Faith and Innovation

Although I was born and raised in Canada, I have spent most of my life in other countries and recently became a British Citizen.

After literally living in the desert for ten years, I was fortunate enough in 2014 to return to my spiritual home London. I only knew a handful of people in this wonderful City but felt at home immediately. And it was so special to hear church bells ringing after so many years of living in foreign lands.

In mid-2015, my mother passed away in Canada. It then dawned on me that I did not have a church to call my own. I went to St Paul's and promised I would not stay away from His House any longer.

Shortly after that, I walked to lunch from my workspace in the City and passed St Olave's 8 Hart Street, a wonderful medieval church with beautiful, welcoming glass doors. I ventured in, and it was a Tuesday lunchtime service with two young priests and a third sage one. They and the four other attendees who were there made me feel very welcome. I started coming regularly and thanked Jesus for finding this special place. As in any community, each has a great congregation of many talents, and St Olave was no different.

The services were excellent, the sermons challenging, the singing exceptional, and the people were absolutely fantastic. I felt so fortunate to have found this remarkable place. I was all the more surprised as we used to come for Christmas to London and we always had such difficulty finding any church open on Christmas Eve.

Over time I visited other churches in the City and found something special in every one of them. And, of course, each is doing its best to proclaim the Mission. However, I also found that many were relying on communication methods and channels behind what was current practice.

I had my marketing advisory firm do a small digital benchmarking exercise and shared it with our Vicar, who encouraged me to share it with the Dean. He then arranged for me to share it with a number of the churches in the City. I found a ready and willing audience constrained only by time and resources.

Like any large organisation, the Church of England has many priorities, limited resources and mission-critical initiatives. Instead of trying to convince them to invest in a digital platform to transform not only how they communicate but how they work, we decided to go ahead and build it. With support from the clergy, we have created something unique.

The result is the Digital Church Platform Solution®. It is built with robust technology and made to last. It is a solution that helps every church work more effectively internally and externally to its congregation and community. It also leverages existing content initiatives from the wider Church.

We are passionate about the Mission and about using our talents to help support the Mission.

We are not in a financial position to provide this service for free, but we certainly are in a place to put our hearts and souls into helping each church communicate most effectively.

Mark Magnacca
Founder