Preparing for the Unexpected

Welcome to Episode 14 of our Online Ministry Made Simple Podcast. Click here to subscribe and listen to the podcast, which is available on all major platforms. Do you have a love/hate relationship with technology? Have you ever experienced unexpected failures and crashes? In this episode, we learn how to prepare for the unexpected. I guarantee that eventually, you will have problems with the technology you use at church, but you can be prepared with a plan to handle any emergency. One of the problems that many churches deal with is tribal knowledge. What is it? Tribal knowledge refers to any unwritten knowledge within a company that is not widely known. This could be actual data, such as passwords, or more abstract knowledge, such as best practices and processes. Because it is unwritten, tribal knowledge is typically shared by word-of-mouth (if at all). Often I find that only one person has knowledge about systems and processes, and when problems occur, documentation is not in place to help people solve problems. In this episode, we share how to prepare and plan for four different scenarios. Scenario #1 - Your computer goes down before a service Scenario #2 - Your internet goes down Scenario #3 - Your livestream gets taken down Scenario #4 - Your volunteers call in sick Here are two big takeaways #1 - Document Everything Checklists and flowcharts can be used to help your volunteers learn how to handle any situation. Go through different scenarios and write out processes and steps for your volunteers and leaders to follow. When you do have a problem, be sure to document what you did to fix it, so that you have that knowledge for future situations. #2 - Discipleship is Your Goal Every leader at every level in your organization should be training and discipling someone to do what they do. We have to fight against tribal knowledge and work towards developing new leaders. For more information about online ministry, please visit our website for online courses, podcast episodes, and blog posts that help simplify the complexity of online ministry.