ChurchTechToday.com

My friends over at Internet Evangelism Day have just launched a cool new website assessment tool to evaluate the usefulness and reach of your church website. If you have a few minutes, you might fill out the online form and rate your site to see if it’s doing okay, or if it needs improvement. I’ve posted several times before on “Does your Church Website Suck?”, “Is Your Church Website Useful?”, so this online quiz is right up my alley. Come on, take the test and see how you fare. What do you have to loose? (Wait, don’t answer that . . .)

Occasionally I feel moved to make a post that’s about my experience with church, and not only about technology. I hope you don’t mind. I’m feeling conflicted because last week, I had been asked to help out with our kid’s ministry on Sunday and my husband and I agreed to both help in the preschool room where two out of three of our kids are on Sunday morning. The kids are always thrilled to have us help out in “their world.”

But then, while at MOPS on Friday morning, our worship pastor implored me to sing on the worship team on Sunday because they were short a singer. I felt conflicted because I already agreed to serve in one area of ministry, then was asked to serve in another. This got me thinking about tracking volunteer ministry at church.

Is there a way to track volunteer positions that a person has agreed to in church management software? For instance, say when the children’s ministry director nails down volunteers, she visits their profile in the ChMS program and checks off that they are helping. Then, when another ministry leader wants to ask someone for help, they would pull up the contact and see that the person is already serving on Sunday morning and isn’t available. I know many of the ChMS applications out there must have this capability, but does anyone use it?

To me, technology is only as good as it helps people become more efficient and effective, so if this slows down the ministry process, or takes away the organic element when the Holy Spirit moves you to think of a specific person to ask to serve, then it’s pointless.

So what did I do in my situation? I texted my husband to ask him if he thought I should sing instead, he replied “what about serving in the preschool room?” and I replied that he should still work, but I could sing. Then, my soar throat continued to worsen throughout the day (after I had already said yes to singing) and I had to bail on singing  that even and hope I would feel good enough to help in the kid’s room on Sunday (I did).

So technology aside, the lesson I learned was to honor my commitments - even if there are fewer vocalists than parents who can help 3-5 year olds learn about Christ. Both are equally important in God’s eyes. Thank goodness that God deals with my gracefully and allows me to learn the lessons He wants me to, just at the right time.

How about you? Can you share a way that you’ve felt conflicted about ministry choices and/or how your church involves technology in the volunteer process?

My good friend and collegue, Steve Caton, with Church Community Builder (CCB), just published an article online with Church Solutions Magazine  on mobile computing and the Church. Is moblie computing perhaps the next big step that your church should consider?

Here’s an excerpt from Steve’s article:

As more people adopt text messaging as a normal part of their communications repertoire, churches are beginning to look to their management systems as a way to connect people in real time to others within the church. The addition of SMS to church management systems (ChMS) will add more flexibility and make it possible for people to receive important information immediately upon it’s distribution. No longer will it be necessary to check email in order to learn about an event, a need, an urgent prayer request or any other critical news within the church community. For the full article, go here.

Even if you feel that mobile computing is not yet a possibility for your church, pay attention. If you want to attract the next generaion, if you want to impact those people under 25 for Christ, I strongly urge you to think about how this advancing technology can work in your ministry. I’ll write again with more thoughts on this subject in the near future.

I’m sitting here working on an article for the winter issue of Willow Creek Association Magazine that will discuss resource and events management. I’m writing to pastors who must be overwhelmed by trying to “do it all” and I’m feeling tired just thinking about all churches have to do to stay relevant.

In terms of online resource management, thank goodness there are companies out there like ServiceU and Church Community Builder that offer their experise and guidance in terms of how to “get ‘r done.”

Can you, and do you want to “do it all?” What does that mean and how can it be accomplished? Is one of the Church’s purposes really to try and meet everyone’s needs in the best way possible, or is this just a component of the consumeristic side of Christianity in America?

Here’s a few links to previous posts on issues related to getting it all done:

• Useful Church Websites
• Online Registration
• Mobile Computing
• Church Communications

I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas . . .