Monday, August 27, 2012

21st Century Bishopric

Recently, I have had the opportunity to serve in a leadership role in our local congregation. For those that aren't aware, this would be an LDS group. We refer to them as wards, and my role is ward clerk. This means I attend a lot of meetings and work to address the physical and temporal needs of the ward. I order supplies, oversee the record keeping for membership data and finances, prepare reports, etc. I work closely with the executive secretary, the person in charge of keeping the schedules, setting appointments, preparing agendas and so forth. The new executive secretary (Eric) and I were both asked to serve at the same time, a few months after a new Bishop started.

I think Eric and I were on the same page from day one. This thing needed to go electronic, digital and paperless as soon as possible. In a few short months, here is a listing of items we've implemented.

1. The agenda for our leadership meeting is now a Google shared doc, which any of us can update, add items to, etc.

2. Because of this, I've added a listing of callings with dates to the agenda, so we can instantly see who has been doing what and for how long.

3. Eric has added in the listing of who has spoken in church and on what dates, so identifying new speakers is a lot easier.

4. All appointments for the Bishop and his two counselors are now Google calendars.

5. I've setup a Google group for the ward, which we are beginning to use for text and email notifications for ward wide events.

6. Most communication as a leadership group occurs via text messaging or email.

7. Shared reports and lists are maintained as Google docs as well.

These changes have really helped with time saving and being more efficient!