Church Management in the Digital Age MSCM 8630: IT for Church Management Dr. Wagner Sept

Class announcements

Goals for this week

Welch’s view

What is the Digital Age? Education ◦ Miami U. - Started as a Civil Engineering/Math major ◦ Ended up with 2 UG degrees; B. Phil and BA (ancient Greek/Latin) ◦ Worked on Agora Excavations in Athens ◦ America School (Athens) ◦ Masters in Classical Languages (U. of KY) ◦ MBA (U. of KY) ◦ Ph.D. in MIS at U of KY ◦ Villanova since 1991 Research/Professional Interests ◦ Dissertation in Expert Systems/ Applied AI ◦ Published in a variety of journals ◦ Published first college text on XML (2003- Phall) ◦ Published first text on Customer Relationship Management (2007) ◦ First at VU to teach class over Internet ◦ Coordinate SAP University Alliance ◦ Editorial Boards for several journals

Binary world Wife and 2 children ◦ Son at U. Del and daughter at VU ◦ Wife doing Masters in Counseling at VU Lu-Bhu ◦ Raised Lutheran but practicing Bhuddhist meditation for last 25 years History buff ◦ Founder of VU civil war round table ◦ Archeology and ancient history Fixing up old farmhouse ◦ Gardener, camper, hiking, play on VU faculty basketball team, etc.

What is IT?

Organization of Course Divided into three main modules ◦ IT for Personal Productivity  How can IT help you and your office work better? ◦ IT for Church Communications  How can IT help you and your church communicate better? ◦ IT for Church Operations  How can IT help the overall church organization function better?

Course Resources Short, new text by Tim Welch Welch, Tim Technology Tools for Your Ministry, 2008, Twenty-Third Publications. Augmented with other readings. Mainly from Christian Computing magazine Vendor demos (especially in last module) Element K tutorials for hands-on work Check out web site and login Note: Hold off on purchasing the Expression Web text.

Assignments/Grading Readings Hands-on ◦ IT inventory ◦ Spreadsheet report ◦ Database application ◦ Web site design ◦ Group collaboration project – design a web portal for all things related to IT for Church MGT Final Projects – research or applied use of IT

Assignment for next week Reach chapters 1 and 2 of Welch book ◦ May also send you a brief CC article Initialize and familiarize yourselves with the Element K site Try to list all the main activities in your office (informal list) ◦ Be prepared to give 2 examples of tasks that could be done better with IT ◦ We will meet next Thursday (9/11) at 7:30 p.m. (EST)

Questions?

Questions? Go Cats!!