scheduling ministries not tied to a worship service time?

[Sondra Griner]

Scenario: We have two Sunday morning worship services. Our vestryperson of the week needs to unlock the building prior to the early service and lock up following the late service. They are then available to serve in other ministries during their preferred worship service. We need more ministry volunteers, so we really need to schedule them in one of the other ministries.

Problem: Today, I artificially assign “Vestry” to our late service because you can't schedule without a service time. On MSP this has the effect of blocking automatic scheduling of that person to a ministry at the other service as an usher, reader, etc. even though the two ministries are perfectly compatible, and that person might prefer to attend that service.

How do you recommend I schedule ministries that don’t happen at a specific service?

I wish there was a way to schedule a person for the date, but not a specific service.

I have the same issue for Altar Guild. At our church, we set up the altar on Saturday and then serve Sundays between services and after the late service. Altar Guild doesn’t happen during the services, and we could reasonably do other ministries during the service.

[enwi...@gmail.com]

HI Sondra,

I use a broader definition of "services". I create "services" with individual ministries that involve tasks that are scheduled before or after our worship services. For example, we have a Gluten Free Communion Bread Baker whose "service" time is 30 minutes prior to the first morning worship service to make sure the communion bread arrives during communion set-up. Likewise, in winter we have a Snow Captain whose "service" begins 1 1/2 hours before the first worship service to make sure the entrances are snow-free and ice-free for adult and children's eductaion programs that happen before the worship services. 

Emily Wixson

Madison Christian Community

Madison , WI

[Charles Fulghum]

See if this might work.  Emily says she creates a service with tasks that are inferred to be daily tasks and that sounds great.  Now if some of the ministers who are in the daily service are also needed in individual services, there are two options that come to mind.  Preassignments will happily put the same person in all the Masses.  I use this for our Accompanist.  But if you want them only scheduled during the scheduler run then have you tried using the "This ministry may be scheduled in combination with..." option?  it's found here: Ministries -> <name of ministry> -> Edit Ministry... -> checkbox section bottom left and choosing that checkbox will open a new window allowing you to schedule ministries together with three options: together or not together or maybe together.  I use it when our collection counters also serve Mass.  This might get you what you're asking.

Hope this helps,

Charles

OLGC

Vienna VA