COVID-19 Global Church Hackathon is a one-week online hackathon for the Global Church during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We find ourselves at a key moment in history. A global pandemic. Social isolation. Self-quarantine. People who met to worship Jesus together, now unable to do so.

Yet we know that the global church is a people, not a series of buildings. As people we will look back on this moment - so let's choose to leave a legacy that outlasts the current crisis. Let's build something together that helps the Local Church do what she does best: bringing Faith, Hope and Love to the world around us.

Date: March 28th - April 4th

Applying as a team is recommended but we also welcome individual applications.

Challenge Statements:

Challenge 1: #Resources. Curate existing resources for the local church and aggregate the lists already available. Make these resources highly accessible, understandable, and shareable at scale. We recommended focusing on one resource category, for example:
Care for pastors: Resources to help pastors lead well and manage changes.
Care for the sick: Resources for testing, care and self-isolation
Care for the grieving: Resources for virtual funerals, marital separation, and more
Care for the joyous: Resources for celebrating life in the midst of pain and fear?
Care for frontline workers: Resources to help frontline workers to meet any needs.

Challenge 2: #Gather. Build a solution for churches to achieve deep and meaningful interactivity for Sunday mornings. Choose to build the solution for either small and medium churches or large churches. Include a long-term scope and a simple guide and strategy for successful implementation immediately.

Challenge 3: #Discipleship. Build a solution that provides sustained peer-to-peer discipleship and community when each peer is in lockdown home isolation. Find ways to integrate important spiritual disciplines.

Challenge 4: #Evangelism. Build a solution to uniquely and proactively share the good news of Jesus during a time of global increased anxiety, fear, stress, and disappointment. Build it for nearly anyone to use while in home isolation. Make it extremely simple to use. Include a clear and connected follow-up plan.

Challenge 5: #Worship. Build a solution that maintains the depth of meaning and interaction for different elements of church in an online world without reducing them to simple technical functions. Choose a specific category. For example: the act of tithing/offering, musical worship, corporate prayer, sacraments, or community meals. Create a manual for pastors to use and implement this product.

Challenge 6: #Identify. Build a methodology and solution for identifying the most vulnerable during COVID-19 in order for society to better serve them. Do this in a way the most vulnerable feel respected and loved. Include a clear and simple visualization.

Challenge 7: #MentalHealth. Build a solution to better find, reach and help those for whom mental health issues have been exacerbated during this crisis. Leverage data from https://ourworldindata.org/mental-health. Choose a specific issue. For example, anxiety disorders, depression, eating disorders, germaphobia.

Challenge 8: #Elderly. Build a solution to help the elderly during COVID-19. The solution can either deal with the lack of community that has increased due to international isolation OR it can help the elderly manage the fear and anxiety associated with being at highest risk of death from COVID-19. Be sure to answer: how do we use tech to reach those without tech or online connections?

Challenge 9: #Neighbouring. Build a solution that identifies and supports at-risk geographical neighbours. Include an easy method for checking in and helping their tangible needs. Find creative ways to incorporate other neighbours if possible.

Challenge 10: #Funeral. Build a solution that ensures we honor individuals who have passed away during this crisis. In-person celebrations of life and grieving are very challenging while our world is in isolation.

**Please search for the associated channel in slack (ie: #ch01-resources or #ch05-worship etc...) for more information, to communicate with experts, and share ideas with others. 

How to participate: 

• Impact (20 points)
  How much impact (quality and quantity) could the solution have? Could it make a big change or a little change to a problem?
• Product (10 points)
  Does the product address the organization’s needs during COVID-19? How user-friendly is the product?
• Scalability (10 points)
  Is this solution implementable? How hard would it be to scale?