Let’s talk about scheduling. It’s the bane of any complex organization, and yet handling schedules poorly is guaranteed to hurt and offend constituents.

Time was when the church office kept a wall-mounted “master calendar” large enough to enter all events. In theory, constituents were supposed to consult the master calendar before reserving a room, scheduling an event, or committing church staff. Control needs often got in the way of coordinating, of course.

The primary glitch was clergy time. Clergy didn’t want their appointments appearing on a publicly accessible calendar, usually for reasons of pastoral sensitivity. So the office kept one calendar, the pastor kept another, and the two often collided.

Now we have electronic tools that enable the church to have a single calendar serving all needs and yet maintaining privacy as needed. Google Apps, for example, provides a Group Calendar function that allows subsets to see their own calendars while enabling an “all hands” calendar that everyone can see. Insightly, the project management and customer relationship management app that I recommend to clients (www.insightly.com) has a calendar tool.

I came across an attractive app called Teamup (www.teamup.com). I haven’t used the product, but it seems to have useful features and a reasonable pricing structure. A search will show you many others. Every enterprise feels the urgency of group, team and organization calendar-management. You want an app that is simple for even non-tech folks to use, and yet powerful enough to be both broadly accessible and personally useful.

Technology is a good place to start. Take the time to buy the right product for your needs, and set it up correctly before starting to use it. Google Apps tends to make app acquisition and setup manageable. The basic idea should be: don’t continue having a church calendar that only the church office can see, but rather an organization calendar that all appropriate constituents can see and yet that facilitates top-level coordination. Some churches put their all-hands calendar on the church web site. More useful, in my opinion, is a mobile-friendly app that all constituents can use as they have need.

Over time, developing good habits of calendar management will prove even more important than technology. In the case of time, staff and facilities management, the left hand must know what the right hand is doing.

First, someone such as the church administrator must be authorized to view and manage all calendars. Groups can manage their own sub-calendars, but if they intersect with anyone else (using church facilities, for example), entries must be considered tentative until the admin coordinates with other groups’ calendars.

Second, clergy must agree to consult the calendar, as well, even when scheduling a private pastoral event that no one else will see. Double-booking is irritating and insulting.

Third, be sure to use an app that has mobile access. This will enable appointments made “on the fly” to appear on the master calendar.

Fourth, train constituents to use it – focusing especially on group leaders.

And finally, establish clear protocols for use. Time is too important to allow conflicts to arise because people forgot to consult the calendar or considered it unnecessary. People tend to value their time as an asset to be given judiciously. If events get canceled at the last minute, or if schedule conflicts develop, or if key participants routinely run late because they managed their own time poorly, the message is clear: your time doesn’t matter. And, in effect, you don’t matter. Not a good message for nurturing a healthy church.
 

About the Author

Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the publisher of Fresh Day online magazine, author of On a Journey and two national newspaper columns. His website is Church Wellness – Morning Walk Media