Our church recently finished our Hero's series which was geared towards getting more people involved in ministry. During the last 2 weekends we had tables setup around the auditorium where people could sign-up to learn more about a specific mnistry area ... Mark Waltz has a great writeup on the details of the Volunteer Expo here
Surprisingly over 30 people signed up as interested in IT ... wow! I was blown away.
This past Tuesday evening we had meeting for those interested to come listen to me yak about IT at GCC and some of the possible serve opportunities. I was sick as a dawg Tuesday but didn't want to cancel this meeting same day.
Listed below are the opportunities our team came up with listed loosly in order of increasing skill level required. And here's the actual PDF we gave everyone to fill out.
Download it_volunteer_opportunities_2007.pdf
We asked them to check the areas they were interested in or had experience in and then write about their experience level next to the headings. We also provided a box they could check that said, "Sorry - but I think I'll check out another ministry area."
Props to Kim V for letting me mod his handout for our use and for coming Tuesday night to talk about the last 4 serve areas on this list. Additional props to Adam T for taking this list and creating a last minute keynote presentation for me!
Next we'll go through the handouts and look at what people wrote. I'll then contact them to most likely come back for some Q&A and really try to match them to an area that fits their shape ... or suggest other ministry areas they might be a better fit for.
As always, if you can use any of this for your own ministry go for it. Just share back any improvements you make :-)
Check-in Kiosk Support
Looking for people to help setup and manage our check-in kiosks for Weekend/Midweek services and other special events. Need to have basic Windows and wireless troubleshooting skills. Some training will be provided.
Community Technology Events
What if we offered GCC members and the community periodic "PC Tune-up" services during Second Saturday? Looking for people with good PC troubleshooting skills. Some training will be provided.
What if we offered the community periodic seminars on various technology topics? PC Security, home networking/wifi, backups, online safety (banking, ebay), etc
Wiring/Cabling/Fiber
Looking for both experienced and non-experienced people to help rewire IDF's, run lines to new drops, etc.
Macs/OSX Server
Looking for people with experience in networking and troubleshooting OSX and OSX Server as well integrating OSX clients into Active Directory.
Linux Integration
Looking for people with Linux experience to implement various open source tools such as network monitoring, log aggregation, etc.
Project Management
Looking for experienced project managers to keep GCC IT projects (both staff and volunteer) on track.
Inventory Management
Looking for people to help find/create and implement a system to manage all IT assets.
Phone Support
Looking for people experienced in phone systems and wiring … especially Panasonic.
Software Training
Looking for people with great communication skills to do software training for staff/volunteers/community? on Vista, Office 2007 Suite, etc.
Help Desk (weekday/weekend/events)
Looking for people with good troubleshooting skills to respond to support requests.
Advanced Server Skill Sets (e.g. Active Directory, Exchange 2003/2007, SharePoint 2007, SQL 2000/2005, System Center Essentials, VMWare Server, etc)
Looking for people with a high degree of experience in installing/optimizing/securing various Windows Server technologies.
Network Infrastructure (routers, firewalls, managed switches, QoS, VLANs, wireless, etc)
Looking for people with high degree of experience managing network layer devices.
Programmers/Developers (e.g. VBA, .NET, SQL)
Looking for people with a high degree of experience in various programming languages for custom back-office projects integrating SQL, SharePoint, Great Plains, Fellowship One.
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Classroom Operators
This is the team responsible for running audio for various ministries. These may include: Front of House Services for Weekend Services, Monitor World, Recording Mix, Class Rooms, Special Events like Merge or Core Classes, Youth or off Campus Events. Requirements vary depending upon the ministry. Service commitment varies depending upon the ministry as well.
DVD/Authoring Duplication
This team will not only duplicate the weekend service for archival purposes, but will ultimately be responsible for authoring DVD content for elements of the weekend services, authoring DVD content for workshops, conferences, WiredChurches, and more. This is an ongoing ministry with opportunities every week. Training is available.
Archiving Digital Data
This ministry opportunity requires an extended knowledge of the Mac OS and the ability to organize data with great attention to detail. Every week video files, digital photographs, and additional data will need to be filed and made accessible to our Server. Data DVD's of creative elements need to be pulled from hard drives and logged.
Media Library
This is the team responsible for achieving and organizing DVD's, Data Disks, CD's, tapes and any other media content collected over the years.
*note these last 4 areas are actually in creative/tech arts, but they are great first serve opportunities for people with general computer skills
dude, you have just made my life so much easier.
I am pulling my team together right now and going to have a meeting similar to this next Tuesday. Thanks for documenting where I'm going! :)
The PC tuneup idea is a great way to serve your church and community. We are doing this every couple of months and I think we are really hitting our stride now. I've got a good core group of techies and people are starting to understand that we are there to serve them.
I'm considering doing some sort of training after the first of the year, although I really don't have a classroom/PC lab to do this in, so that's my challenge. Like you say, there is a huge need for MS Office training, basic PC skills, even digital photo management...storing, organizing, manipulating etc. After Christmas, many people will have a new PC that they won't know what to do with.
People really appreciate learning more about how to use their computer. The PC Workshops that I do end up being as much about teaching people how to maintain their PC and teaching them anything else they want to know as it is about cleaning up spyware or upgrading memory.
I have documented some guidelines and I tend to fine tune things each time we do it.
http://churchtechmatters.com/?page_id=722
Anyway, I will use your pdf form as a guide for what I'm going to do, I will be doing probably 3/4 of what you have on there.
Thanks!
Posted by: Jim Walton | November 09, 2007 at 02:02 PM
Glad to help out Jim ... and look forward to hearing about your experiences afterwards :-)
Posted by: Jason Powell | November 10, 2007 at 12:19 AM
As always you're making life easier. As I'm always trying to find ways for people to get involved and serving this is a great list to match up with things we have or need help with as well as the things we would like to have. The last part is key in that it'll make it much easier to implement new hardware/software/processes if we have people that already know what they're doing versus me trying to learn it as we go along.
Posted by: Derek Berg | November 11, 2007 at 05:10 PM