Church IT Podcast Discussions Episode 9, June 7 , 2007
JASON
Hello everybody. Today is Thursday, June 7, 2007, this is Episode 9. We are a bimonthly live interactive podcast with Church IT staff and volunteers, just to get together and discuss news, tips, tools, technology, best practices as they related to church organizations and what we can do to further God’s Kingdom. We meet live every first and third Thursday of the month at 2:00 pm EST. Check out www.churchitpodcast.com My name is Jason Powell, I’m the IT Director at Granger Community Church and I’ll be your host today.
First off, if you’re in the chat window, stick your name, blog address, church name, position, so forth into the chat window. If you are just in the phone only, just shout out your name, church, position please.
Naomi Bristol, The Father’s House.
Jason
Welcome Naomi.
With me today I’ve got Kyle who is our Helpdesk wizard, we’ve got Ed Buford, our network administrator, and we have a special guest, Molehime [???} who will talk to us later about what he does with many, many volunteers in the Technical Arts side of things.
If you’ve got other people with you, stick them in the chat window as well, that would be helpful
Today’s topic is IT Volunteers, what do you do with them how do you manage them, success stories. I’ve got a loose outline. Let’s talk success stories. What big wins have you seen? Then we’ll talk not-so-successful stories. And then how do you build an IT team? What are recruiting methods, skill sets, first steps, how to manage them, security issues. That’s what I want to build the discussion around. We need lots of participation.
We’ve got Tom Templin, via chat and phone.
First, success stories using volunteers.
Some of the huge wins we’ve had utilizing IT volunteers has been our public wifi access. Our entire wifi structure here at Granger was all developed and built and continues to be maintained by Tom Templin, so if you come here and use our public wireless, Tom is the man. He did research on how do we produce a portal for our guest users, this was 3 ½ years ago. Another huge win for us was, right before we went to Fellowship One as a church management solution, we were trying to figure out how to create a way so that if one of our Internet connections dies, we can have a secondary, so if our SBC T1 goes down, what does it look like? Ed and I did some research [Time Stamp00:06:31] and then we had a volunteer who got involved and as a Sonic Wall reseller and within a short time we had a Sonic Wall firewall and we’re using dual ISPs, one is a T1 connection, the other is a wireless broadband so if our main dual T1 connection dies, Sonic Wall immediately sails over to our wireless broadband so we can continue doing whatever.
Virtualization is a huge one as well. The whole idea of virtualization was brought to us by Dustin Hanoson, one of our All-star volunteers as well, and he led the charge with that, and it has literally changed the IT landscape as far as server-wise here at GCC. Monster win! Our storage area network was another volunteer-led project. Just product research and purchasing, again Tom does a ton of that stuff for us, I love it. Those are just a handful of wins we’ve had by utilizing volunteer resources. I’d love to hear from others.
Mark
This is Mark Rock with Lincoln Berean, probably the biggest success we’ve had was back in 2000 when we were launching getting our website off a pre-packaged one and going live, we ended up going to our college group and picking up 16 volunteers in various stages of programming and they handled all the surveys, they purchased their own server. They went Open Source, Lenox, which was a good source back then, but they have taken on the programming. The advantage of college is I’m always getting new people and they are always recruiting for me. It’s self-generated. I’ve got Lenox administrators, programmers that are using Python, we are off the wall on things I’ve never heard of before. When I need a change, I send it out to the website group. The only thing it has cost me so far is I take them all out to lunch once a month, have an unorthodox meeting, kinda wild and crazy, but to get that type of expertise, and they are [Time Stamp00:09:51] recruiting for the ministry, the college group is about 500. There are not a lot of security issues, I haven’t had any problems, I just haven’t figured out how to get them into my IT and server room yet. The ones that I’ve brought in have graduated, but the website has been, all I have to do is oversee it and get out of the way.
Jason
Wow! You said your college ministry goes between 300 and 500.
Mark
Yeah, they have their own staff, their own church time service, and we have a separate building for them, they have their own worship band, preaching ministry, and they are a recognized ministry down on the University of Nebraska for us too. You’ll see carloads of these college kids coming out here every Sunday. So it’s pretty neat and it’s been a blessing for me. I haven’t had to spend a whole lot of money. College people love to mess in this kind of stuff.
Jason
That’s great! I’ll put college groups on my to-do list.
Mark
And they recruit others. A couple guys are specialized in FQL, it’s a funny little hodge podge of people who come in, but as long as we find them something they like to do. My lunch bill goes up but it is a perfect match.
Jason
We are looking for Lenox gurus. We’ve got Notre Dame down the street but we just haven’t made a big connection yet. That’s a great reminder.
Kyle is working at Notre Dame.
Ok, anyone else?
Mike
This is Mike Mayfield. We’ve got a couple areas where volunteers have been very successful for us. We roled out automated check-in back in August, we have 7 check-in stations and we’ve got a team of volunteers, the head of it coordinates all the scheduling, we have volunteers that come in and set the stations up, make sure everything is going fine, make sure [Time Stamp00:13:42] the labels are loaded in the printers, so I really don’t have to worry about any of that on the weekend. Plus I’ve got a retired guy that comes in, he is very technically savvy and he works about 25 hours a week. Just about another I want to train him on, he can pick up. And I just recently brought on a new volunteer who works for the Department of Treasury but he has sufficient knowledge in Sisco Firewall and VPN, fiber termination, he is willing to do anything.
Jason
You don’t run across people that can terminate fiber very often.
Mike
Right. We’ve getting ready to move fiber, we’ve got it going to our other buildings, and we are doing some renovations within the building, we are going to carry that fiber link on, he says, “not a problem.”
Jason
Do you rent him out?
Mike
He probably would.
Jason
Cool!
Jay
This is Jay. I’ve got a few stories. A few years ago we had to redesign the web and we looked around and we had about 4 core volunteers that had really good knowledge in building web servers and web sites, both static and dynamic so we looked around for a package to manage the content of website, to simplify editing the copy on the website and settled on the time on Dreamweaver and Macromedia Contribute, this was before Adobe bought them, but what it allowed us to do was to tap into volunteers that normally church IT doesn’t get to tap into. Those that can sit down at a keyboard and write good copy but don’t have programming, server, html experience. So it gave us the opportunity to find non-techies that could sit down and work with ministry leaders to help craft their text to get their packages taken care of to enhance the marketing info about our church and get it out there with minimal technical background. We were able to do that, we tapped into some others that were familiar enough with PCs [Time Stamp00:17:07] that could determine if PCs were gone south or just needed a reboot. So we found those that were just knowledgeable enough that if they saw some dialogue or if someone got stuck trying to load a printer for that first 6 weeks of using the check-in station, we left them there along with the manned kiosks so they were paired up with one of the kiosk stations. That allowed us to tap into people that didn’t have a much IT experience were able to give of their time and help provide security to those who were new to the Fellowship One check-in system.
We’ve also partnered with other local churches. So we have a pastor in a nearby church that knows how to run cable, so he ran all of the Cap 5 years ago for our building, so we were able to tap into other church resources when they weren’t available in our church.
Jason
That’s great! Tapping into the church next door. How did you bridge that connection? Did you just stumble across each other, or did you extend an invite out to them or a prior relationship or what?
Jay
It was a prior relationship. I just can’t talk enough about staying in contact with churches within and not within your affiliation to know other people. We’ve been able to lend a hand to others that needed some graphic work when we’ve had artists volunteering or on staff be able to jump in and help out to other churches in the area, and vice versa. Just spending time building relationships outside the church as well has been huge.
Jason
Great!
Gina
Hey, I just joined, this is Gina from Willow Creek, and we have some success stories. I didn’t hear all of the others. Right now I have a developer volunteer, he works at home, he has had some time to work on some stuff for us. I think for developers to try to volunteer is very difficult, and the situation this fellow is in seems to work perfect in that because he works out [Time Stamp00:20:30] of his house with his own business, he doesn’t have a lot of people contact, and so coming here and spending some time working on ministry stuff is helping him, so it is almost like looking for that person that needs to get out and meet people for a developer type. It’s working out well, it is an on-going project.
We also have some volunteers who have been involved in this ministry for a long time, they are practically like staff. We have a retired man who came in and wanted to do something to keep him busy, he comes in every day from like 9:00-3:00.
Jason
How did you find him?
Gina
It was God. Other than that, he came in through our guest central, he was talking to someone there and mentioned that he was retiring and they sent him to me. Of course anytime says they want to come in as a volunteer full-time!
Do you guys do ministry expos?
Jason
We did, but we haven’t done one in two years. Now we are focused on shoulder-tapping. Inviting people in, it seems to be working well for now.
Tim
Everything is pushed through the web lately, we encourage people to visit the website, then they send in a request and then the ministry leader will get in contact with them.
Jason
You were at the IT Roundtable weren’t you?
Gina
Yes I was. There are so many ways for people to get connected into ministries and I think IT is one of the hardest places. We have what we call first-serves, where we just bring somebody in, it’s an easy place to start, you don’t have to know a whole lot, just to get a feel for the ministry. Sometimes this is hard for us, but we have a team that we bring people in, it’s our computer connection but it’s one of those where you don’t have to have a lot of skills, sometimes they just move computers around but it at least gives them a taste of our ministry, and we get to [Time Stamp00:25:52] know them.
Jason
That’s a great segue from success stories into how we are building IT teams and recruiting teams and skill sets and first steps, and that’s a huge one around here too, trying to figure out what the first step looks like, it has to be easy access, easy for a person to get into and not only easy to get in and easy to step out if they need to, and that is not easy to do in IT. There are so many different skill sets that you need. For instance, here’s what we do, right or wrong, it seems to work. We try to make it easy access, if somebody is interested in IT ministry, they can find us on the website and sign up, typically I’ll make the initial email or call to find out what their background is, and then we invite them to a Tuesday night. I’ve been here 4 years, we had a lot of failed starts with volunteers, but what has worked well for us the past two years is we make Tuesday night a work night for us. So on Tuesday night we don’t come in until 12:00 or so and stay late, so since we are already here, that allows us to extend an invite to tell them to swing by on Tuesday night to talk, chat about opportunities, and if it is not a fit, we want to help them figure out where they fit. We can kinda move them over to the tech art side to see if they fit there, there’s cool stuff for them to do there. I think about volunteering for tech arts sometimes! But anyway, the Tuesday night thing works for us. Working on the check-in machines on Fellowship One on the weekends is a great step opportunity.
Tell me other recruiting things, target skills sets.
David
Right now we are doing church serve for all our ministry, we started last year or the year before. The problem that I’ve run into recruiting people that way is that with the different skill sets, it’s hard to come up with something a volunteer can do one time in IT. The idea is to get their feet wet, but it hasn’t really gelled yet. [Time Stamp00:30:46] We have a retired volunteer and one who does our phone system and some wiring, they are both helpful but we need to grow into more people. It’s hard to find someone who can volunteer during the work day, I really like your idea of having an evening meeting. Because skilled people are usually busy during the day.
Jason
Right. Hey Tom, can you jump in?
Tom
Yeah, I can relate.
Jason
Tom is one of a volunteers, he was there for the first invite I did for IT volunteers, kind of an expo deal, and Tom showed up and we’ve gone through phases of what the IT team looks like and Tom’s been through it all. Tom maybe you can talk about your experience, what led you to join, what has kept you around?
Tom
Sure. I’ll try to rewind my memory. I’ve been doing technology control for about 20 years as a consultant for various small, medium, and large IT type consulting firms and accounting firms, so I’ve always been a consultant rather than on staff at a fixed site. I joined Granger in 2001, and as the evolution of getting more involved in the church was because of volunteer job fairs. I still remember the tent, walking around, looking for computer things. I signed up for Technology Arts and got invited for running cameras, which would have been really cool but it wasn’t exactly what I was thinking about doing. It was a struggle for me to even find IT at this church back then. So one suggestion is that sometimes churches try to make their IT invisible but if you are looking for volunteers, they might be looking for bread crumbs, I was doing that. Once Jason invited and the opportunity came around, I jumped on it, I figured the first thing I could do was fix broken PCs, so I started with that. I suggest you keep a little que in your Helpdesk to hand out to your new volunteers [Time Stamp00:34:49] and let ‘em at it to see if they can solve them. That will give you an idea of their skill set.
The other thing is being consistent with your night a week thing, try it until you find the night when the most people can show up. Tuesday night was the winner for us, part of that is because Thursday night is mid-week service, middle-school stuff on Wednesday, nobody wants to do Friday.
Jason
Great! What has made you stick around?
Tom
Making connections. We have formed a small group, not necessarily in the terms of pure IT, it’s a group of people who have this sorta same background but might be working for different companies or for themselves or on staff at the church, all have different but similar backgrounds, Mac users, stuff like that. IT people like to talk geek together and we can do that at the church on Tuesday nights and not have to worry about business stuff, a very relaxed environment. And if you can, encourage a light supper as part of the event.
Jason
That’s been a big win for us too, we try to all, we go dutch, but we go together and eat, fellowship, you get that time to develop friendships. I enjoy Tom, he’s my friend, not just for IT stuff, make sure you are building relationships, not just task driven.
Sp [Tim or Ken? Not sure]
I’d love to add something to that, we create a culture of care, there are lots of ways to do that, some simple ways, some unique. Just simple things like writing postcards to people, gathering on a regular basis, scheduling their time effectively, following through on your commitments, socializing with teams, give them your time. Give people credit when things are taking place. John is a huge success, he has a volunteer responsible for setting up the web stream right? [Time Stamp00:39:49] So when that subject comes up, John gets the credit. Another thing too is that your greatest volunteer may be your next staff person. Look for ways to keep people on the team, pray for your team members as often as you think of them. Giving them the credit is huge, implement their ideas, affirming them.
Jason
Tim manages a lot of volunteer folks, what do you do here at Granger?
Tim [?]
I have several different positions, primarily my role is to find ministries for technical volunteers, like a first screen. If their name comes in, I’ll make contact, meet with them, try to find a ministry within our creative arts department, follow through, get them in touch with ministry leaders. That’s my main role. I also do some camera, weekend stuff, and I create media occasionally.
Jason
How many volunteers do you think you’ve touched.
Tim
I suppose 300-400 [the mic is fading in and out]
Sp
You guys have answered a big question of mine, my problem with volunteers has always been “my way is the way I want it done” so you bring in tasks without the relationships, I’ve never really had time, that’s my error, if someone tells me how they can volunteer or if they have an idea, if I listen to it, I may learn more than if I told them how I want to do it. So when I’ve got volunteers, I’m looking over their shoulder, making sure things are done my way, this is my system. And I can see how that would irritate a volunteer, so the best thing you’ve said for me so far is nights, dinner, and talking. I’ve always been afraid to let too many people in or let people do their own jobs, so what I’m seeing here, which I should have seen, is to talk to people, get to know them, and then build trust and understanding, sharing ideas, build a way to manage the network, then you don’t have to worry or watch so much and that would make managing volunteers a whole lot better if I obviously would start off with a relationship.
Jason
Yes. And that raises the whole security thing, that’s huge in IT, knowing what’s been done, so just hanging out with people helps you identify who you can trust, and obviously the longer you work with somebody, that trust builds. Tom is a great example, I trust him thoroughly with our wireless. If I have any issues, I give him a buzz, he comes in and basically does it for us. It’s awesome. Tom has a lot of ownership in wireless. And it’s hard because I like to know everything, I think a lot of us IT are like that, part of our job has to be that way, but it is fun to find areas that I can let go of, for the most part, and let them soar, and that comes with trust.
Sp
I think you’ll find that with the volunteers that stick it out and come year after year, each one of them has probably got a nitch, solution, or project that they’ve helped to implement at the church that was something they can see as their contribution. Knowing that you were a volunteer who helped put something like that in place to begin with at a church, gives you a sense of ownership, and when you’ve got that sense of ownership, you want the thing to succeed. You feel a vested interest, once you’ve evolved to that point, have that trust. If you’ve got a project, it’s great to get everybody together and then delegate and let that person run with it.
Sp
One question. I got a volunteer in last year, started working with them, and they were administrator with rights and passwords, then I have the counseling pastor come down and say that this volunteer was in counseling and so is his wife separately [Time Stamp00:47:59] and we need to make sure he can’t get through to any of our areas or her stuff. So I’m wondering how I can do a background check on my volunteer or how to handle that. Have you ever ran across that? With the way our system is set up, it is not as isolated, if you have access to the server, you have access to storage, to everything and you could go through items, so I’ve been working on giving volunteers some administrative rights, I’ve even talked about doing some confidentiality forms or something but how do you guys deal with that?
Jason
Good question. Right now at Granger we don’t do any background checks, but it’s a long time before we give anybody access to the servers or any of that sort of business.
Ed
Obviously you can give somebody authority within a smaller area, delegate the task, just give them the right to do that task, they don’t have to have rights to the files.
Jason
That will depend on the team size too. Can either Willow Creek or Saddleback talk about how you handle that kind of stuff? I imagine you’ve got large volunteer teams.
Sp [female, Naomi?]
We are very careful about who we give access to things, we do confidentiality agreements up front, and the teams that are the first serve teams are never given access to anything. It’s a tough situation, the person has to be pretty trusted. Bringing in developers is very difficult, but this first serve team we have, what they work on is not hooked up to anything, so that works. We ask people to start with that team, that’s one of the reasons. Does that help?
Sp
Sure. I’ve even looked at doing an all-staff email saying someone is volunteering, we do that with the Children’s Ministry, just asking if there is anything anyone knows of that we need to be aware of. I should’ve checked that earlier, it hadn’t crossed my mind.
David
We are running [Time Stamp00:51:35] background checks on every volunteer in any ministry, plus for each of the IT volunteers, what we’ve done so far is meet with them and just talk to them, get to know them, then we will pull together a group of volunteers, some we already know but that haven’t been involved on the IT side before, start a small group so we can get to know them before we get into technical stuff.
Jason
Good point David.
Others on security? That is a tough one.
Naomi
Because we have such a huge volume of people, we do some database things to keep track of some things too. I mean, I couldn’t go out there and find out much about somebody but if there is an Elder’s issue or protection issue, there is a note or a flag put on their record so that other ministries are aware that the person has a story or whatever, and perhaps you need to ask a few questions before bringing them into your ministry. I don’t know if other churches have to go that far, but because we are so big, we have to have a way of communicating. I like the idea of an email to go out to staff, because some of the people aren’t going to have access, so how do you communicate security issues like this to people who are not looking on the database? I think being aware of it and sending out emails is one of the ways we are going to look at it, but it’s a tough thing.
David
From a technical angle, I know there are a lot of tools within Active Directory and a lot of systems that allow for delegation of certain administration rights to different users and that’s just something I need to learn more about because it’s not something I’ve ever had to deal with before, it’s always been just me or I’ve been working with a trusted volunteer that’s been here longer than I have or something, there hasn’t been the need to separate out role-based authentication or anything like that, [Time Stamp00:54:45] so that’s something I need to learn and find out how to do that.
Jason
Someone said lie detector tests! Ha ha!
What other things? Tim, what else should we be thinking about?
I would say one thing, as you are doing your recruiting, people don’t like to join a sinking ship, so make it a “come join us” as opposed to a “oh my gosh we really need somebody” make it a “come kick the tires” instead of bad trouble. Set them up for success, that might not be easy.
Tim
Great point. I would also say to make yourself available to meet with people. Don’t be afraid to talk about what you do. [His mic is fading in and out]. Be observant, make contacts.
Jason
The Mac guru we had was through a shoulder-tap, he was using his laptop during a service, we’ve got online notes and that sort of thing, so somebody noticed there was a guy with a Mac with his laptop open on the public wireless page, and we went over and started a conversation, the guy was a certified Mac expert and we immediately had him come in and he helped us get our Mac users in shape. So that was a simple tap on the shoulder, opportunity waiting to happen.
James
I’ve seen the same kind of problems, technical people are usually introverted, it was difficult for me to step out initially and the thing that got me to step out and volunteer was a recruiting effort that the creative arts team was conducting. They invited everybody after a service to come check out what they were doing and they let everybody walk through the sound booth and check out the streaming servers, check out the soundboards, they fired up all the equipment and showed how they conducted and produced a service, they have a sound-proof room for recording, etc. So a lot of the recruiting effort is sometimes just showing off the cool stuff. Let people get [Time Stamp01:00:46] a sneak peak without giving them access to too many secure things can be a huge win. Give them a quick tour through the server room in a controlled situation can help woo those people. The other thing, what if someone came to you today and gave you a volunteer? Do you have a list of things written down of things they could do? I wasn’t prepared enough to match their skills to a list.
The other thing is finding the people who are connectors in your church, those who network like crazy, they talk and remember what people say and they can help you get connected. What we discussed earlier regarding having an environment of talking and meeting people and chatting about your needs and finding the right people. That was huge in helping us build our team.
Mark
Has anyone put together any detailed job descriptions for volunteers, in addition to writing down the job? If someone comes in and says, “I’ve got IT experience,” but it could just be adding a name to a domain. I’ve got experienced that I’m looking for and also I’ve got people that want to be trained on how to do stuff, some with very little computer experience, but I want volunteers to be able to see the descriptions for the tasks so when they come in, it helps.
Sp
Yeah Mark, I’ve done that and it works out well. It doesn’t have to be fancy, a short description, note if training is required, it was easy to print that out and drop it off at the event center where people congregate. That allows the person manning the event center to have a piece of paper to hand out with details about the need. It helps the staff and others understand what you are looking for.
Sp
Expectations are good to put on a document like that. What is the time commitment, am I qualified, etc. For them to be able to take that [Time Stamp01:05:04] sheet and review it is helpful.
We keep saying, “recruits” but I’m changing it to inviting strategies as opposed to recruiting. If you have the mindset that you are inviting people in, it sounds so much more inviting – hence the word.
Jason
Great point. Somebody had mentioned people looking for training. Quick funny story, we had a guy come in, he didn’t go to church here or anywhere, we thought it might be a cool witnessing opportunity, so he came for a few weeks, and he asked Ed all kinds of questions about Exchange, Ed spent time with him, trained him, he had questions, and then he just stopped showing up once he got all his questions answered, he never came back again. So, that was weird.
Sp
I had something similar, a couple showed up, said they were looking for a new church to get involved in. I believe they were believers, but what we found was that applying some of the things we’ve talked about today, we would meet with them. But then they actually admitted that they were looking to improve their resumes as well. Their hearts were right but their actions sometimes aren’t.
Jason
Back to that lie detector idea!
John Devore has joined us, we’re gonna continue a few minutes. John volunteered for a number of years, then about 6 months ago we brought him on staff. At our church, all but 3 or our 93 were volunteers before they were staff. Four years ago I was the lone IT guy, then Ed called, we went to Olive Garden, and that relationship then turned into a part-time position, then actually today is the anniversary of Ed coming full-time a year ago. John, what attracted you to volunteering here at GCC, what you’ve done, how should these IT people be thinking about volunteers?
John
I initially got involved a little differently. Before Jason was here, it was desperation. It was a PowerPoint slide that was running before service, it said something like we need a database guy, if you [Time Stamp01:11:35] know anything about database, people come to a meeting. I was knew here, I thought I’d check it out and say that I tried to volunteer then I could walk away. I ended up being the only database guy there. They made it really attractive, my first assignment was to hack the church database. At that time we had a system that allowed you to build all kinds of custom fields and things to store your data and your information. Unfortunately they didn’t give you any way to print it out in a report, so I ended up going in on the back end and basically figuring out field by field and going through with Crystal Reports and generating reports for all the custom information that staff members had done for years without being able to get it out. Soon after that we changed databases. In those ‘early years’ the things that kept me there was an increased in the amount of trust. I think about 2 months in, the hacking of the database, which was taking forever, they gave me full access in several different ways. I wouldn’t recommend this to everybody. At that time my database software tools were better on my home system than here, so they let me take a copy of the database home with me. I’m not advocating that but it that situation it made sense. I was able to produce documentation. They trusted me. What kept me around was that trust. When I switched over to the second version of the database, they kept affirming what I was doing, how great it was that I was on the team, kept dialogue going, made me feel like I was part of something really great. That’s how I got started. I also helped Jason set up web streaming that we’re doing, different versions of databases we’ve had, some Fellowship One, I’m currently moving into more of a side companion in church statistics [mic is breaking up]. And I’m kinda the SQL guy here. That’s [Time Stamp01:17:32] it.
Jason
Thanks John.
Anything else? What are we forgetting to mention? We’ve talked about a lot of stuff.
Sp
I think we are saying to just set out volunteers up for success.
Sp
Yes. Think about especially in IT, we know what it is like to work full-time in technology and there aren’t that many people willing to volunteer to do that at night or on the weekends too. We as IT staff have to be willing to give challenging things to these people, we have to let it go, if you are willing to give trust and delegate and let other people own things, not just the boring stuff. We just supervise, let them do it, don’t just give them the leftovers, or you will not get volunteers.
Jason
Good point. I’d also add that it is fine for somebody who is a high horse IT person for them to involved in other ministries and not IT. We have high-technology people who do not volunteer for us, they volunteer in tech arts or whatever and that’s gotta be fine. Let them soar in other areas. Kyle, our helpdesk guy, did not volunteer in IT, he was in drama, you’ll see him in clips in the weekend services, so especially don’t make them feel bad for choosing something else.
James, tell people about your blog and more about your e-book.
James
I’m the writer behind Agile Ministry.com [?]. I recognize some of you guys. I have a blog where I’ve posted a lot on church leadership, on ministry management and on volunteer recruiting, and I took a lot of the blog posts, some word for word, some conceptually and wrapped them into a free e-book. Go to www.agileministry.com there is a link, it’s about 47 pages, contains things I’ve written about, things others have said or written about, best practices, stuff like that. I condensed it down. I read a lot. And what it has turned into is the first of some training materials that [Time Stamp01:23:43] I’m taking some leaders through in our church. We are building a new building, it is in a different location, many of you who have gone through that know that we will see an influx of visitors from that community, so the ministry leaders need to be prepared to handle double or triple the number of volunteers, and to try to do it an a way that helps the volunteers, and have a healthy experience, we are using this time before we move to take some leaders through this e-book, so I’m facilitating the discussion, a chapter a week, in technical and non-technical ministries. Feel free to look at the book.
Jason
Definitely check that out. Also Tim and Tony had written a book called Simply Strategic Volunteers, you can buy if off Amazon or whatever. About 40% of our weekend attenders volunteer on a weekend. That’s pretty huge considering we average around 6,000. A lot of volunteers that make GCC funtion.
Tim also does a workshop, if you go to www.wiredchurches.com there is a workshop offered periodically. I’m sure there are others.
If you are trying to build a volunteer IT team, it is ok to go slow. You don’t have to build a huge team initially. I had a couple of false starts at the beginning, but I think the steps we are taking, they are slow steps, but we have a core. I look so forward to Tuesdays! It’s my favorite day, I look forward to hanging with those guys, it is energizing. Be patient, build relationships.
We are at an hour and a half. This was great dialogue!
We haven’t tapped into our high school ministry. I know there are high school students who have great geeky skills, off in the summer, and the whole college thing, we aren’t tapping into those resources yet, but we will.
Good, thanks everybody for coming. Let’s wrap it up. Phone line will stay open. See you next time, [Time Stamp01:29:24] Thursday after next. If you have topic recommendations, let me know. Thanks!
If you lead or are trying to build an IT volunteer team consider Thursday's episode 9 a must listen podcast. It's an hour and a half fully devoted to discussing volunteers in IT ... of course most of the talking points work equally as well in any ministry role.
There were some new "faces" in the audience from Willow Creek and Saddleback ... and James from Agile Ministry stopped by for the first time with some great insight given his background in volunteer team building. Also note that James has a free ebook on his site you'll want to read ...
"Maximize your ministry team and recruit volunteers with this practical, easy-to-read eBook. Seven chapters, each containing a variety of ways to grow your existing ministry or help you jumpstart a new ministry!"
I want to also extend a special thanks to:
Tom Templin - one of our uber volunteers, who shared his thoughts from a volunteers prospective.
Kim Volheim - Kim leads hundreds of volunteers in the creative and technical arts at GCC and shared some great insight based on his experiences.
