Agape-Apps: Building Baruch Together

[Jonathan1]

Extending Baruch to the Apple Watch

On May 29th, I will attend a .NET MAUI Day in Kraków, Poland. MAUI is the technology I use to develop Baruch, and this event is a great opportunity to learn about new features and technical possibilities directly from the Microsoft team.

 

One of the sessions I plan to attend is about building native Apple Watch apps within a .NET MAUI ecosystem. That got me thinking.

 

I want Baruch to support multiple devices, and this sparked an idea, maybe something for the future, but I’d like to share it here and hear your thoughts.

 

Baruch on the Apple Watch wouldn’t be about adding more features.
Instead, it would focus on small, meaningful interactions that:

• reduce mental load
• prevent things from being forgotten
• provide clarity in the moment

Rather than managing data, the goal would be awareness and simplicity.

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Simple Field Service Tracking

Baruch on the Watch will make it easy to track time in the ministry for pioneers.

• start and stop with a single tap
• make quick adjustments when needed
• avoid having to remember everything afterwards

By lowering the barrier to tracking, it becomes easier to stay consistent without adding pressure.

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Timely, Relevant Reminders

Baruch on the Apple Watch can provide:

• reminders for upcoming assignments
• notifications when something changes
• subtle prompts that help users stay prepared

These are not meant to overwhelm, but to provide quiet support throughout the day.

Quick Responses Without Friction

The Watch also opens the door to lightweight interaction.

Users will be able to respond quickly to simple questions like:

• availability for an assignment
• confirmations or acknowledgements

This keeps communication smooth, without requiring a full app session.

 

Assignments & reminders

Examples: 

• “You have a talk tonight”
• “Microfoon – over 5 min”
• knop: “Ik ben er” / “Bekijk details”
• “Je staat morgen ingepland”
• 1 tap → details

 

I’ve also planned a short trip of a few days with my wife. Kraków is a beautiful and historic city, so we’re really looking forward to it.

We’re planning to visit the Auschwitz museum as well, which will no doubt be a very impactful experience. In addition, we attend an English-speaking congregation meeting while we’re there.

Edited April 28 by Jonathan1

[Jonathan1]

Families in Baruch — Projection First, Metadata Optional

In Baruch, families are not managed as a rigid administrative structure. Instead, they are built dynamically from the actual congregation data.

The foundation of this system is the FamilyProjection.

 

A FamilyProjection is automatically generated based on the persons assigned to the same FamilyID. This means Baruch can immediately detect and display natural household structures without requiring manual setup first.

The projection automatically determines things like:

• family members
• family size
• likely family head
• detected family type
• household composition

This makes the system fast, lightweight, and easy to maintain.

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FamilyMeta: Optional Administrative Layer

On top of the automatic projection, Baruch introduces an optional layer called FamilyMeta.

FamilyMeta is only created when congregation elders or secretaries want to override or enrich the automatically detected family information.

Examples include:

• manually selecting another family head
• overriding the detected family type
• adding notes about the household
• administrative corrections

If no FamilyMeta exists, the system simply uses the calculated projection.

This keeps the workflow simple:

1. Families appear automatically
2. Members can be added or reassigned
3. Only when needed, metadata can be added manually

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Why This Approach Matters

Traditional systems often require administrators to create family records before they can be used. Baruch works the other way around:

The congregation data itself creates the family structure.

This has several advantages:

• less administrative work
• fewer synchronization problems
• no empty family records
• automatic consistency
• easier onboarding for congregations

It also aligns better with how congregations actually function in real life: households evolve naturally over time.

 

 

The result is a system that feels both intelligent and lightweight while still giving congregation servants full administrative control when needed.

[Indapipe]

I introduced NWS to the service committee after testing it myself for a couple of months for my own duties and responsibilities as CBOE.

 

After the service committee started using it, after a few months we recommended it to the BOE.

 

After about a year, we introduced NWP to the congregation as an option to use or not. Now basically the whole congregation is using NWP. So we are deeply invested in that ecosystem.

 

However, I'm intrigued by what I see taking place with Baruch. Now, if I would like to start testing Baruch, what would be the suggested gameplan while still using NWS and NWP in practice?

[Jonathan1]

Baruch is currently still under active development. At the moment I’m the sole developer, which means progress depends heavily on the personal time I can dedicate to the project.

Because of that, I would currently recommend Baruch primarily as a parallel test environment alongside NWS/NWP rather than as an immediate full replacement for established congregation workflows.

 

The long-term vision is definitely bigger than a one-person project. The goal is to gradually build a small support and development team around Baruch so the platform can grow in stability, continuity, support, and feature development over time.

 

For now, the focus is on:

• building a solid and reliable foundation
• listening carefully to real congregation feedback
• improving usability and synchronization
• creating a privacy-first architecture that remains simple and sustainable

The current plan is to release an initial MVP (Minimum Viable Product) for Windows within the next few weeks. At this stage, it won’t yet be intended for use with real congregation data. The idea is more to provide a test/evaluation environment using sample data so brothers can explore the workflow, architecture, usability, and overall direction of the system.

 

My main goal with the MVP is to gather real feedback.

It would actually be very valuable if you could test the functionality, especially because you already have practical experience with both NWS and NWP. That kind of experience makes it much easier to evaluate what works well, what feels intuitive, and where improvements are still needed.

 

The MVP will gradually evolve over time as new features are added and refined.

I’m also maintaining a Trello board where the development progress and planned features can be followed transparently.

 

[Eryk]

@Jonathan1, a question: this MAUI framework you are using, will it allow you to port your app to Linux?

[Brandon]

@Jonathan1 I have a cellular Apple Watch and never carry a phone anymore, so I’d love that!