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Comment by timsayshey | Hacker News Reader

There is a ton of opportunity in the christian media industry with huge markets. I hope more christian developers get involved and start making stuff that would help believers, missionaries, churches, etc. There are so many things to disrupt. For those that are interested and want encouragement or help finding ideas. I found a christian startup slack community http://thirdpathinitiative.com/christian-startup-community and there is also a really cool hackathon organization http://codeforthekingdom.org

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I'm interested in joining your community but there are a couple things that look like red flags to me about this.

1. It costs $25 to join the slack community. Is this normal?

2. The overview" page mentions all the things in the ThirdPath coaching process but lacks one important thing-how it has anything to do with Christianity. It reads like every other startup coach/bootcamp process.

Makes me think that this bootcamp is just targeting Christians because it's a big niche, not because you believe that there's truly a need for Christian startups

No, it's not. Your religion doesn't affect how well your startup does, as you pointed out. This is just an unfortunate case of somebody using religion as a tool to sell you something you may not purchase otherwise.

This is against the Slack Terms of Service.

https://slack.com/terms-of-service Clause #6.7

I wouldn't build a christian startup because there is something magic about the christian label. It might even fail. It's about personally believing in the mission of Christ and wanting to share the love of Christ through your gifts and talents.

Also I will reach out to Slack's team to find out about the ToS. If this is truly the case then many other slack communities are in violation as well :/

In my opinion, you may want to drop the price tag on entry. It is widely looked down upon (eg — pay to pitch, etc) and will make you lose some credibility when it comes to discovering serious talent.

Also I feel bringing religion into business (which is essentially what startups are) is unwarranted. Don't get me wrong, but there is literally no correlation here.

You seem like a genuinely nice guy so I just dropped in my 2 cents, and yes, you should reach out to Slack. Best of luck, mate!

I find it odd that someone would charge a fee to join a chat room. Doubly so if that chat room is meant as a way for like minded religious people to communicate. Is there at least an animated collection plate that comes up during the sign up process?

Sounds like exactly the sort of thing someone looking to exploit religion to make money would do.

I've seen a number of Slack rooms try to charge that had nothing to do with religion (nomads.io comes to mind).

Agreed. It is much more important to embody Christ in how you run your business - how you make decisions, and how treat your users, employees, partners, and investors without shouting it from the rooftops.

My wife recently gave me this quote from St. Francis - "Preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words." I think it applies here.

Great feedback, but I don't own it, I just found it on google. Also, charging a one time fee to join is actually really common for Slack communities (ie hashtagstartup.co). It keeps out people that aren't serious or want to spam.

Ah, good to know.

> I hope more christian developers get involved

According to the Business Insider article[1], Trevor McKendrick is atheist:

  Though McKendrick doesn't have to think about money, his
  booming Bible-selling business does have him worrying
  about one thing: his morality.

  See, McKendrick isn't exactly a believer in his product.

  "We don't believe in Christianity," he told Blumberg. "We
  don't believe in the Bible."

  "I would describe myself as an atheist."

[1] http://www.businessinsider.com/atheist-makes-100000-selling-...

Thanks for sharing and clearing that up, but this actually validates my overall statement all the more. We need real christian developers and there are so many opportunities to have a huge impact for the kingdom!

Why would there be a specific need for Christian developers? Sure looks like an atheist can do just as good of a job.

On the one hand, Christ was the original " (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻) ", on the other hand, consider what He was disrupting in the first place.

There isn't much interest because for the most part, intelligent people don't devote themselves to things that can easily be proven false such as religion.

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