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Church/Ministry IT staff and volunteers from across the country will descend upon Saddleback Church in warm sunny Lake Forest California to partake in 2 days of invaluable peer learning, networking and inspiration March 11-12.

If you can only attend one IT conf this year, this is the one I recommend without hesitation! Regardless of your church/org size, I guarantee you’ll leave with new knowledge, new friendships and loads of inspiration.  I’ve been to every National Church IT Roundtable since 2006 and I leave each one totally amazed at what I’ve gained.  Not to mention the incredible friendships I’ve built over the past few years are invaluable on both a person and professional level.  So in other words – make every effort possible to get to this event.  If you need me to write a note to your boss to help your plight let me know

We’re still firming up final costs, but it will be under $100…and that will include lunch and snacks both days…and if we get enough sponsors hopefully even dinner both nights.

Sponsors?  Yes, we’re asking vendors to help offset the costs.  Please encourage your favorite vendors to contribute.  Even a small amount will be helpful.  Vendors can contact info@citrt.org for more info on how to help.

Spouses?  Yes, a number of us have been informed by our spouses that they TOO will be coming to California   Spouses are encouraged to join us during the evening gathering times.  Perhaps during the day they can form their own IT spouse support group and hang out together at the beach

Final details are still being nailed down, but here’s the schedule gist …
March 10 – optional pre-event informal gathering in the evening (possible dinner)
March 11 – Day 1 – 9am until late … Saddleback “behind the scenes” tour in late afternoon, group dinner, then a special worship service
March 12 – Day 2 – 9am until 5pm … then optional dinner for those flying out Sat/Sun

More details can be found at http://citrt.org … hope to see you there!  Questions? Leave a comment or email info@citrt.org

For the latest up to the minute Church IT Roundtable news follow CITRT on twitter and/or facebook

Even you can help out… just turn off your computers and monitors, printers, fax machines whatever.  When you leave for the day, turn off the whole system,the monitor, printers, everything that is not essential.  Imagine how much energy we’d save if  we  all powered off every non essential  electronic devise for 8 hours in every church or at home every night.. how about just starting off small with one night!!

HP, Intel,  Citrix and Microsoft, Challenging Government and Industry to Turn Off Computers, Printers and Peripherals on August 27 so why should churches be excluded.  The Power IT Down Day’s goal is to reduce carbon emissions by promoting responsible energy and raise awareness about what you can to do to help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

“Last year, over 2,800 government and industry employees pledged to power down their computers, printers and monitors when they left their offices for the evening, which resulted in over 37,000 kilowatt-hours saved,” said Tom Simmons, area vice president for Citrix Federal. ” If just one percent of government’s 1.8 million civilian employees turned off their processors, monitors and peripherals for only one night, the U.S. government would save approximately $23,40″ talk about a stimulus package!

Did you know that a personal computer at 10 hours a week uses 150 kilowatt hours. While a small laser printer uses 90-100 watts while printing and 5 watts when electricity connected, but not printing.

The sponsors will be making a donation of at least $20,000 to Wounded Warrior Project (WWP). WWP provides support for the nation’s severely wounded military personnel, helping them on the road to healing, both physically and mentally.

Over 3300 people have signed up on HP’s website to track how many KW we can save with over 43,000 KW and rising!

Be GREEN and help save some energy. Register now to receive an email reminder.

UPDATE As of 8:00am EST Friday Aug, 28 5,592 people have signed up to Power IT down saving over 72,000 kilowatt hours!!!

By the way, I’m writing about this special cause because I believe that we are all called to be good stewards of all God’s resources; there is no benefit to myself or CTM.

Whether you are a volunteer or on staff and whether you are with a mega church or small or mid-size church, here are some resources that I should have been promoting long ago.

The portal for all things church IT related:
http://citrt.org/ (CITRT = Church IT Roundtable)

Everything else I mention below is found at the main page I just mentioned.

There is a weekly call that anyone is welcome to join.  You can either just call and join the conversation or in addition to that, log in to the CITRT podcast chatroom and that will further enhance your experience.  Check the page for dates and times and instructions because it could change.
http://citpodcast.wiki.zoho.com/

Join the Twitter group #CITRT:
http://twittgroups.com/group/citrt

By far, the easiest way to plug into this community is to visit the IRC chatroom.  This is where the CITRT peeps hangout 24/7.  I used to frequent this chatroom but have not in quite awhile.  I think I’ll try to hang there more.  The beauty of this is even if you can’t sit there and actively participate, login and just let the thread roll.  When you come back, you are likely to have a wealth of information on all kinds of topics.  You will have a thread of all kinds of conversations.  Of course take some time to join in to the conversation as well.  The link below gives simple instructions to join the room.
http://jpowell.blogs.com/jason_powell_church_it/2008/01/easy-way-to-joi.html

If you don’t have time to read instructions and just have get in the chatroom NOW, click the next link for instant access:
http://embed.mibbit.com/?server=irc.freenode.net&channel=%23citrt&forcePrompt=true

I want to encourage all church IT volunteers, to jump into this community.  They are here for you and are more than willing to help out.  Plus, you have a lot to offer.  Don’t view this as a one way street where you just go there when you need something.  Get to know these men and women and contribute to the community.

Last night, Jason and I had a chance to visit and I made the point that there is a huge gap between the large/mega-church and the small to mid-size church as far as IT goes.  We began talking about how to address this issue more effectively in future roundtables.

So, get involved, plug in and be a part of the CITRT community.

It reminds me of what Andy Stanley said in the last session of Catalyst last year.  If you left early and think you can just listen to this session on the CD, then you’re a loser!  So, if you left here early, then you’re a loser.  Of course, how would you know because you aren’t here.  I’ve thought more than once about shutting this blog down and honestly, I can’t do it, so know there may be some down time from time to time.

Speaking of Catalyst, I’m am pumped about being at Catalyst again this year.  There’s a big group of us meeting up there from all over the country and it’s going to be a blast!  If you’re going to be there, let me know, I would love to connect with you.

Comment, send me an e-mail or give me a call, my number is here.  Catalyst is very much a life changing event and one that should not be missed.

Of course, the CIT roundtable is that same week and I will miss it unfortunately.  That is another event that shouldn’t be missed but for me, Catalyst takes precedence.  I’ll try to catch up with the CITRT gang next time, for sure.  I know of a couple of other CITRT’ers that will be with me at Catalyst, so maybe we’ll have an offsite roundtable.

I’ll be doing some streaming from Catalyst, in between sessions and after hours and I think some others will be doing the same so stay tuned for that.  I’ll post my uStream link later.

In a word, Wow! Those are some big churches and they have a lot of cool tech stuff. If you go here, you can click the icon for my mega church tour pics.  We toured:

• Crossings Community Church
• Church of the Servant United Methodist Church
• Henderson Hills Baptist Church
• LifeChurch.tv

From a tech perspective, they all share similar aspects, yet they each do things in their own way, and are each so unique in their style and atmosphere.

It’s inspiring to see how the big dogs do it because at my church, we have so far to go.  At the same time, it’s encouraging because we are starting to do more and laying a foundation for where we are headed.

We saw many server rooms that day and I know Mike was pretty much done seeing server rooms by the time the day was over.  It blows me away to consider how much these churches spend on technology to enhance the message they are delivering.

Is it too much? I don’t know, consider the impact they have on their community.  I would like to dig into that and compare their tech budget vs. the actual number of people in their community they reach.  Maybe even go farther and look at the percentage of their community that they reach.

For our church, our weekly attendance is about 5% of our community and that percentage is about the same that these churches reach of their community in Edmond, OK.  Percentage-wise, our 650 weekly attendance is the same as an Edmond church of 4,000. Interesting! (to me at least)

For details of what was blogged about from MinistryTECH, check here.

For details of what was blogged about from CITRT, check here.

I have more to share, but this is all for now.

Our problem is not a lack of resources, it’s a lack of imagination. We, as IT people, are usually pretty concrete and we need to be more creative.

We are focusing on the problem and not on a creative solution to get it done.

If the only resource is the church’s budget, then your imagination is too small.

Someone suggested that we don’t always include God in our process, Clif says we need to agree to pray and expect God to show up.

John 13:14-15

This is a neat concept, be creative and don’t focus on the problem, just figure out how to do it but that sure is hard. The easy solution is to throw money at the problem but most of us don’t have the budget or the resources to adequately take on every request that comes our way.

The challenge is to think creatively to address requests from our customers, which includes church staff, other volunteers, other ministries and even outside groups.

Great reminder, Clif! Great insight too. It’s going to help all of us raise the standards of our service.

He warned me that I was part of his talk but I didn’t know how exactly he was going to do this.  He referred to a series of posts I wrote last summer that started here, then went here and here.   This series actually began with Clif and it is a constant theme of Clif‘s life and ministry and leadership style.

Thanks Clif, for continuing to encourage me in what you say, in how you lead and how you live your life.

Also, for a good overview of what our day was like, check Mike’s post.  He did a great job of detailing the highlights of the day.  I agree with most of what he said, although I was one of the ones excited to see most every server room and that did absolutely nothing for him.

The pic on the right is Ian in the jungle, church that is, which is Church of the Servant.  That’s a unique church, where Ian is faces the choir loft and there are 3 or 4 sections in a circle around the podium.

Today is day 1 of MinistryTECH and I am really looking forward to that.

Stay tuned for more pics and info as the next few days occur.

Technorati Tags: OKC,MegaChurchTour,MinistryTECH,CITRT,Kia

We will both be Twittering and blogging throughout the entire week so tune in to hear about what we are hearing and learning.  We will only be in one breakout session together and the rest we are on our own, so we are able to cover a lot of ground.

We are the two good looking, bald guys, so we should be easy to spot.  Track us down, we would love to meet you.

Mike’s Twitter – @downtownmike
Jim’s Twitter – @jimwalton

Mike’s blog
Jim’s blog

See ya in OKC!

I finally went to my first roundtable last fall at Church of the Resurrection in KC and I can’t wait for the one on April 5 in OKC.  Last fall I was able to meet many people I knew of and people I interacted with via e-mail, yet had never met.   Take it from me, this church IT community is the most open, friendly, helpful bunch of people I have ever been with, seriously.  Everyone seems to be available to help anyone in any way.

There are so many different backgrounds, experience levels, denominations and more and as far as tech goes, it’s all the same.  Some are full time staff of mega churches, some at smaller churches, some are volunteers but we all have the same goal.

My experience in my short time (I had to leave early) at my first roundtable was that we all had something to contribute.  We all have experiences and backgrounds that bring us to where we are right now and we all have specific issues that we are facing in our church right now.

I say all of this to lead up to my point for writing this.  Last night, we had a tech team work night and honestly, some work nights are more like sit around and eat cake night, which is what last night was.  We actually had cookie cake for someone’s birthday and we sat and talked tech.  We talked about upcoming projects and many different things related to our world at church.

One thing we discussed was MinistryTECH and CITRT.  One guy on my team, I’ll call him Daniel, expressed an interest in CITRT and we talked about it.  At one point, he wasn’t sure he would have anything to contribute, yet he’s been serving in this church  for at least 5 years in various techy ways.  I encouraged him to find a way to get there.  Another guy on my team, whom I’ll refer to as Mike, is going with me to MinistryTECH so we will already be down there.  At this point, Daniel is working on coming up with a way to get there, which also prompted my 12 year old daughter, who I’ll call Rachel, to speak up and say she wants to go.  She has served in various way in tech for at least the last 3 years and really has a heart to do more.  She is an important member of our team.

My point is this, if you are within driving distance of OKC and are involved with tech ministry and have a heart to do more and connect with like minded people, then go to CITRT.  Don’t get stuck on the thought that you don’t have anything to contribute, trust me, you do.

(Within driving distance to OKC includes but is not limited to: Dallas, Tulsa, Bentonville, Carthage, OKC, Wichita plus many more, I’m sure.)

If you have a legitimate excuse, like wedding shower or replacing your roof then that might exempt you from missing it.

Otherwise, I guess my team and I will see you there on April 5!

Very cool, Derek!  Thanks!