A few years ago back in 2008-2012, there was a little light chatter on the Interwebs about a spiritual formation curriculum and technology called Monvee. Tony Morgan raved about its vision—monvee will Reshape Spiritual Formation. 

From the now-dormant website’s about page, this trademarked Monvee system is described as an “innovative web-based spiritual development tool”—Screen Shot 2016-03-05 at 1.47.32 PM

Frequency, the Companion Book to Monvee

There was also a companion book (now out-of-print), Frequency: Discovering Your Unique Connection to God —

This book was created by the developers of Monvee.com, an online tool that helps people discover how they are uniquely wired to grow spiritually. Many of the nation’s largest churches and Christian universities use Monvee to help individuals in their organization determine their frequency.

This interview, Monvee Custom Online Spiritual Growth Plan Shows Promise, with Monvee Co-Founder and President, Eric J. Parks, pointed to the kind of investment that was backing the development of this technology:

In 2008, funding was raised and 25 churches alpha tested what is now Monvee. In 2009 private and public beta testing occurred, and Monvee became available to the public in October 2010.

When Monvee went dark

Now it’s very hard to find information about Monvee. There’s no official closing announcement. And when people don’t have closure, it sorta leaves people hangin’. When the story isn’t told by the people that developed Monvee about what happened, people will make up their own story, that most likely be erroneous.

A 2012 news article, Resignations, pay cuts at Heartland Community Church, described the financial difficulties experienced by the home church where Monvee was birthed:

The Great Recession and its aftermath have been difficult for Heartland and for many churches that aggressively expanded.

… Heartland’s financial pinch followed the recession, too. The number of businesses renting space at the mall property declined. Financing for a renovation to bring Rockford Career College in as a major tenant didn’t materialize. In turn, the church spent valuable capital to proceed with the renovation.

Attendance and giving are each down 10 percent to date this year compared with the same period in 2011. Last year, the church launched a $1.5 million summer fundraising campaign. When the campaign fell short — about $1.2 million was raised — the church eliminated programming and cut seven full-time and 11 part-time employees. The church was, however, able to refinance its mortgage.

And then around June 2012, the tweets on its Twitter and status updates on its Facebook Page just stopped. And one Amazon reviewer shared this in 2013:

The spiritual pathways assessment is no longer available. I contacted the publisher (Worthy Publishing), and they confirmed that Monvee no longer exists and cannot be reached, even by them as the publisher. The book is still decent info, but […] as a website and Monvee as an organization evidently bailed on this project, and you will no longer be able to use their tools to build a personal Roadmap for spiritual growth as promised by the book. As far as I can tell, no statement whatsoever has been released by Monvee, John Ortberg, or Menlo Park. Hopefully something will be forthcoming. For now, though, save yourself the time, money, and hassle and don’t bother buying the book.

More info about Monvee?

If you have information that can be publicly shared, please add a comment so people can have closure and share lessons learned that’d be valuable for others who would want to implement something similar in the future.

BTW, found these Monvee screen shots, which could be useful for someone’s next effort of spiritual formation using a digital platform.

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