Just came back from a great meeting with Father Michael Sorial and Makar from St. Mary & St. Anthony Coptic Orthodox Church in Queens, NY. They are a growing church interested in using technology to improve communications and efficiency. We discussed three projects to begin with:

  1. Telephone System - Currently they have no phone system in place, just a few analog lines placed throughout the facility. I recommend looking at using Asterisk. We use it as St. Mark’s as well as at Coptic Orphans. If you are in the market for a new phone system, I would highly recommend it. I’ll post more on using Asterisk soon.
  2. Web Site - They have a static HTML site right now, I recommend using a content management system such as Joomla, Drupal or Plone. We are currently using Joomla and while it is not perfect, we found that it does work pretty well.
  3. Church Management System - At St. Mark’s we depend on Fellowship One to manage congregation data, follow up with visitors, activities, contributions, and event registration. Tony Dye maintains a “watch list” of church management systems.

After our meeting, we attended their weekly prayer meeting. Father Michael began with sharing about about Luke 10:38-42, where Martha was distracted with much service and Mary was at Jesus’ feet. I love this passage, probably because it often is a much needed reminder. I know I get caught up with all the projects and work going on, but as Christ said in that passage, “But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part.” We have to make sure to spend that time daily at Jesus’ feet. The prayer meeting that evening was beautiful, I felt as though we truly has come together in one accord before God.