An Overview of the Groups Module

Get organized with the Church Social Groups Module.

Within each congregation you can find a vast number of different groups. These include bible studies, clubs, teams, committees, small groups, and more. Church Social helps groups get organized and communicate more easily online.

Some features of Church Social Groups are:

Create a directory listing of all your church's groups.
Send messages to groups.
Setup group schedules.
Share files for a specific group.

Group Settings

Church Social Groups can have the following settings configured.

Name: Here you can set the name of hte group. If the group is not set to Private this name will appear in the Group directory for all congregation members.

Administrators: Each Church Social group can be configured so that one or more group administrators who can manage the group settings. For example the leader(s) of a Bible Study can manage which congregation members are part of the group.

Access: Some groups allow the administrators to manage whether group membership is Open, Invite-Only or Private

Open - The group and group membership is visible in the Group directory and any member of your congregation can add themselves to the group.
Invite-Only - The group and group membership is visible in the Group directory and only the group administrator(s) or the church social administrator(s) can add members to the group.
Private - The group name is visible in the Group directory but the list of members is hidden. Only the group administrator(s) or the church social administrator(s) can add members to the group.

Types of Groups

Church Social has a number of different group types available. These groups have different purposes and capabilities as you can see in the descriptions below:

Bible Study

This group type is intended for Bible Studies in the congregation.

Access Options: Open, Invite-Only, Private

Club

This group type is intended for any types of clubs in the congregation.

Access Options: Open, Invite-Only, Private

Committee

This group type is intended for church committees. The group can share files in the files module and this way your congregation can see who is on the committee.

Access Options: Invite-Only, Private

Office Bearer

This is a special group type in Church Social. Members of these groups must be configured with either the Elder, Deacon or Pastor office-bearer role. Each group allows you to select which of these roles become members of the group. One benefit of this feature is that once the administrator updates a member to the Deacon role, this member is automatically part of the appropriate groups.

Small Group

This group type is intended for the small groups that many congregations divide their members into. This group type allows all congregation members to see which who is part of their small group.

Access Options: Invite-Only

Ward, District or Shepherding Group

Many congregations allocate their congregation members to elder wards for oversight. This Church Social group allows you to set the name of your shepherding groups in the Group Settings Page and for the Church Social Administrator or Statistician to allocate congregation members and office-bearers to each group.