Church IT Resource List
In thinking about this week's Church IT Roundtable,
I started to list all the various resources many of us church IT folks are
using to stay informed and connected ... and wow the list kept going
and going! This is both great and challenging :-)
It's great in that our grassroots movement is growing rapidly and jumping on any technology that could benefit the greater good. The challenge is that these resources are scattered ALL over the place making them often hard to find and easy to forget about. So I'm making this list mainly for myself at this point, but assume it will be helpful for some of you as well.
AND I've recommitted myself to help lead the charge in creating an easy to use one-stop-shop portal for all our resources. So far google apps and ning.com would be great possible tools to make this happen. Let me know if you're interested in helping.
So here's the list I've compiled so far in the order they popped into my head ... what have I forgotten?
CITRT.org - We're planning to continue to make this THE FUNNEL for all things Church IT related (see CITRT Summary and Vision). A place to capture everything from events to resources to prayer requests to stuff to buy/sell. As mentioned above, an extreme site makeover is coming in the near future. [site hosted/maintained by Jeffrey Thompson]
Church IT Podcast - www.churchITpodcast.com Twice a month CITRT folks "meet" online and via phone to discuss all manner of IT topics. The call is recorded and then made available as a podcast. We even have transcriptions of each call to aid in searching for something in particular. [maintained by Jason Powell]
Twitter - There are a number of Church IT peeps on Twitter. I've not yet found a good way to "group" us together, but you can search for CITRT to find some. During the roundtable this week I'm sure #CITRT will be hoppin'
Facebook - We have over 200 people in our CITRT group on facebook. It's a place to find other facebook CITRT peeps and get occasional CITRT news updates. [maintained by Jason Powell]
Linkedin - We have almost 200 people in our Linkedin CITRT group. Recommend you join it to find other CITRT peeps. Linkedin now has discussion threads which could be useful to gather feedback. [Created by Ian Beyer]
Blog Aggregator - We have aggregated a number of church IT related blogs. Here's how to add yours to the list. [maintained by Jeffrey Thompson?]
Blog Search Engine - Andrew Mitry made a handy google search that searches through the blogs listed in the above blog aggregator. It's found at the top of the CITRT.org main page or hit Andrew's link above to use the code on your own site.
Blogroll - Clif Guy maintains a large blogroll of church technology related blogs
Roundtable Guidelines - Thinking about starting your own local roundtable meetings? You should! Here's the basic guidelines we work from for each roundtable.
Discussion Topics - Here's a large list of all the different topics that have been discussed at our prior events.
IT Discuss Forum - Ministry IT focused forum that's been around several years. [site hosted/maintained by Jeffrey Thompson]
IT Discuss Email List - Ministry IT focused email list that's been around several years with fully searchable archives. [site hosted/maintained by Jeffrey Thompson]
Church IT Survey - Ever wonder what churches similar to you are doing IT wise? How many computers do they support? What's their IT staff size? Do they support multi-site, etc? Or what about those churches several steps ahead of you - what's their IT makeup look like? How should you plan now to be at that size in the future? What about trying to find churches around you with experience in VoIP, Virtualization, etc? Wouldn't it be sweet to have a resource that helped shed some light on these questions? That's what this is for. (note to self to get more current data into the survey and find a better way to manage end user updates) [created/maintained by Jason Powell]
Church IT Survey Google Map - Derek Berg made a nice mashup between the above survey data and google maps. See where other churches that have survey data are in relationship to you. (Derek's working on a newer mashup version)
ChMS Google Group - Discussion of needs and ideas for Church Management Systems. [maintained by Tony Dye]
Flickr Group - We even have a group on Flickr where you can browse Church IT related photos and pics from our actual Roundtable events. [created/maintained by Justin Moore]
IRC / Chat Room - If you hadn't heard ... we have a 24/7 Church IT chat room you're invited to join. You'll find IT geeks hangin' out in there all hours of the day and into the midnight hours. It's a place to ask questions, blow off some steam, and get to know other IT peers [created by Jeffrey Thompson]
Instant IRC / Chat Room - This link takes you directly into the Church IT chat room ... nothing but a web browser required.
Webcam Aggregator - Every so often some of us will fire up our webcams for your voyeuristic pleasure :-) [created/maintained by Justin Moore]
MinistryIT Yahoo Group - Another Church IT discussion group that's relatively new. [created/maintained by Nick Nicholaou]
Texas Ministry Tech - From the site: Texas Ministry Tech is dedicated to creating and growing relationships and cooperation between ministry-minded IT folks in Texas. [created by Scott Miller]
Ministry Tech - From the site: MinistryTECH is a new national conference dedicated to church information technology professionals. Come join some of the leading church tech professionals to learn how they are using technology in their ministries.
I'm sure there's more ... as you think of other church IT related resources please leave a comment and I'll add it to the list.
Jason Powell
IT Director
Granger Community Church
http://jpowell.blogs.com - yup, I've got a blog
http://twitter.com/JasonPowell - My twitter feed
and I'm on Facebook
Jason - great link fest. Bet this post will be used by many as a resource hub. Thanks on behalf of everyone for the research time invested.
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Posted by: mani | October 22, 2008 at 02:29 AM