Best Practices Handbook for Church IT

Imagine if the book pictured here were specifically about CHURCH (or Ministry) IT Best Practices.  How quickly would you buy it?  Unfortunately, it doesn't exist.  But why not?  What if WE wrote it?

What sort of section or chapter titles would you want to see?  Training?  Purchasing guidelines?  Disaster Recovery?  Virtualization?  Desktop standards?

If you have thoughts of subjects, please share.  And, of course, if you have something to contribute...well, let me know!  I may just be motivated to find resources to put this together.

Comments

[David Drinnon]

count me in!

some chapter or section topics might include:

Negotiating Software Purchases
Software Integration
Volunteers
Difference between IT and Church IT (Preface)
Outsourcing vs Insourcing (Staff, Software, etc.)

[Jeff Wilson]

Another idea...
Working with: staff, vendors, volunteers, etc.
Blurred lines between IT and Communications Teams
Dealing with unrealistic expectations
Purchasing: best price? or best product?
Budgeting
Using interns

Just a few off the top of my head. We'll see if there are any more later.

[Bill Reichart]

Here are some chapters I would include...

working with volunteers
leveraging web2.0 apps for communication and productivity
when is outsourcing IT a good idea?
budget issues - how much should a church expect to invest in IT, both equipment and services?

These are just some ideas...

[Jeremy Hoff]

The fundamental difference between a church (i.e. nonprofit) and a for-profit is *every* department (er, Ministry) is a cost-center. There are no profit centers. (There are self-supporting ministries, sure... but work with me here!)

The second difference is the people on staff and volunteering are behind the *mission* of leading people to Christ.

Hence, it's less about budget and more about getting and permitting people to serve. If a product or I.T. initiative helps involve people in the mission of the church, then it's a good value. If the product doesn't promote that mission, then perhaps it isn't a good choice.

There are plenty of boilerplate ideas that are generally useful:
- use your 501c3 status to get software cheap!
- get on board with CITRT, etc.
- ChMS software.
- Etc.

Since most churches are in different situations and have different perspectives there is no single choice for products that is ideal for each of them. Cisco, or HP for networking? Sonicwall, Smoothwall, Cisco, or Watchguard for firewall? F1 or Arena or ??? for ChMS? The list goes on and on.

That's why I think such a book would have some portion dedication to storytelling: Why chose the solutions s/he chose. I think a book full of honest, candid, and useful content such as this would be a fun read.

[scott logan]

What about customer service from a non-IT person? In my opinion customer opinion is one of the greatest obstacles that IT professionals face in accomplishing the very real and honorable goals they set.

[Jim Heist]

Good thought on a IT book for Church IT. Two chapters I would add would be on strategic planning and business processes.

[Timothy Golden]

a few more topics that I'd be wiling to help with...

Security
Issue tracking/Support
Asset Management
Policies and Procedures (I have TONS of samples after spending the last year writing our own)

[Jeremy Hoff]

There are lots of good topic ideas here, but what makes churches unique in areas such as helpdesk, asset management, etc? There are myriad resources on those topics already. Answer that question and we have a nice book, indeed!

[dean lisenby]

um...yea.. what they said!

[Cindy K]

I would contribute as much information as I could, particularly seeing as how I used CIRT's free Best Practices Document. But only if you were going to continue with the GNU philosophy that the CIRT Best Practices Document has now.

Selling it? No. It was given to me freely, and I used it and added information that was relevant to my church.

But sell it? Ouch. That really hurts. I'm old school, open source, and so Gnu that it hurts.

[Stuart]

YES PLEASE.

My one thing I want / need is sample policies.

[Steve Ollis]

- User Training - "The forgotten dream"
- Aligning Church IT with the Vision of the Snr Pastor - "Help Me Help You Help Me"
- Video Streaming - "Ouch my network hurts"
- The Multi Campus Church and IT - "Ouch my network REALLY hurts"
- The old chestnut - Mac vs. PC - subtitled "Let's get ready to rumble"
- Creativity and the Church IT Manager - "DOing more and more with less and less"
-

[Jeremy Grabrian]

ITIL is the standard on IT Best Practices and has lots of great info that pertains to or can be modified for Church IT. Covers everything from Service Desk to IT Management and the various guidlines (No hard fast rules). Trying to adapt their guidlines to my Church's processes.