By Cheryl Statham, member of Prince of Peace, Johnsonville, and the Worship and Spirituality Ministry Team

(Part 1 of 2 articles; look for Part 2 in the October issue of Partners in the Spirit)

So you’re thinking about setting up a computer room to use with your Sunday school?

At first look, this is not a bad idea. Children today are familiar with using personal computers (PCs) and there are some great multimedia programs that can excite the students into learning their lessons. But be careful — there are pitfalls along the way.

The first task is to find a room that can be locked and that has permanent walls.

The second task is getting the PCs. Most churches decide to ask the congregation to make donations of their old PCs. While this is the inexpensive way to start, many of the best Sunday school programs require a PC with at least 400 Megahertz (MHz) operating speed, 64 megabytes of random access memory (RAM), a CD-ROM player, 16 megabytes of video RAM, and a sound card. Many of the PCs that will be donated will not meet all of these specifications. Don’t be afraid to turn down a computer if it is too old.

Another challenge will be purchasing the operating system (OS). While the donated PCs will no doubt come with an operating system already installed, you will want all your PCs to have the same operating system so they are easier to support and maintain. We chose to load Windows 98 Second Edition on all our Sunday school computers. This alone cost the congregation almost $500.

However, the most important requirement is a technical person who will maintain and upgrade the PCs of your Sunday school. The PCs that you get will need to have the new operating system installed, needed hardware added, Sunday school programs installed, and the PCs repaired quickly if something goes wrong (remember, no lesson can be learned on a broken PC).

This is not a job everybody can do. Ideally, a congregational member who is a computer professional will volunteer to do it, but that is not always possible. Make every effort to find this kind of technical person in-house, because it will cost at least $50 an hour if you have to pay an outside person. Many churches will find it expensive just to pay for the hardware upgrades that will be needed. Our church has spent over $1,500 for hardware over a two-year period to update our Sunday school computers.

You can save money by putting off purchases of printers (which we have done) and not getting an Internet connection for the Sunday school. Our PCs only run software from the company/website, http://www.sundaysoftware.com. We have invested about $500 in software for the students and are very careful in checking what hardware specifications are needed to run new software we are considering. This helps us keep costs and upgrades down to a minimum.

Our church currently has eight PCs for the Sunday school students to use. Not all of them can run all the software we’ve purchased but most of them can. We’re proud we can offer the students another method of learning. However, before you start working on your own computer room, make sure you have some dedicated (and technically capable) volunteers to get and keep it up and running.

Want to learn more?

Contact Cheryl Statham at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church, PO Box 69, Bangor PA 18013.