This is a guest post by Justin Wise at BeDeviant.com.
As the leader of a growing and ever-changing ministry, Immersion (we attract mostly 20- and 30-somethings), the challenges of “tending the flock” (a highly mobile flock, at that) and finding out what’s going on in the lives of the people I care about can seemingly be insurmountable at times. With the majority of us strewn all over the city (okay, so Des Moines isn’t exactly a thriving metropolis, but it still takes time to get places!), I have found that the answer to the task of connecting with people isn’t necessarily geographical but technological.
I started thinking about how my professors in college used to have office hours. You know, they’d put on the syllabus things like, “Office Hours: 2-2:01 pm. Must call ahead for appointment.” (Something tells me they never liked having office hours.) Then I started thinking, “What if I had office hours, but if instead of being physically located in an office, I held ‘virtual office hours’? What would that look like?”
I am a huge advocate of social media. As such, the question for me became, “How do I leverage what I do have (technology, social media, a blog, etc.) against what I don’t have (extra hours in the week, for example)?” What if I had a set time during the week where I was accessible online to anyone who wanted to stop by?
* Prayer concern? Come visit me in my online “office” and we’ll pray.
* Want to know what the message is about this week? Come ask me in my virtual office.
* Have a friend who has a question about Jesus and you have no idea how to answer it? Ask Rhett. Then come to me with the easy questions (online, of course).
All that to say, I’ve commandeered TokBox and embedded a chat room on my blog. People can log onto Office.BeDeviant.com from the hours of 2-4pm CST on Wednesdays and there I’ll be: Writing emails, blogging, singing to myself, and talking with the people of Immersion.
Ask these questions of yourself and see if this would work for you: Would your people utilize “virtual office hours” if you had them? What if you blocked out a certain set of hours during the week to be “e-vailable” to your congregation? Would they “stop by” for a video chat over your lunch hour? What if you had a “group prayer” session online via webcam (a la OnePrayer 2009)? Would you benefit from something like this?
I’m not saying this is a perfect solution, but I feel it’s at least a start. If the essence of ministry is the “ministry of presence,” who’s to say that “presence” can’t be online?
THAT is a fascinating idea that I am definitely going to look into. Thanks.
Great post, Justin! Very insightful, pro-active thinking & strategic anticipation of the future.
Interesting idea, I’d love to hear from you 3 months in to see if it’s working. I added a “chat with me now” kind of interface on my main commercial site a year ago and finally took it out because I found the chats distracting–good in theory, annoying and unproductive in practice. Maybe limiting it to certain hours would help.
Well, the first session came and went–WHEW!
We had over 30 people come in at some point or another! Some take aways:
1. Need to figure out a way to do one-on-one chats if necessary. TokBox throws everyone in the same room.
2. Limiting hours is a necessity. I may even go shorter time periods, but offer multiple times to be available.
Thanks for the input, everyone!
Justin
What a great idea! The image at the top of the post is reminiscent of John Cleese in his Monty Python days… sitting at a desk in the middle of a field saying the line “And now for something completely different”! How appropriate!!!
What an awesome idea… love that you even posted some feedback on how it went. I think I may try this for my own tribe!
An update on the update:
Tried it out again yesterday, here’s what worked:
1. Changed from TokBox to Ustream. TokBox, while great, is still a little young and people were getting lost in the conversation. Ustream, although one way (people can see me, I can’t see them), is much more stable.
2. Chat room is good for general discussion, but I have AIM, Skype, and GChat linked at the bottom for more private chats. This worked GREAT.
3. Shortened the hours. Much better. Much more productive.
Hope that helps! Come join me next Wednesday at http://Office.BeDeviant.com
Virtual offices are getting more and more popular in this world of cost cutting efforts and internet capitalizations. What was once considered integral in a company’s business strata now is a bane to business because of their high costs and restrictive contracts. Many have turned to virtual offices for their office solutions as they pay only as much as they use – meaning this is a commodity that is highly liquid and thus poses no risk as a long term economic hindrance. I am also running a small business using this facility by valleyhq I am very satisfied and feel like I am able to increase my business now.
Thanks for sharing this post with us. Virtual office concept is really helpful to increase business productivity.