The information technology world of ministry and the church is changing rapidly.
Actually, I think it might be more of an instance of the Church catching up with the rest of the world. But, in either case we have opportunities for radical changes that are actually healthy for our organizations.
But, I’m not sure we grasp them all the time or even begin to appreciate the possibilities.
So, here are 5 radical (but not really radical) resolutions and/or changes that you should consider…
1. Mac or PC? Who Cares!
Here’s a thought: What if you were to let your users choose which hardware and/or software that they want to personally use? What if you didn’t handcuff your staff into accepting one over the other? What if you were to embrace the possibility of a heterogeneous environment?
Give them a budget and let them spend it on their own hardware, providing guidance, coaching, and a bit of wisdom perhaps? Give them some options for pre-configured systems or something.
We like to imagine that our ministry is multi-cultural and multi-ethnic and multi-whatever, but we don’t really showcase that with our information technology.
Fascinating thought, right?
2. iPhones? BlackBerries? Android? Oh My!
Same difference as above.
What if you were to completely open up the opportunities for your staff to choose their mobile handsets? Perhaps this is less of an issue as the first one but I know of some ministries which say iPhone or nothing.
Or, at least they imply that.
Because it’s cool and hyper-Christian-cool to have an iPhone, right? I mean, Christians need to at least look the part!
… Right…? Wrong.
From an IT perspective trying to control everything and especially the endpoints is somewhat of a futile activity. Save the effort and energy on what you really have control over: Your datacenter, network, and all of that in between.
You might actually make people smile.
3. Web Apps Rule!
Web applications are the future. Embrace it like the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Whenever you can, deploy via your intranet and/or through your secure VPN. Why do web apps? Because they aren’t device-specific and platform specific. As a result you are freed from vendors and their platform changes.
Ah, freedom! Galatians 5, right?
… Well, not exactly.
4. Open Source
We’ve talked about how Open Source technology might just change your life (and ministry) forever (and for your good).
But there are still many ministries who wouldn’t touch it with a stick because of some misplaced sense of it being inadequate or less robust.
Not true.
There are definitely some reasons not to go the Open Source route but the fact remains that it’s still a very valuable opportunity and should definitely be considered when looking for a new tool, technology, software, etc.
5. Collaborative Software & Working Remote
Gone is the days of forcing your staff to come to the office!
Work from home, or the local Starbucks! It won’t kill you, and it might make your staff a bit more happy. You might even save some coin in the process.
With cloud computing and collaborative software (like Google Docs) readily available you can actually have your staff working “in the field” instead of a cube-farm!
Imagine that.
Justin Piercy says
Man, I really resonate the mobile platform points. The number of companies out there trying to sell churches “custom” iPhone apps is astounding. Cool, but way too platform specific.
I have some friends over at Liquid Church in New York who have done a fantastic job developing a mobile, multi-platform experience. Check them out at http://www.liquidchurch.com/ or at http://m.liquidchurchonline.com from your mobile device. Very cool.
At Connexus Church, when we pursue a mobile platform it will certainly NOT be an iPhone app, but a mobile multi platform website.
Kevin Cooper says
Good post! I like this approach. I spend most of my time now helping organizations in the marketplace move to a better web presence and a lot of that eventually falls into tools and IT functions like you mentioned above. My big pushes lately have been the open source and more flexible platforms like WordPress, etc. Thanks to the Case for WordPress help you provided–the orgs I’ve worked with have now embraced WordPress as more than just a blogging platform. It gives me chills when they get it! 🙂 However, “open-source” can still be a bad word in the marketplace and it hurts the IT managers’ ears when they hear it. I’d love to see some “sooth the pain” thoughts from the 8bit Network on how embracing Open Source is not as risky or insecure as it sounds. Some great here’s-whose-using-it-too resources would be great.
Dave says
I’d say that #1 is somewhat predicated on #3 (plus a few other constraints). There is still a ridiculous amount of software that is platform specific, and in my experience, especially in the church space. The more we can move church-specific apps to the web / cloud, the better (hurry up, John!).
One BIG exception to platform is the presentation software many of us use to put on “the big show”. Pro Presenter is now cross platform, but MediaShout has been exceptionally slow and problematic moving to the Mac.
OK, another big problem is financial software. Our finance people are still largely stuck with Windows-based financial systems. Again, some vendors are finally moving over to a web-based platform (Microsoft Dynamics / GP and Quickbooks both have web versions now).
But what this comes down to is the age-old problem: Creatives vs. number crunchers, Mac vs. Windows. Ugh.
We’re addressing this by using Macs and virtualization software for Windows.
SAYING we don’t care about platforms is one thing – how are you guys handling this PRACTICALLY?
BenJPickett says
Over here we’ve given staff a budget to get what they want, Mac or PC. They are instructed to invest in what is comfortable for them to use. We certainly don’t want someone who has used Mac for 15+ years to run out and buy a PC with that budget and vise-versa. I myself have been using PC for 20 years and do plenty of volunteer work at my church, often I get “stuck” with a Mac and it is a pain, I hear it’s a pain stepping over to my side of the room too. We have several public computers for volunteers, apprentices, interns or whoever and those are a mix of some Mac, most PC.
Mobile devices, I think they all have iPhones, I don’t know for sure. I think they were given a choice of phones but probably just had to keep it on ATT’s network which is very unfortunate considering their coverage in this area.
John Saddington says
financial software… gross…!
Brandon Cox says
Amen!!! To all five! This ought to be printed on an extra leaf of every Study Bible in the world! Well… perhaps I’m a bit overboard, but you’re spot on!
Stuart says
Agreed on 1, 2 and partially 3.
3 – not yet they don’t and not for everyone. I guess you’re thinking larger church in major population centres rather than including teh smaller churches in rural areas with poor to no broadband connection. They don’t rule then 😉
4 – whilst it is true that OS does some excelelnt stuff they still have a ways to go to do everything as well as a paid for app. Equally a paid app generally has more support options including the web which is more important for smaller churches that don’t have their own dedicated IT staff.
And 5 is very much dependent on the type of job you do. If you’re a church secretary, being sat in your local coffee house isn’t going to work!
Eric Rovtar says
I concur with the part about Open Source and support. That’s the one deal breaker for me. As we’ve looked at Web CMS Software, I’d be all for Open Source if (1) It’s based on the language/protocol that I want to work with (ASP.Net), and (2) Provides good documentation/support.
I’m all for troubleshooting on my own, but sometimes you need to get something done and don’t have the time to try and figure it out. Another example would be that we choose to run Microsoft Exchange instead of Google Apps. The main reason there is that, you can’t really troubleshoot Google Apps. If something goes wrong or isn’t working correctly, we’re left to Google’s mercy.
I’m a little mixed on the whole MS Office vs. Open Office idea too. I understand the “desires” to go to Open Office because it cuts costs, but I deal with pretty computer illiterate people on my staff team. Sometimes the cost of changing something isn’t worth the money we’d save.
oschurch says
Hi Eric,
The good news for you is that open source is much more pervasive as a development model so finding a mature project with good documentation and support is getting much easier. Keep a look out and you might be surprised at what you find. As for one that uses ASP.Net, the chances are much less likely mainly because ASP is a Micro$oft technology which isn’t necessarily the most cooperative company for open source projects to say the least. If you’re serious about considering open source as an alternative, it’s good to support companies that also support open source software in their culture like Google and Sun (now Oracle).
Also, sometimes the cost of changing is worth it even if it’s more expensive and it makes you’re life (and theirs) harder. If you’re interested in more reasons aside from cost to move to open source software, check out my blog. In a post hopefully in the not-too-distance future, I’ll be covering why feature set and cost shouldn’t be the only things you consider to answer your comment more directly.
peace,
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
John Saddington says
haha.! very true.
PhillipGibb says
hmmm, I’ld concur with Nr2-5, but as Nr1, it would be a bit of a nuisance for IT to manage/support Staff choices.
As for working remote – my wife does that, actually part-time for church. But then again our house is 4 houses down from the church office, ha ha ha. In any case, it works, there is a weekly meeting during the week to connect but most of the work is organizing and prep. So lots of IM and emails.
oschurch says
First, thanks for the prominent feature of open source and trying to help dispel the myth that open source alternatives are somehow inferior by design. I appreciate it especially from a dependable source like this site more than you can know. Rock on!
Next, to help the heterogeneous environments that you mention being able to create in #1 and #2, using web applications like you mention in #3 or cloud solutions like you mention in #5 is pretty much mandatory in a lot of ways. While cooperation and cross platform solutions are getting better (especially in the open source world), there’s no easier way to allow for cross platform integration than using a web application.
Lastly, I wanted to push back a little on #1, especially this quote:
While this is a great perspective from a secular and individualistic (might I say “American”) sense, I’m not sure it’s inherently the best way. As Christians, we are made to be in community and to lift up others needs higher than our own. So while we have the freedom to do as you mention, we also have the responsibility to think of others (and their budgets 😉 ) as well. So maybe as a church or organization we should agree to give a little if a homogeneous environment is better for the organization as a whole. Of course, while we’re thinking of others maybe we should broaden our scope further and include other churches as well (that maybe don’t have a media department, but a willing youth worker). Why stop there? We can also think of even others as well…
This is one of the main reasons I support open source software. It’s not just because it’s free and has great features. It’s that by using it I become part of the community that will continue to make it better for everyone, not just me. Wouldn’t it be cool if our churches and non-profits started taking that seriously and didn’t spend their budgets on software (even though they had the freedom to) so those budgets could be used elsewhere in other ministry? Then the open source projects they invested in could also be used by other churches and organizations as well. That decision might make their specific job harder for their specific team, at least initially. But are we always thinking about ourselves, our teams, our projects and our own church? Or do we continue to push our focus outward into the local and global community that Christ has called us to reach into? I think as Christians in our society we are good at pushing our focus outward in vague, abstract ways but maybe not so good at doing it in concrete, specific terms like how we spend our budgets. It’s very possible that using (and therefore investing in) an open source video editor that other churches could use as well (and make room in the budget for other ministry opportunities) could possibly have more kingdom impact than the video you produce with that software for your specific audience!?
I know that might seem like too radical of a statement but since we’re talking about radical ideas I figured this was the forum. As far as I can tell Jesus was a pretty radical person (and didn’t necessarily do things the most efficient way…come to think of it, he didn’t seem to have much of a budget most of the time either). And since we are supposed to be Christ-like, maybe our lives should be that radical too? Just some food for thought.
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
John Saddington says
kevin,
good thoughts here. the point was not to support an individualistic tendency toward our americanism but rather provide the best end-user experience with their machines.
good thoughts though. seriously.
oschurch says
Yep. And I know I’m preaching to the choir on this.
On the other hand, I think focusing on “the best end-user experience” is also just the nice, less offensive, more Christian way of saying “it’s all about me!” There’s a reason the biggest user experience company, Apple, does what they do (including naming their products 😉 )…it’s actually just marketing 101…the three things that grab our attention best: sex, food, me. It’s not that end-user experience doesn’t have it’s place, I would just argue that it’s not what your whole IT strategy should revolve around.
Peace. Thanks for the good discussion.
Kevin
http://opensourcechurch.com
Bruce says
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