One of the largest (yet safest) frustrations working in big marketplace businesses is the fact that I was pretty much unable to use my work devices, laptops, and computers for personal use.
It simply was against policy and making an attempt to install personal apps, bypass network ports for specific site access, and “steal” time here and there were grounds for instant dismissal.
I’ll admit, I kind of liked it.
But in ministry this just isn’t really the case, generally speaking.
You know your staff is using your IT resources, devices, and laptops for personal use; heck, more than half of their hard drive is their personal music collection.
So what do you do? What’s your policy for usage and personal use? Let’s here it in the comments.
Taryn says
Personally I try to keep my ministry work and personal IT storage separate, I guess it is easy not to build up a large personal music library on my work computer as I work in a Christian Community Radio station and we listen to what we’re putting out on air all day in the office. I have always felt that it is a matter of integrity keeping your usage of IT usage to work purposes only… I know many of us aren’t getting paid what we could be paid in the private sector, but we shouldn’t expect to be able to take advantage of the situation! We have made a choice! Trying to justify it to yourself as a benefit ‘in lieu’ of a higher salary is not Christ-like unless it was stipulated in your employment contract.
This may appear to some as a harsh line to take, but like many others I have witnessed colleagues taking advantage of their apparent freedoms in a ministry situation and it simply isn’t biblical. I guess we can take comfort in the fact that they will ultimately answer to God the father for the decisions they make… but in the mean time I am an advocate for ministry situations adopting very similar policies and procedures to the private sector! We are serving God through ministry, so why should we be settling for anything but the best business practise?!?!?!
God deserves our best efforts – whether that is in policy and practice, or personal integrity! I’m praying that more and more ministry workers will become convicted of these truths and more and more Christians will become convicted to manage their money God’s way – ministry’s would have far more resources and the ability to operate in a manner far more pleasing to God!!!
John Saddington says
definitely understand this. integrity is huge.
Yohan Perera says
You are asking a hard question? I had the exact problem. I think you can force such rules in a corporate environment. However I believe you have to be a little flexible when you are dealing with people in a ministerial setting. Besides in my country where I live most people don’t have a PC at home. So letting them to meddle around a little certainly improved their knowledge of Computer from which the ministry benefited in return.
I worked in a seminary for 6 years and I never bothered to block sites like Facebook, Twitter etc because most of the staff members would not spend more than 5 minutes in a social network site.
I had installed “McAfee site advisor” in each PC, so that the staff members would know probably which sites are safe and which ones are not.
I had instructed them to inform me before they install any new software in their computers which they happily responded to.
Strong Antivirus software were in place to block viruses and I used software firewalls to avoid malicious network traffic.
The network server was out of bounds for every one except myself and the Dean who had a good knowledge of IT and Computers. Above all I gave everyone a good training, so that they could always avoid what was not good.
Finally there are times that you have to make tough decisions too. Once I found a student downloading a 4GB Disk image which really slowed down the network performance and I had to block his Laptop.
John Saddington says
yohan,
great thoughts here. i’m not arguing for a wholesale ban on usage for personal stuff, i’m just bringing up what i feel is a good topic of conversation.
great thoughts, thanks for weighing in!
Yohan Perera says
Thanks for the complement John. This is a good topic indeed. You are feeding your readers with “Real food for thinking”
Think – Think – Think. All Christians need to think like you do…. 🙂
John Saddington says
thanks yohan! i like thinking.
😉
Cynthia Davis says
I joined the church staff last September. Thank goodness the church pastor is a techie; he understood the need to separate files and was quick to accept the new file system. The only IT the church had before me was ‘the guy’ that stops by when they had a network problem. Files are shaping up nicely. It was not a struggle at all to get everyone on the same page. All understood the need to be more defensive about downloads; asking about software and such; personal emails were set up outside the church system leaving church emails to use for ministerial purposes. Explaining why and being consistent is the key.
We began stream services live in October. Not too long after that our music minister tried to download a new driver for a printer during the streaming of our second service, everything stopped. We solved the problem by going with Apple AirPort Extreme Router – 5GHz band dedicated to the streaming computer leaving 2.4GHz band for everyone else – what a blessing! This has allowed the congregation to use YouVersion on their iPhones during the service.
John Saddington says
cynthia,
thanks for stopping by! thank goodness your pastor is a techie! what a bonus.
Aaron says
John,
Do you have or know of typed out policies from churches on this stuff? We had a conversation in staff meeting today about Facebook policies and setting up good boundaries for our staff (do we really all need to personally be friends with everybody in the church, or can we communicate effectively enough through a Fan Page set up for the church/youth ministry/etc) in relation to social media. Looking for concrete info!
John Saddington says
there’s some stuff that i’ve blogged about on churchcrunch.
https://churchm.ag/12-tips-for-developing-a-social-networking-policy-and-usage-guidelines-for-your-church/
https://churchm.ag/the-executive-pastor%E2%80%99s-guide-to-social-media-part-4-policies-and-guidelines-of-use/
https://churchm.ag/good-examples-of-social-media-policies-for-your-ministry/