Of the many aspects of understanding and using technology in our communities, the function of IT administrator seems to be the most common role and perception of people involved. And indeed, this is an important role in the respect that there are several systems to which many communities will use to engage church (Sunday) or church (administrative and missional) activities.

IT Administrator is a very over-arching term. Depending on the needs of a community, IT Admin can be the person who runs the website, sets up and runs audio and video facilities, strategically plans and teaches pastors and administrators how to use their personal tech tools in the ministry, fixes the hardware and software for all of the above scenarios, or is the person that does all of the above.

In this viewpoint, IT is a bit like glue. Not the only glue, but a piece of glue that’s sometimes not quite well understood. This person (or small team) can be relied on for a lot, but their technical nature, and probably more logical leanings, might lend these people, and their gifts, to being unattached to the fellowship time. Unfortunately, what happens with many of these gifted persons is that they end up fellowshipping with screens, instead of with the rest of the community.

This is one of the challenges towards MMM’s participation locally with the Lausanne event; there’s a need to display some strategic aptitude towards using computer tech to stitch many communities together, but to do so in a way that promotes the use of IT in ways that doesn’t encourage burnout. With IT being such an unchartered territory for so many community and church leaders, it is very easy to promote an attitude of “let me just do this” (view), instead of “let me teach how this works” (glue). However, the approach should never be to enable dependent reactions. The gift that is IT means that we get to be the glue in some settings, but also another view of the Spirit’s leading and developing of the Body.

Eventually, there are some people who will rise to the top of various communities with an understanding of several areas of IT engagement. Some of these people will even expose innovative approaches to modern and traditional tools. It’s this kind of environment that we’d want to see happen (and it takes some time). It starts with perception. Leaders, IT-centric folks, and even people in other groups within the same organization have to take on the approach that no one part of the Body is less needed than another part. And that there’s value in all of our gifts as we come to the table, even those who come to the table more inclined to beep and do than to be seen.