Does your church have WiFi?
If you’re a regular ChurchMag reader, I’d hazard a guess that it does. Here’s a question you’re less likely to answer “yes” to:
Is your church open for public use of the WiFi?
Andrew Lloyd Webber, the Andrew Lloyd Webber who gave us The Phantom of the Opera, Cats and so on and so forth, said in an interview with the Daily Mail a few weeks ago and said that he wanted every church (in England) to have WiFi. The operatic feline aficionado went on to say:
“Once you do that, the church becomes the centre of the community again. They should go back to the medieval tradition, which is that the nave of the church is always used for local business.”
The Church as the Center
It’s an intriguing idea, isn’t? What if the Church—your church—was the center of your community? In business. In social interaction. In community development.
Let’s not rush past this with a “That’d be cool.” This is an idea that deserves a pause.
takes breath
Okay, now, let’s talk. So many churches and so many pastors are constantly asking the question, “How do we get people into the church?” Well, if you ask me, this might a good idea.
My community is relatively small. We have a population of about 9,000. The nearest coffee house—not “coffee shop”—is a town away. So what if my church jazzed up our foyer, put on a pot or two or three of coffee, set out a tip bowl, and opened up our building for all who would come? What if your church did something like that? What if every small-town church made full use of their facility (and their WiFi) by providing their community with some common space?
I feel like I’m constantly reading articles wherein people bemoan the changing social dynamic in the Western Hemisphere that has seen social interaction transition from face-to-face to font-to-font. Wouldn’t this be a great way to fight this trend?
I spent the weekend with a bunch of pastors and church leaders strategizing and dreaming about the next year, and the common theme that kept resurfacing was this: we need to engage people. It’s ideas like this—crazy, untested, and potentially disastrous—that could reshape the way the church interacts with your community and how your community views your church.
So let me ask you again:
Does your church have WiFi?
[via Daily Mail | HT CNET | Church steeple image via glendaleumc via Compfight cc]
Matt Rittgers says
My church does have wifi, pretty good wifi too! Last year we installed a UniFi system by Ubiquity–a really reasonable Wifi solution for businesses and large buildings. It’s scalable too, meaning it’s easy to add another access point anywhere throughout our building (or outdoors). Before this we had a random assortment of home-style linksys routers throughout the building– each with their own SSID. Now our 1 office and 1 public network are accessible throughout our building.
We have a pretty nice coffee shop in our town though, and a building that small companies can use for office space. However, we’ve been seeing an uptick in schools and companies wanting to rent rooms in our building to host their events.
Phil Schneider says
That’s very cool! Do you charge those groups to use a room? (Asking because my church is working through some of our building policies)
Matt Rittgers says
I believe that we do in most cases. I don’t expect that we are “making profit” off of these events, but we need to take into consideration the janitorial/set-up staffing, utilities, and wear & tear expenses to these events. It’s relatively easy when it’s simply a room that’s needed, but when some groups request mics, projectors, etc., sometimes we are needing to rethink our process. Our “sanctuary” environment has state-of-the-art lights and sound, but it is not as simple as a turn-key environment. We don’t currently have a tech staff member, so sometimes one of our pastors ends up playing tech-person on their day off or instead of doing their regular tasks. Going forward, I believe we need to better clarify costs/expectations of using different environments in our church building.
Phil Schneider says
Ok. That’s by-and-large where we are as well. Thanks!
adam says
I’d like to know more about your unifi install, we’ve been looking at it for some time now. Did you use a reseller?
Thanks,
Adam
twitter: @arshort
Craig McConnell says
Yes – we use an Airport Extreme with several Airport Expresses around the building (ethernet connections) to extend the network. We have a main network (for church staff and dept leaders, giving wireless access to printers etc) and a guest network with fast wifi and a secure connection.
I would love Apple to integrate Facebook WiFi into their Airport base-stations. That would be pretty useful.
Phil Schneider says
That would be very cool. Do you have any issues with Airports and non-Apple tech?
Phil Schneider says
That would be very cool. Do you have any issues with Airports and non-Apple tech?
Ryland says
We have a setup from http://www.open-mesh.com/ using repeaters etc with a secure network with full bandwidth and a public wifi network with restricted bandwidth. It’s worked well for us. I like this idea of being intentional with it though.
Phil Schneider says
What would “being intentional” look like for you, Ryland?
Mike Crudge says
This is a great idea.
We had a few young people not wanting to come to church services because they were bored. I suggested to their parents that we give them the church wifi password so they could bring their devices along and do what they do online, knowing that by being there they would absorb some of what was going on and there would be some engagement. Nobody else thought that was a good idea though 🙁
Phil Schneider says
Really? They wouldn’t give them access? Weird. Were these teens that wanted to be on YouTube during service? Cause I’d kinda understand that. 😛
Eric Dye says
Considering how many people can just use their mobile Internet, why be stingy with your wifi? Seems like a perk more than anything else. Unless, of course, you’re one of those churches that thinks you should block cell reception… 😮
Phil Schneider says
I was thinking the same.
Brandon Ott says
We’re a Ruckus Wireless VAR and are receiving more requests from churches. As an IT professional, my first question was “why do they need WiFi”. After speaking to several people I’ve found several use cases for WiFi in the church. It’s definitely a case-by-case situation, but is doable for most churches.
Phil Schneider says
That’s awesome! Thanks for the comment, Brandon.