Joe Suh wrote a great post here:  http://digital.leadnet.org/2008/04/can-chms-levera.html

In the comments, he asked me a follow-up question to my comment.  So instead of attaching another LONG comment to the post, I am putting my long version response here.  To see the cliff note version, go check out the comment thread.

Joe, to answer your question, Absolutely YES! I do see data that should be the responsibility of the individual and not the organization. And to clarify "pain," I think manual entry is painful. There are things that make manual entry easier, but church staffs are still the bottleneck to many different points of data collection such as processing contributions, marking attendance, documenting people's gifts, updating contact information, etc.

1. One simple example of painful data entry is New Member Classes.  These classes are typically used to assess where a person is at spiritually, educate them about the church, and (in best cases) find ways of getting the person plugged into the church. The manual process for gathering and inputting this information is a pain, and even if the information is gathered, it is sometimes difficult for the church to follow through. 

Case and point, one church I attended put me through this Willow Creek-ish process, found out all about me, learned where I wanted to serve, but never approached me with opportunities after the fact. There really was no information I gave to the church that I would not feel comfortable putting into a social network profile. In fact, I would prefer to keep it there.  People move and rarely attend the same church indefinitely. My information needs to be portable, so I can plug it into any church that I want to plug into. And if I have a serving resume, I would like to take that with me so the next church knows how I have been utilized in the past.

2. Access ACS is the closest thing I have seen to being able to personalize my interaction with a church.  It includes self-service for small groups, giving, and serving. I can say what I am interested in to be paired with a serving opportunity or I can search manually for things. As a product for churches, it is great, but it is not a true social network. It was originally developed for church staff and not the church consumer. Adding more social elements for church consumers will really make it a killer app. Disclosure: I left ACS Technologies in August 2007, so this is not a self-promoting plug. It is my honest opinion.

3. The cool thing about Web 2.0 (social/collaborative Web) is that everyone feels they are important with what is taking place online. I can blog for the world to see. I can tell the world what music and movies I enjoy. I can share pictures of my latest adventure. With a mobile device, I can broadcast where I am and what my status is. And the best part is, those who care respond.

This is why I latched onto the term Church 2.0 - as a parallel to what is possible with technology. To me, there is a difference between the "temple" and the "Church." One is a physical structure maintained by a select group of people and the other is an aggregate collection of people designed to edify and grow each other. Unfortunately we confuse church with the temple.  Social networks facilitate a level of personal response that today's temples fail to deliver. After all, church is about personal relationships.