Information Technology

In fall of 2007 Information Technology and Web Services of the General Council Offices conducted an online survey to collect information about technology being used in United Church congregations.

Summary of Survey Results

• 980 Pastoral Charges responded to the survey
• 45% of the pastoral charges that responded have website
• 54% of these pastoral charge websites are updated weekly
• 69% of these websites are updated/maintained by a volunteer and 17% by the minister
• Most congregations have an e-mail address for the church and a different one for the minister (63%)
• There is potential for 73% of the pastoral charges to consider taking part in nationally hosted web system.
• 115 churches who participated in the survey have no computers (13%)
• 73% of the church offices/administrative staff have a computer
• 65% of the ministers have a computer
• 18% of the churches have computers for video or slide presentations
• 90% of the churches have internet access (69% high speed, 21% dial-up)
• 90% of the churches use anti-virus and/or firewall software with Norton Anti-Virus being the most popular (38%)
• 89% of the churches use Microsoft Outlook or Entourage or Outlook Express for e-mail
• 91% of the churches use Internet Explorer as a web browser
• 64% of the churches password protect member’s information
• 63% of the churches are not networked
• 87% of the churches have Adobe Acrobat Reader
• 69% of the churches have Windows Media Player
• The most popular software used was Microsoft Office (64%) and WordPerfect Office (19%)
• A variety of church and financial management software is used – 16% Simply Accounting and 16% Quickbooks
• Most people had never visited the technology area of our website (71%) until now!

Note about multi-point charges

For charges that share technology equally between points (projection equipment, Minister’s laptop, etc.), the same information for each congregation was input where there was overlap.  We were looking for what technology charges have access to, not just what was physically located at each charge.

Questions or problems?

Want more information?  Please e-mail the webmaster.