SETTING UP ICT DEPARTMENT FOR THE CHURCH

Things to note on Church ICT human resources:

· Very few churches have a standing ICT committee.

· Churches do not have paid ICT personnel and where they have they are usually audio system technicians and television technicians.

· While most churches do not have ICT personnel they totally agree that they do not need to have one.

IMPORTANT ISSUES ON ICT IN THE CHURCH

· The ICT strategy for church growth should address the ICT infrastructure in a comprehensive manner as well as promoting computer literacy programmes for members to enhance their use of the Internet as outreach to many who need to hear about the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

· To cater for the huge proportion of the younger membership, the church premises, and all the meeting halls where members congregate should have internet access. 

· The church missions committee should set up proper data centre and network operating centre. Enough bandwidth will be required for the various online programmes of the church such as evangelistic webinars, distance Bible learning and several online programmes. Counseling, follow-ups and visitation ministries will require modern call centre for counseling as well as, help desk. An institutional repository is necessary for storage of evangelistic digital content, such as sermons, Bible studies, and musical and choral recordings. The missions department should provide easy access to ICT resources such as online Christian library, reprographic centre and global classroom for Christian programmes. 

· Churches should setup a steering team to develop and oversee an Internet outreach plan along with expected needs and results. The web will continue to play great role in church communication medium and virtual learning environment might be as important and representative as a real one. 

· Best practices for hosting Church mail portals include owning a church domain reflecting the church name and ministry, providing church domain email addresses for distance Christian education and discipleship training and communication between church members should be through the church domain email addresses. 

· The benefits gained by implementing church document management system include secure storage of documents, easy retrieval of documents, excellent search capabilities to cut down on time searching for documents, controlled environment for updates to document, complex security rules to control access, increased visibility of key documents, one source and one set of rules for managing documents, reduced time and effort spent on document management, ability to maintain document history to meet legal requirements. 

· To take advantage of worldwide web church management information system must be web-based enterprise solutions. It must address areas like church membership, church outreach management system, church pastoral care management, church financial system, church document management system and church education management.

Do you have any vision you want to execute, then clarify your vision:

Clearly define what the department will look like if the idea is executed successfully. Develop a summary of that vision and communicate it to church Executive Committee consistently and often. Keep the vision in front of them; make it a part of their daily lives. People cannot and will not follow you if they don't know where you are taking them to and what will be the outcome of all their efforts. You should know what you need, why you need it and when you need.

Planning: 

Planning is essential to any vision in order to see it fulfilled. Therefore, as a pastor, you are to plan on how to carry out the vision: organize a series of training and teaching to carry the congregation along. By the time the church has got the vision, they will run with it beyond the pastor expectation. It might take time but it will be to the benefit of the pastor and the church. Part of planning involves gathering of the materials needed, the human resources, and the money to run the vision smoothly.

If you are working as an associate pastor, it is better to key into the vision of the senior pastor. Great things are achieved when you are not after the credit. 

Execution of vision:

You have to be very systematic and logical in executing your vision. Most times, several people did not have their vision accomplished because they lack the logical means of executing their vision. Most good visions that were not logically executed had brought shame to the pioneer of the vision and thus made him to look like a fool. Systematic execution of vision is part of the planning process, but its real implementation comes up at the time of establishing the vision or project. 

Take note of the following as you desire to execute the vision of having ICT Department of the church: 

- Give opportunity to others who are talented or interested to supply suggestions. 

- Harness the gift and the resources of the various professional related to ICT in the church.

- Create opportunity for training by sensitizing them on the nature of the assignment.

- Make opportunity for recruitment and donation because you cannot do it alone.

- Help them to know the significance of working in ICT department.

- Bring out a blue print of how you intend to achieve the vision. This should include equipment needed, department needed, aims and objectives. It should have a minimum of five years plan.

- Purchase the equipment as listed in your blue print or invite a consultant in that field to guide you in your purchases.

- Train your volunteers on the equipment acquired.

- Make plan for routine maintenance and check-up, also make plan for replacement.

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