Max: Why did you originally seek out a ministry scheduling program?Deacon Joe: I was looking for something to schedule the altar servers because I was doing the scheduling by hand. We had a scheduling program for the Eucharistic ministers and lectors, but it was a homegrown one that was kind of obsolete. It wouldn't handle families, people were complaining that they'd get scheduled on different Masses on the same weekend, that kind of thing. I was looking at the altar servers, and our pastor mentioned to me that our liturgy director was really struggling with the current program that he was using for the Eucharistic ministers and lectors. So, after looking at a couple of products, I finally looked at MSP, and I got to thinking that we could take this thing and combine everything with it -- not just altar servers but all the liturgical ministries. We could use one program for all of it. So, that's what got us started with MSP. Max: And how long did it used to take you to schedule the liturgical ministries prior to MSP?Joe: Well, it wasn't nearly as comprehensive as it is now. Myself, the Director of Liturgy and another gal would get together and generate the schedule, but we just put minimal restrictions on times and type of minster and dates that we can accommodate for now with MSP. We would randomly generate the schedule with the old computer program, then we'd go back and change it, then look at it to see if there were any kind of problems or restrictions that we missed, like if someone definitely couldn't be there. And then the altar servers had nothing. We'd just pick the servers and start trying to arrange them. It was all manual. So, it would take me a whole weekend just to get the Altar Server schedule done. And with the Eucharistic ministers and lectors -- the liturgy staff would probably work two or three nights trying to get that done. And so it was much more involved, and there was much less of the functionality and capability that we have nowadays. Max: What would you say are the three greatest benefits of using MSP?Joe: Well, first of all, it's really easy to use. Especially easy is the maintenance for each one of the ministers' assignment constraints. Its amazing. You input everything into MSP and you hit that Schedule button. You wonder how it's going to do it with all the preferences and availabilities, but sure enough the schedule comes out. We really like all that functionality a lot. And then there's the Emailer. The Emailer in MSP is so easy to use. We use the Emailer to email the schedules out to each one of the ministers once they're created. Each minister gets their individual schedule, and they love the fact that and it comes right through attached to their email and they don't have to go back to the web. In fact, eventhough we still post the schedules on the website, the website isn't used as much for that anymore because it's all through email. The other thing that we're now starting to do is to send out weekly reminders. Each minister receives a reminder of his or her assignments for that weekend. So they like that idea, because you get something that's coming up that says, "Hey, you're due to be a Eucharistic minister at position 4 this weekend at this Mass." And they love that. We get a lot of feedback saying how much they enjoy that. We also send emails out to all of our ministers when sombody needs a sub. Email facilitates so much getting those requests out to all of the different ministers. Another thing we really like is the data sharing with the web services. We have the database all on your server so I've got access to it at home or when I travel. And the Director of Liturgy now is learning MSP and wants to have access to the different ministers. He can pull up things he needs at the office. He can look at somebody's schedule or look at what restraints they have. As he gets up to speed with MSP he wants to do the changes himself and not even call me to do it. We also find the sign in sheets very useful. We're not really tracking yet attendance and all that like the system will allow, but recently we've been using the sign in sheet that has the person's name right there and the positions they're supposed to be serving at. So they're signing in. Those are some of the major things that we really appreciate and find so useful. Max: In your eyes, what do you see as some of the benefits of participating in the liturgical ministries?Joe: I think it helps people connect with the church. It gives them a sense of ownership when they're participating and serving, the whole thing of service to the community. A lot of times you'll see a big increase in their spiritual life when someone is actively involved rather than just sitting in the pew. They're actually coming up and serving people. I see people whose faith life has increased dramatically just because they were asked to be a Eucharistic minister or a lector. It gives them a chance to use their gifts and talents they have in service. So it's a real spiritual growth for a lot of people. Max: Is there an organized way that you go about recruiting more liturgical ministers?Joe: We just had some new Eucharistic ministers training last week, and what I did -- I had two vehicles. First of all I had a bulletin announcement: "If you're interested in becoming a Eucharistic minister, there are training classes scheduled." And the other thing I did was I used MSP. I fired out an email to every minister that we have in the system saying that we're setting up new Eucharistic minister classes and if you know of anyone that is interested in taking part in these classes let us know. There were people that had family members -- spouses that would talk about one time wanting to become a Eucharistic minister, or children that are coming of age that want to get more involved in the church. I think that's a great way of getting a message out to all the people that would really be interested. I got quite a lot of people coming to the class because of that email. MSP was really was useful for that. Max: Great.Joe: In fact, I want to mention, Max, many times now, when I'm soliciting young folks, young ministers, I find it much more effective to use the Emailer than to put it in the bulletin. It's amazing. You'd think people look at the bulletin, but I don't think anyone looks at the bulletins anymore. But most young people look at their emails daily. And so, I get a much better response when I need input, like when we're generating a new schedule. A few weeks before I put the schedule out I'll solicit people, "Tell me if there are any changes you want made before I generate the new schedule, like times you're not going to be there, or a Mass that you want to be at." I put that same announcement in the bulletin to cover the non-internet people, but I get much better response back from the emails that go out from MSP than I get from the bulletin. Max: And when you first started, when you switched over to MSP, did you have most people's email addresses, or was that a process that you kind of had to go about, gathering that information?Joe: Yea it was a process. It was difficult getting people's email addresses, and not everyone has internet access. Initially I had to play.. spy, going out and investigating, trying to find their email address sometimes by looking through the system. But now as we train new people, that's one of the things right on the form: "Key things we need: we're going to need your email address." It's much better than it was initially. Almost all the new people training as Eucharistic ministers, lectors, or altar servers have an email address. Some people even bought new computers to have quicker access to their emails and everything else. The amount of people that don't have it is dwindling slowly but surely. Max: What do you see as the biggest obstacle deterring people from participating in the liturgical ministries?Joe: Time constraints, work constraints. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth to get people to feel like they're part of a community and to want to come forward. I guess I found, Max, that the biggest way of getting people more involved is to personally ask them -- not just to put an announcement in the bulletin, not just to send an email, but to actually go out and say, "Hey, I think you'd be a good lector or a good Eucharistic minister, and I would encourage you to come to one of the classes." That's the best way I've found. You're going to get some people that just don't want to participate. They just want to come to give a few hours on Sunday afternoon and just go home and not participate. Those kind of people, I don't know how you could ever stir them up. But there are a lot of people out there that would like to do things and are just waiting to be asked. I've always found that personal invitation worked wonders in getting people to get involved in some kind of traditional ministry in the parish. A lot of people do a lot of good things. They are involved with sports, coaching, teaching and working with our children. So it's not only liturgical ministries. Everyone has gifts from God. You see the gifts and you affirm those gifts and invite them come forward and share them with the community. I'm sure a lot of people are just waiting to be asked. Max: Would you say using MSP has affected participation in the liturgical ministries?Joe: I don't know if I could pinpoint whether using MSP has caused people to participate more, but I think certainly it has helped the people that are participating by letting them know their schedules and making it as easy as we can on them. Especially getting subs, that was always a big problem for people. The way we get subs now is we're having them just send a request in and then we broadcast that to all the ministries that they want a sub for. It saves them a lot of time. They really love our sub system, because it takes a lot of time on the phone, calling one after another, to find someone to sub for them. So it may help us to keep some of the ministers we have because they can find subs easier. The other thing I would say MSP has helped a lot in is that we can provide for the special cases that each minister may have. If a minister can only make one particular liturgy on the weekend because of work constraints or children or whatever, we can accommodate them. For example, I've had a couple people say that they were going to resign because they couldn't commit to the various schedules of the liturgies. But if we can assign them to one particular liturgy then they would stay on. And so, we can do that. We can say, "Fine! That would work, you can stay on. We'll just give you the 9:30 Mass every week." That's what MSP handles with no problem. A big benefit to us is to be able to accommodate our ministers and help them meet their commitments. Its funny, because on the one hand when when you're inviting someone to minister, they should feel that they're serving the parish and the community and they shouldn't put a lot of constraints on when they want to serve. But on the other hand, if it helps someone to stay on and be able to continue to minister, then we're all for it. We'll do that for them. To be able to provide for the different schedules that people have -- that's a big benefit that MSP provides. Max: Great. Thanks so much for your time Joe and for participating in this case study.Joe: No thank you guys. You've helped so many people already. I'm proud to be associated with MSP. We invite you to View a demonstration of MSP, or Print out some information to share with your church. |
