Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

If you're involved in diocesan work (or on staff, like me), then you spend a lot of time in your car, driving to meetings.

My diocese is about five hours long and three hours wide -- and we're one of the lucky ones. I know some of the western dioceses dream of such a short jaunt to diocesan house.

Someday I'll laugh at the irony that in more than 13 years of marriage, I've been the long-distance commuter. And I hate to drive. Thank goodness for cell phone plans with unlimited minutes and a headset.

Lately different groups that I support or boards that I serve on have been using technology to bridge geographic gaps. Today I spent 2 1/2 hours in an online meeting. Six of the participants sat in a conference room in Cincinnati, one sat in her home office in St. Louis, another awaited the 20-inch snow-pocalypse in Chicago. A third carved out time from his secular work in Virginia, a fourth bragged that it was always sunny and warm in Pittsburgh (Superbowl fever??), and I sat at my desk two hours away. Using a program called Webex (though there are other good and competitive companies offering similar services), we were able to view the strategic plans at the same time, make notes and highlight specific initiatives together. Instead of fumbling through a conference call where someone is always asking what page we're on, we were literally (virtually) on the same page.

Our diocese purchased a year subscription to the program for under $600. When I travel to diocesan house, it costs $120 in mileage reimbursement, plus my 4+ hours of driving time. I can't imagine what the travel expenses would have been for today's committee, had we not been able to meet virtually.

In-person meetings are vital, especially early in the formation of a board or commission, when folks are still getting to know each other and developing relationships. And it's important to continue to build that trust with periodic, in-person gatherings.

But technology today allows us to invite more people to the table -- instead of boards consisting primarily of early-retirees or white-collar workers who don't have to take vacation time to attend a meeting, we can include representation across more socioeconomic lines (provided they have a computer, which covers a majority of people these days). We can invite young mothers who can't spare five hours in the car for a two-hour meeting to virtually offer her input about Christian formation programs. We can extend membership to the second-shift worker willing to spend his late morning discussing new evangelism strategies.

I think this is an amazing new-ish tool that not only is a good stewardship of time and money but also has the ability to bring more people to the conversation.

What other tools are you discovering to help facilitate the ministry of the church -- and to strengthen the mission?