Not sure how many responses you'll get with that broad of a subject. I'll share a few thoughts.

• Try to find a way to listen to the podcasts here. They are a little out-of-date (the first is almost 2 years old now), but still have a lot of good information about where to start. They were invaluable to me when I was in your shoes.
• Like you, I inherited my church's website and I've been slowly been learning Drupal for the past year with the intent to migrate to Drupal. That's not to say it's going to take most people that long. Part of it is my tendency to try an do too much in the first pass of a new project. Part of it is limited time. Part of it is getting distracted with other projects. Your mileage may vary.
• Drupal core is VERY easy to install and get up and running. There are lots of howtos online, but the basic install is: copy the latest tar.gz file to your host, unpack it, create the database, navigate to your site and follow the steps described there. You may run into some webhost-specific glitches along the way. If you do, Google is your friend.
• The biggest hurdle is getting familiar with the modules that have been written to add function to Drupal beyond what is provided in core. Core is very basic and most people will want to install several additional modules. Not only are there lots of modules out there, but there's always more than one way to skin a cat. It can be a little overwhelming.

I'd say the best thing you can do right now is simply find a quick tutorial on installing Drupal and play around.

There is a nice listing of video tutorials at http://feeds.feedburner.com/drupal-videos. This is an RSS feed roundup of drupal videos.

Thanks to you both. And Matt, my pastor and I will be attending the conference in February! (unless u plan on coming to NC sometime soon!)

You should check this out. I'm in Durham.

I blew a lot of time making sites and trying to get things to fit until I realized what flexinode/cck was for and then views. You can ignore the flexinode reference, it's just showing I'm an old drupal geek really and their for accuracy. CCK took it's place awhile ago. Anyway, learn CCK and Views, realize how they work with each other. Pick up the core taxonomy stuff and configuration settings. Learn the rest of the core system. Try not to focus on anything else for awhile. This will provide a foundational understanding that will make the rest of the modules much simpler to deal with, plus you can do a lot of what you want with nothing but those anyway. :-)

I regret that I was so unfocused when I originally started using Drupal. It really held me back.

Hey I'm all about a G&G conference in NC. I'd show up. I'm also a beginner drupal user. I've been playing around with WordPress mostly but I'll be using the tutorial.

I have redesigned the site a few times. Here is the latest www.foc4u.org
Of course, it's ALWAYS in progress!

Geeks and God Camp in NORTH CAROLINA!!!! 2010? 2011?

mfer - SheenaD lives here (she does a lot with core theming)

Hey Branjawn!

Sweet looking site!

Hey, thanks man. It's changing all the time. Even since you posted... I now have podcasts up and working using the Sermons feature.