Which is better, a conventional lock or a keyless entry door lock on the Media Room in the Church?

 

Volunteers need access to the Media Room. Providing that access is a challenge. (Churches may have greeters, but rarely doormen.) One approach would be to set a unique key for the door lock and assign keys to the volunteers. Only the volunteers would have access. And the keys could be tracked to make sure the Church always knows who has a key and who hasn’t.

Unfortunately, this does not always work well. Volunteers also come and go with the seasons. How do you make sure you get the key back from them? They may have a sudden move due to changes in work or living arrangements. They may simply forget to turn in the key – finding it years later and wondering, “Where did that fit again?” If you decided that you should change the lock everytime a key went missing, then you might as well hire a locksmith on staff. 🙂

A Keyless Lock would seem to be an ideal solution. There is no physical key, so there is nothing to get lost. And you just have to remember a 4 digit code to get in the door. Of course, the code becomes a well-known secret among the technical ministries team; but that may not be a bad thing.

What kind of lock, if any, does your Church have on the Media Room?

Generally, the bulletin is printed during the week and distributed on Sunday. But why couldn’t we prepublish the bulletin to the web site? It would give the members a heads up on the plans for worship this weekend. For some, this would help them prepare by prereading the scriptures for the sermon. For others, this would be an opportunity to see what is going on so they can plan accordingly, rather than be surprised on Sunday morning.

Given the fact that most Churches today use computers to publish the bulletin, it wouldn’t be hard to include a step that published it to the web site of the Church. It would go up when the bulletin was finalized – i.e. printing on paper. At that point, there are no more changes to be made. (However, the web site copy can always be updated.) Many Churches no doubt already send parts of the bulletin out already – e.g. announcements of various events coming up via email. This would just expand upon that process.

Advent is right around the corner. Will it be just another Christmas? Or can you make it something special? Consider enhancing your media for this Advent season. Live video instead of static shots will catch people’s eye. If you have an outdoor nativity scene, why not set up a web cam and put it on your web site? That way, people who can’t come to Church on Christmas Eve can still see what’s going on.

As the end of the year rolls around, it is time for some planning for the new year. How do you plan out a strategy for the Church for a whole year? You gather ideas from the key leadership in the Church. Then you share those ideas with others in the congregation to refine and publicize them. Then you set strategic goals for the year ahead. If people have a chance to express their opinions about something, then they will be more likely to buy in and become a part of it.

Printers are ubiquitous. They can be found everywhere. Yet, five minutes before the service starts is a bad time to try to print something. The printer is out of paper; it jams; it just takes too long. Maybe we need to avoid printing at such times. A better approach would be put the information in an email and send it to those that need to see it. Call it a quick update before the service. Get smart phone email addresses and make a mailing list called “preservice.” In the long run, that will work better.

 

 

ubiquitous

In the SW industry, projects are managed to completion. They have well thought out goals and objectives. There is a defined budget providing resources. People, equipment, and services are thus available to make the project succeed. And the project gets managed on a day to day basis.

In the Church, there might be a long term technical project – such as upgrading our Video Equipment to High Resolution. Some of the same principles can and should be applied. The differences are in terms of time scales and resource allocation. Instead of buying everything at one time, equipment may need to purchased piecemeal. Instead of hiring someone to come in and set it up, you may need to motivate your volunteers to learn how to set it up themselves. In the end, the project can succeed, but it may never be a top priority of the Administration of the Church.

Most of the time when you think of Research and Development (R&D), you think of think tanks with too much money on their hands. So is there a role for R&D in the Church? Perhaps it has to be at the general Church level, where it can result in improvements Church wide. Or perhaps it should be in the services that provide technology for the Church to use – e.g. software that specializes in Church Administration. Either way, the R&D needs to address the unique needs of the Church.

The question about priorities is often confused with the issue of what comes first, technology or ministry. It is ministry that is the most important to the Church staff. The technology is there to facilitate that, not to supplant it. But that doesn’t mean that there need to be no technical priorities. The Tech Team can come up with a wish list, or a set of enhancements that they would like to see. Often times these are practical changes involving better equipment, consolidation of effort, or making it easier to do the work. There is a place for this; but where is it in the Church budget?

Some people think of mobile devices (i.e. cell phones) as an annoyance in Church. I prefer to think of them as an opportunity to extend the Word! Yes, they do tend to go off during the sermon. (Have you posted any signs or notices in the bulletin like Please mute your cell phone during worship?) But many people have the Bible on their smart phones. Why not ask them to follow along in their Bible on their smartphone or on paper? You might be surprised by how many people are already doing that!

Rather than seeing all of the technology as a hindrance to worship, look for ways to leverage it into worship. That way, people will download apps that are Biblically oriented. And that means they will be more likely to include Bible Study in their typical day. After all, who goes anywhere these days without their smart phone? One Church even makes the sermon notes available during worship for people to download, read, and take notes on their mobile device. Actually, that would mean that the preacher doesn’t have to publish their notes a week in advance; they could do it that morning, 15 minutes before the service!

As you plan for the future you need a strategic planning mindset. Don’t get bogged down in today’s issues. Look at the future needs of the Church. What will it look like in 10 years, 20 years? Then begin the process of visioning for that future. How do we meet the the needs of our community in 10 years? If you start now with good planning, you will accomplish it!

Many Megachurches already have security personnel. These may be off-duty police officers who volunteer their time. Or the Church may pay them for their services. Either way, Churches have learned that they need security. I can remember a time when the Church doors were left open round the clock – just so people could go in and pray. Everyone in the community had a healthy fear of God that kept problems from occurring in the Church. Today, Church leaders have to worry about a host of security issues:

• Acts of violence directed towards the pastor or congregation
• Child abduction from Children’s Ministry by estranged parents
• Criminal trespass or vandalism

Is your Church secure? What does it take each day to keep it that way? Is there someone on duty during worship who is armed and linked to local law enforcement? Or are there simply off duty police men and women in the congregation that ensure your security?

As more and more people use their cell phones for financial transactions, it seems possible to also make a contribution that way. We already have giving kiosks; why not cell phone giving? The technology is there, but how do we take advantage of it?

Suppose a majority of the congregation wanted to give via their cell phones. Why couldn’t we announce the giving period as the offering time. Then, at the end of the offering, we could display a dynamic count of the total. This would do two things:

• People would see their gift tallied in real time, so they would know that it got there.
• The congregation could celebrate the achievement of a giving goal – e.g. for a new Habitat house.

I know some of you think this is far-fetched, but the technology is right around the corner. This is just one way to take advantage of it for the benefit of the mission of the Church. What other ways can you think of?

There are plenty of automated tools out there that can filter content. If you allow visitors to your web site to add comments, then you will need to filter them. This insures that people use wholesome language. But how do you keep the SPAM solicitations out? Well, there are tools available for that also. They will check each link to see if it matches up to a known SPAM site. If it does, or the language is inappropriate, then the tools will flag the comment as needing review. Or you can optionally just delete it. Either way, let the tools take care of the headache of trying to keep comments appropriate.

Everyone wants to be an Administrator for the Web Site. They know that the Administrator has more clout than regular users. And maybe they have a need to do something that steps just over the boundaries you have carefully set out for all users. That doesn’t mean that they are trying to cheat anyone; just that they have a need to do something irregular.

One way to handle this is to establish a role of Local Administrator. This allows individuals to act as administrators, but they don’t have the keys to every door in the system. Just give them access to handle the irregular stuff that comes up, and they’ll be happy.

Most people have good computer skills. But not everyone knows the difference between a Gigabyte and a Megabit (hint: it is not 1000). So you may find yourself supporting users that don’t have great computer skills. How can you do this with grace and love?

It takes patience to support any user. They come asking questions – a lot of questions that may seem less than intelligent. Just remember that they’re not IT Professionals who have been in the classroom learning this stuff. They don’t speak geek! Slow them down and spend some time explaining the technology. This will help them understand and rephrase their questions in more technical terms. And go the extra mile in getting them through the issue. They will bless you for it.

As the year comes to an end, it is time to consider your training needs in the year ahead. Don’t forget to plan on how you will train volunteers. Staff training is a budget item, and a focus among professionals in the Church. But the volunteers also need training to be more effective. Many are willing to serve, but they don’t know how. This applies especially to the technical ministry of the Church. Here are some ideas to consider:

• Build a library of Powerpoint presentations about the technology
• Ask the most active volunteers for links to good training materials – they already have favorites
• Identify areas where you lack training materials – and go create something new
• Survey the volunteers for topics they’d like to know more about

The volunteers who are also IT professionals already know where to find good training materials. Tap into that knowledge, and share it with the amateurs who are eager to learn. If you don’t have a topic covered, start a Powerpoint presentation on it and invite the Tech team to add to it. You’ll get lots of ideas for what should go into it. Then filter that down into a manageable chunk. Find out the topics that the volunteers need to know more about – e.g. how the video switcher is configured. You’ll be surprised what that knowledge will do to enable them to perform better.

Thanksgiving is a great time to reflect on the things that we have to be thankful for. Here is a short list:

• God, who makes all things possible
• Resurrection, which empowers everything that we do as Christians
• Advent – a time to begin anew in search of the Babe in the manger
• Christ – who is our Lord
• Evangelists – who spread the word around the globe

What are you most thankful for? And how do you maintain your gratitude towards God?

Everyone wants WiFi these days. And they are easy to setup. But you have to ensure that you establish best practices for utilization of the WiFi network spectrum. Some of these might include:

• Times when the WiFi network is available to everyone
• Location of the Wireless Access Points – the higher the better
• Expose the SSID so that members can find it – i.e. hiding it really doesn’t secure it

It can be exciting to open up a WiFi Hotspot and involve the congregation in the network. But you should always have a distinct purpose in doing so. How can it enhance the worship experience? What limitations do you need to impose on where people can surf? What Church servers will be accessible over the WiFi on Sunday mornings? Thinking through these questions will go a long way towards making WiFi successful.

Virtual Local Area Networks (VLAN) allow you to partition a physical network so that you have multiple networks defined. This might be useful in creating a Church network on multiple campuses. The VLAN would span multiple physical networks, but act like one big network with large capacity.

A VLAN has to be set up by a network engineer using software for definition and management. The software can automatically assign nodes to the VLAN as needed to support attaching and detaching computer systems.

Most users presume that they can send an attachment to an email of any size. Storage is cheap these days, so it makes sense. However, the technology has limits. Specifically, there is a limit to the amount of space the individual servers will allows. Email messages travel in a chain from one email transport to another – ultimately arriving at their destination. If the size of the message exceeds the size allowed by one of those machines, then it probably won’t make it to its destination. This is a technical limitation that prevents overloading that server with too much email.

If your Church has it’s own eMail server, then you’ll want to set clear policies on the size of an attachment. You want to be reasonable with your staff’s needs. If they really want to send video clips around, then you should probably up the limit to match what YouTube allows – i.e. 15 minutes. But if they just want to exchange MS Office documents, the limit could be around 16 MB. Check to see how people want to use eMail.

If you use an outside service for eMail messaging, then you have to follow their policies. This can vary all over the map, but you want to educate your staff and members about this limitation. Otherwise, you’ll get a lot of support calls about eMail messages that for some reason didn’t go through. And we’re not just talking about SPAM filters here.

Having files attached to eMail messages is a useful service. It can make communication more effective by keeping a working set of files together. However, if you’re going to edit the files heavily, then you may want to consider setting up a virtual space for collaboration. For example, you can make a drop box for sharing and editing photos.

Any computer system these days is vulnerable to online hacking. The only way to keep that from happening is to never connect to the Internet. But the Internet is such a wonderful source of information, it just can’t be done. However, there are some things that you can do to keep the Church computers secure:

o Use Antivirus software (and keep it up to date)
o Turn off systems when they are not in use
o Avoid downloading anything you have suspicions about

Physical security is probably the best. If the computer is off, then no one can hack into it. However, there is also room for shrewdness (Matthew 10:16). So be on your guard at all times.

Sometimes we want to rush out of the sanctuary right after the service. We are busy people, and the Church has a special place in our lives; but we also need to spend time with family on Sundays. Yet sometimes there is a special occasion for those we serve. What if a family has a baptism? Or better yet, someone experiences salvation. They may want to mark the occasion by taking pictures and/or video. Perhaps we should check to see if people are still in the sanctuary after we’ve completed our post production activity. If they are, then perhaps we should keep the lights on so they can get great shots.

How can a Church make use of a Content Management System? The Church has the best content in the universe – i.e. the Bible. But how can the Church manage this? Open source Content Management Systems are readily available. They are designed to enable authors to write in an easy and naturally flowing manner. The Content Management System software allows you to organize the content in an orderly fashion.

All Churches add and/or replace staff members. Would it not make sense to have a standard staff workstation configuration? You could simply make this a disk image, and install it on new or resurrected hardware. It would then boot up and run a standard set of applications, such as:

Office Productivity
Various Browsers
Church Accounting (if appropriate)
Membership Records
Worship Planning
Spiritual Music

The technology exists to make this an easy and straightforward process. And it makes providing IT Support much easier, since everyone has a known starting configuration. The only drawback is the matter of licensing. Most Churches don’t have volume licensing agreements, so they have to add and track individual licenses to software applications. Is there a way to do this effectively in a small Church office environment? And of course, staff tend to have varied interest and favorite applications they want to install and run. How do you get everyone on the same page? Or maybe a better question is, should you? What do you think?

Streaming the video of a worship service has always fascinated me. My background in TV Ministry combined with Web Technology makes me aware that the technology is there. The trouble is in the end points. How can we ensure that people have the bandwidth to receive a streaming video webcast of the service? Do you set minimum standards for their hardware? Or do you come up with complicated methods for downgrading the video quality until something works? What has been your experience in this area?