like a fire

Google Calendar has a lot to offer youth ministry in the way of letting the tool work for you. It can do your very basic calendar functions and is available from every computer, since it is online. The added features can also allow a depth of organization not found in many other calendars. Here are some ways that I use it to manage events, teams and small groups.

One of the best features of Google Calendar is its multiple calendar creation. You can create a personal calendar, event calendars, church calendars, youth ministry calendars and any calendar youth can think of. All calendars can then be color coordinated to differentiate them and they can be made visible or invisible. This is great for showing how you spend your time (you and others). I have a calendar for doing administrative work, for message prep and study, for my personal life group and for events. This helps me be more intentional in getting the right work done. If you believe in Parkinson’s Law (work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion), then this will help regulate that effect.

Another great feature of Google Calendar is that you can make calendars public and let others input dates. You don’t see it in the picture above, but you can create a small groups calendar that your leaders can update. I get calls from parents regularly asking where and when they kids small group meets. Having more than 30 or so of these small groups, it becomes unproductive to know all of those meeting times and places. I can either pull up the calendar and tell them, or I can just point them to the calendar and let them do it from then on. You can also link the calendar from the ministry site so that people can find their group themselves (again, and others can see how much discipleship is happening).

Event management is also great in Google Calendar. I make deadlines for the essentials and a list of who is doing what for each event. For example, who is booking the speaker for and event and when does that need to be completed, or when is the deposit due for the lodging of a retreat. Again, since you can make this public, you can assign tasks to people and see that they are done. They can even right notes on each posting and mark it complete or ask questions to a whole team at once.

Finally, one thing can suggest for working with staff is to print it out and hang it on your door or have it available for people to see when you will be in the office, or with kids and especially when you need to not be disturbed (my message prep time i pretty guarded).

That concludes my GYMD calendar edition. I hope this helps some of you. There is certainly more that can be done, so if I missed something that you do, please comment and let us all know.