☕🍩 Coffee/Fellowship – How do you schedule it?

[Krista Kutz]

Hi everyone,

Does your church serve coffee after Sunday services? ☕

At my parish, we recently added “Coffee & Donuts Fellowship” as its own ministry in MSP—alongside Readers, Greeters, etc. When I mentioned this to a neighboring church, they lit up and said, “We use MSP too, but never thought of scheduling coffee volunteers in it!”

So I wanted to bring the idea to this group:

• Does your church host a coffee/fellowship hour? Weekly, monthly, or just now and then?

• Has anyone else tried scheduling this in MSP?

Since MSP already helps with worship ministries, it could also help make fellowship easier. Look forward to hearing about your experience!

Warmly (like a fresh mug),
Krista

Krista M Kutz, MDiv
Rotunda Software

[Violette DeSantis]

Both of our services host coffee hours. We use the auto-scheduler for the 10am service but our 8am service goers prefer a manual sign-up. I still have the ministry in the system for that service but I add them manually after they sign up so they can get reminders and at least use sub feature if they need to. 

[Gail Assenmacher]

Good Afternoon.

We have been using MSP to schedule both our Pizza & Pop (1st Saturday of every month) and Coffee & Donuts every weekend after 2 Masses.    For Coffee & Donuts, we also schedule donut pickup people and set up people.  We have been doing this for a few years now.  It works well since people are familiar with MSP.

Gail Assenmacher

    St. Joseph Church

   3430 Dover St.

   Dexter, MI 48130

   (734)426-8483

   www.stjos.com

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[Ginger Bitikofer]

We are scheduling our Coffee Hour volunteers using MSP starting this month (fellowship after 3 services), for the first time this Sunday!

 

I appreciate the notes you all are sharing, with what has worked for you, especially Violette’s note about the early service members preferring to sign up themselves.

 

Ginger Bitikofer

(she/her)

Associate for Congregational Life & Membership

216.774.0407

trinitycleveland.org

2230 Euclid Ave. | Cleveland | Ohio | 44115

 

 

 

 

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[Alicia Sturdy]

I'm the coffee hour volunteer and scheduler at my church, so I couldn't resist chiming in!

We host a weekly coffee after the service, and I manage the schedule quarterly. We do self-signup the two features that have contributed most to the success is automatic reminders and sub requests. I include the pastor's cell phone number in the auto reminder in case they want to coordinate ahead of time to set up the percolators mid-week and have the pastor plug them in on Sunday morning, along with any other information they might need if they encounter any issues with the setup.

We've been using this scheduling method since January (before, it was pen and paper, which of course falls apart as soon as something changes). I sign up for the empty Sundays after my volunteers have claimed the spots they want first. I have to say, I don't need to sign up for many Sundays anymore because my volunteers take as many shifts as they can!

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Alicia Sturdy
Marketing Specialist
(415) 513-5852

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/using-ministry-scheduler-pro/CALqXo8NCxqfJow94xohwz8ZawBFqVCaPKc6dWCwajGTtm4hYxQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Christine Warloski]

We have hospitality (coffee and fellowship) after every mass. I have it set up as a ministry so people are scheduled with all of other ministries. I then go in and manually edit them to make sure no one got scheduled too often as it is a big job. 

The downside is that our hospitality ministers are often teams of families, whose members do other ministries. it's hard to schedule them as if the team is listed as belonging to one of the families, the members often get overloaded with ministries that conflict for that mass. There is no way to prevent one member of the family being scheduled for greeter for example and the team scheduled for hospitality, even though those two ministries can't be done together. If I don't include the team as belonging to a family, they will often be scheduled for back to back masses. so it requires some manual adjusting for the ministry no matter how I set it up. 

[enwi...@gmail.com]

I have been scheduling our coffee "maker" for several years as part of our Sunday MSP schedule. The coffee maker duties include coffee cup clean-up following services.

And here is a fun, "non-service" service we schedule seasonally (mid-November to early April): Snow Captain. We have a snow removal service the clears the parking lot and entrance, but sometimes they come very early in the morning, and the entryway needs a little clean-up and de-icing before services. Our snow captain arrives a little before our coffee maker arrives to make sure the entryway is cleared for everyone.  Our snow captain volunteers know to check the weather early before they make the trip to church. 

We also schedule a Gluten Free Communion Bread Baker separately from worship service volunteers. We schedule the GF bread to arrive about 45 minutes before services begin.

Emily Wixson

Madison Christian Community

Madison, WI

[George Bounacos]

We made a ministry called Java Junction and split it into three sub-ministries: Brewing [coffee], Host, and Clean Up. There are some people who only want to do one or two of these things, and it's the perfect solution for them. 

The same person in our church also runs our Bee Ministry to save the planet and harvest delicious honey. Those are split into task groups as well: Inspecting Beekeeper, Apprentice, Sugar Water, Shed Manager/Safety Captain, Equipment Building. 

This system works well for us to keep everything in the same group but account for different skills and preferences.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/using-ministry-scheduler-pro/41ea4b2d-446c-4e92-87cf-ff2ba18e5c4cn%40googlegroups.com.

[Krista Kutz]

This is wonderful! 

I’ve loved reading through these creative ways you are using MSP to support so many ministries. From Coffee Hour and Donut Pickup to Java Junction to Snow Captains to Bee Ministry—it’s inspiring to see your examples of how flexible MSP can be for fellowship and hospitality.  ☕🍩⛪ ❄️ 🐝

So grateful for this community and all of the ideas you share. Keep up the great work!

Warmly,
Krista

[Ginger Bitikofer]

George:

 

That’s a clever idea, to split up the sub-ministries, maybe worth copying. Thanks for sharing.

 

We have another ministry, our weekly hot lunch program, for which we schedule volunteers according to their time availability— if they are available in the morning, they prep for the meal-- and if they are only available later, they can provide kitchen support during the meal and clean-up afterwards.

 

Ginger Bitikofer

(she/her)

Associate for Congregational Life & Membership

216.774.0407

trinitycleveland.org

2230 Euclid Ave. | Cleveland | Ohio | 44115

 

 

 

 

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/using-ministry-scheduler-pro/CAKSN7AicvyVJmakA5vO0hrLiEMrVk5jLV1ssXn%2BbQxT-A91q2g%40mail.gmail.com.