the solution for me.

Let me show you just one example of lack of usability. I want to investigate a topic, so I go to Logos Guides and type in "topic". Then I get 12 options:

If I type a specific topic into the Go bar, I get another 10+ options. So I have a total of over 20 options to search for a topic. Then I need to start researching which option is the best. At this point, many people give up. My nephew (a 28 years old smart guy) is one of them.

I am aware that Logos is an extremely powerful tool but we have come to expect tools to work without having to go through extensive help files. 

My hope is that Logos one day becomes so easy to use that occasional basic users can easily navigate through it. And expert users can get into all the nuances. 

Armin

PS: The workflows were a huge step forward. Many thanks!

Armin said:

My main criticism of Logos is its usability. The search functionality has significantly improved but if I need to find something quickly, I still use Google to search the Internet. Then when I gathered more information, I go back to Logos. Google just seems to know what I am looking for by just typing in a few words.

Yes, I do the same