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?

Found these videos:

  • 5 Monvee Tutorial Videos – Learn how to set up your Monvee account step-by-step in 5 short instructional videos.
  • Monvee Tutorial Videos – In these 5 short videos, Monvee users are walked through the basics of setting up and using their Monvee account.

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.

From an Old Blog

Plus, there’s a dormant blog at monvee-denver.blogspot.com that has data that can be mined about how Monvee was being used. Its last post was dated February 2012.

A Change in Philosophy / More is Not Better

When is comes to Monvee and the future of spiritual formation, it is about handcrafting. “More” is the enemy of handcrafting. The result of “More” is “Mass Produced”. Keep this in mind when it come to loading your church’s opportunities into Monvee. Be strategic in your thinking. Instead of checking all the boxes, consider checking only a few. Instead of seeing how many people you can get to come to an event, a group or a meeting see how many of a specific type of person you can get to come. The monvee system is designed to help craft an experience and a journey for people. You can help us do that by being thoughtful when entering your resources.

Practically speaking- the more boxes that get checked for a particular resource the more likely it is that it will get recommended to everyone. While this can be helpful for some resources (like the book your pastor just wrote) it is detrimental to most of them. We have provided four Word documents for you to use when loading resources (click on the Monvee Assets button on your church leaders dashboard to access these). There is one document for each of the four Monvee areas; My Mind, My Time, My Relationships and My Experiences. …

Trevor J. Bron
Crew M Team Leader

Monvee’s Spiritual Put-offs

Here is a brief summary of each of the 9 put offs in the Monvee system along with their Biblical characters. To find out more information click on the “Monvee Assets” tab from your church leader’s dashboard and scroll down to the “Assessment Information Document”.

Anger: Strong feelings of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility.
Primary Biblical Character: Joseph
Other Biblical Characters: John the Baptist and the Apostle Paul, Miriam, Esther.

Pride/Self-Centeredness: Self important, conceited, self-centered
Primary Biblical Character: Abraham
Other Biblical Characters: Apostle John, Ruth, Boaz, Eve.

Deception/Dishonesty: Overstating the truth, covering faults, avoiding situations that show weaknesses.
Primary Biblical Character: Jacob
Other Biblical Characters: Saul, David, Leah, Abigail.

Envy: Tendency to become envious of another person’s talent, success, good fortune, wealth, recognition, honor, or advantages.
Primary Biblical Character: David
Other Biblical Characters: Job, Sarah, Hagar, Leah, and Eve.

Pride of Knowledge: High value on how much you know; tempted to study so that you can be better prepared for the next debate.
Primary Biblical Character: Luke
Other Biblical Characters: Joseph, Nicodemus and Eve.

Fear/Anxiety: Feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome.
Primary Biblical Character: Timothy
Other Biblical Characters: Peter, Martha and the Bleeding Woman.

Greed/Excess: Insatiable appetite for more.
Primary Biblical Character: Solomon
Other Biblical Characters: Woman at the well, Tamar, Leah.

Misplace Desire: Unhealthy wants, run on empty frequently, often feel shame or guilt.
Primary Biblical Character: Samson
Other Biblical Characters: Hagar, Woman caught in adultery and Gomer.

Inaction: Tendency to avoid conflict or tough conversations. Passive and be tempted to “escape” when there is or could be emotional pain.
Primary Biblical Character: Jonathon
Other Biblical Characters: Abraham, Jonah, Mary (Martha’s sister) and Esther.