Chicago Church Calls CTI Technology When Their IT Director Retired

IT Services For Churches Throughout The Chicagoland Area

The trend towards churches embracing technology has been inevitable. If you look as far back as a decade ago, you’ll realize that churches have been using various technologies such as microphones, sound machines, projectors, copiers, and fax machines to minister and serve their community and congregants.

That said, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic magnified the importance of technology for religious organizations. Today, churches have adopted more complex technologies to stay connected with their congregants through online streaming, empower church committees and management to attain responsible stewardship of funds, and provide church members with better education and assistance.

Given the increase in IT functions and how crucial they are to the seamless running of churches, many churches are shifting to outsourcing IT services rather than tasking parishioners with such tasks.

What Benefits Do Churches Get When They Outsource Their IT Services?

Here is an outline of the benefits that churches can get when they outsource their IT services:

1. Focus on Deliverables

For a church, this means spending more time attending to the congregants and the community and less time worrying about IT problems. When your IT infrastructure and computer system are under an IT expert’s watch, you’ll have more freedom to evangelize, mentor, disciple, and contemplate sermons.

2. Reduction in Overheads

The great thing with outsourcing IT services is you’ll only have to pay the percentage of an IT expert’s time that you actually need. Given that most churches don’t have the budget to keep an internal IT team, outsourcing is an excellent way of getting high-quality IT services at considerable rates.

3. Reduction in Staffing Hassle

The more staff you have, the more demanding it is to manage them. If you decide to keep an in-house IT department, you may have to deal with a myriad of HR issues that come along with having staff, such as negotiating wages, ensuring staff retention, continuous training of staff, among other things. Plus, there is also the issue with most churches being reluctant to fire staff (more so if they are parishioners) even if they are underperforming. When you outsource your IT services to a managed service provider (MSP), you can opt not to renew your contract with them if you aren’t happy with their services.

4. Access to Expert IT Professionals

By partnering with an outsourced IT provider, you are assigning your IT needs to a company that makes IT their core competency. MSPs work with a wide range of organizations and therefore keep abreast of many technological innovations for the industry they specialize in. As such, when you outsource their services, you are hiring big-picture thinkers who will help your religious organization keep up with emerging technologies and trends.

5. Availability of IT Personnel Whenever You Need Them

Reputable managed IT providers offer round-the-clock support plans. When you task parishioners to manage your IT functions, regardless of how awesome they are, they’ll have to take a break at some point for various reasons. When you outsource your IT services, you’re sure that your IT provider will be available to assist whenever you need them.

What IT Services Can CTI Technology Offer Chicagoland Churches?

Among the IT services that CTI Technology can offer churches include:

1. Managed IT Services

At CTI technology, we believe that technology can play a crucial role in helping churches reach, educate, serve, and assist their congregants. As such, we have put together a comprehensive suite of managed IT services that not only enables ministry but also promotes responsible stewardship.

With every managed service agreement, our church partners gain access to our team of IT professionals with experience and skills across a broad spectrum of technologies and platforms. These professionals will provide a wide range of managed IT services, including remote monitoring and management, onsite support, and helpdesk services.

2. Network Infrastructure Management

Robust and reliable network infrastructure is essential to enabling the ministry in today’s environment, especially considering the numerous software solutions and other applications that are delivered via the SaaS (software as a Service) model. Any delays or disruptions to your network infrastructure could impact your worship services and events and therefore limit your capacity to deliver ministry and serve your congregants and community at large.

3. Multi-Site Services

Today, most churches have more than one campus and some even preschools and kindergartens that are part of their organization. Churches can use these sites to expand and reach a larger portion of their local communities. Even so, they can only achieve this if their operations between the campuses are well-coordinated. CTI Technology can not only help you choose the right services but will also help you implement and monitor them. Among other things, we will provide you with a network architecture that spans numerous sites and also ensure that your system can accommodate your data sharing needs.

4. Cybersecurity and Content Filtering

Today, not even churches are spared from the predatory actions of cybercriminals. The increasing digital presence of churches has made them targets of cyberattacks. Apart from using phishing attacks, hackers use different attack techniques to cause mayhem and disruption in churches. We can implement robust security measures and protocols to help protect your organization from unauthorized access and ensure that unauthorized content such as pornographic videos or racist comments isn’t streamed through your network.

5. VoIP Phone Services

Churches are among the most connected organizations. As such, it is important that they utilize custom, flexible, and cost-effective phone systems to ensure connectivity throughout the organization.

With our VoIP phone services, we will customize your phone system to fit your organizational needs. Whether you are seeking a call answering voicemail system or an interface that shows your entire organization’s availability, our VoIP phone services can be your most valuable solution.

CTI Technology Provides Customized IT Support for Churches

We understand that churches don’t operate in a similar manner as corporate organizations. We also understand that you may have a limited budget. CTI technology will relieve you of the frustration of managing your IT infrastructure so that you can focus on ministering to your congregation, developing your staff, and fostering growth in your community. Contact us today to learn more about our IT services.