The Computer Ministry team was founded in 1998 specifically to develop and maintain the Church Website and upgrade the in-house Computer Network. Work began on the website in December 1997 and has evolved into the current configuration. Recent additions have been in the area of Christian Education with automatic posting of the CE quarterly newsletter; dynamic pages for determining when a small group has the responsibility for the Wednesday Night Supper; the site is now searchable; Sermon index; and dynamic pages for selected First Press articles (currently only for Homeless Ministry team.) The website currently consists of 68 main pages; 16 Documents and articles; and about 100 images. Sermons will be posted on the website as they are transcribed and become available to us. Currently the website is hosted on the ALLiance server.

Attention to the Church's in-house computer network began in August 1998 and resulted in acquisition and installation of a Win NT based server with 4x, mirrored, data storage of the old server; installation of a new high speed HP LJ4000 Laser Jet printer; installation of a ADSL for internet access; upgrading a 486 machine to P-166mHz server quality machine for use as a proxy server on the ADSL line; installation of two new and one used P-233 machines at strategic locations. All with 17" monitors and 64mB ram; upgrade of an additional 486 to P-133mHz in another location; upgrading network components to 3Com, 10base T, NICs and three, 8 port, workgroup managed network hubs. All machines are running Win95 OSR 2.1. Word Perfect is used for word processing and Paradox is used for the relational database software.

In March the Computer Ministry team wrote a report on the "Vision of Computing at First Presbyterian Church" to serve as a guide to Session in planning the computing budget.

Plans for the Church's in-house computer network include but are not limited to upgrade one 486 machine to P-233 for use in the office; upgrade two 486 machines, one for use in the Living Room and the other in the Library (both with internet access); Installation of MS Exchange on the server for internal email and scheduling of Church resources; Aquisition and Installation of a scanner and color printer on the Library computer.