Pastor Van has served your church for ten years and now he has taken a call to another church.  What are some of the administrative details that need to be covered at this time of departure?  Typically there are keys to return for the building, expectations to clarify if the pastor was living in a parsonage, and vacation and benefit coverage issues.  In addition, churches must also think about computer accounts. What does your church need to think about regarding closure of computer accounts?

The denominational office has some procedures that may be useful to churches.  If I adapt them for the church setting, these would include:

Email:

1. Ask the employee to go through his/her email and delete any non-vital email.  Any vital or important email items should be forwarded or moved to another designated person.
2. Back up any employee created or shared address books that the church will need or continue to use.
3. Decide what should be done with email still coming in addressed to the former employee--nothing, or reroute to a designated person (max 1 month).

Files: 

Nonvital files should be deleted.  Any important files that the church will continue to need should be moved to a designated drive and/or available to the designated individual. 

Do you have any other additions for the IT closure list?