I am pleased to report that Church Community Builder (CCB) is now fully up and running for Church Requel! I sent an email to everyone in our church providing you a login and password. I encourage you to login and check it out! If you didn't receive your login email or you need assistance, email me.
I didn't write in this space all day yesterday, because I dedicated myself to completing the setup work for CCB. It involved much detailed data entry. You might want to know why this is such a big deal. Why would I dedicate an entire day to making this happen for our brand new church?
First and foremost, CCB will make community more of a reality. It will fast forward relationships. Think about it. If you come to church for an hour each week and the vast majority of that time is spent either in worship or in listening to the sermon, you won't have much time to get to know people. We spend a lot of time at Church Requel right now in fellowship time before and after the services. I hope that never changes. Still there are people who might not be as outgoing or who might not be able to stay as long. But if they visit Church Requel and they request a login and password to our online community, they can speed up the time it takes to get to know people. That means they will be more likely to come back!
Not only will CCB give you the ability to get to know people in our church, it will give you the opportunity to contact them and connect with them! Our online community is constructed in such a way that anyone who is part of it can email another person through the system. And here is the genius part - the email works without ever revealing the email address! So let's say that Tom becomes a part of our church, but doesn't know anyone. He finds out that Bob is works at the same plant he does and is also a skier. Tom can send a message through CCB to Bob. Bob receives the message in his email box. Cool!
Our new online community will be great for small groups and for ministry teams. If you and a few others decide you want to make a small group, we'll set up a group for you and add all your participants. Then you can message back and forth, calendar, and plan all within your group space in CCB. The only people who will see it are the people you have in the group who need to know.
Finally, CCB will provide a record of all of your financial contributions to Church Requel. Already you have been INCREDIBLY GENEROUS to us financially. Thank you! Along with financial contributions comes our responsibilty to report your giving to you. You now have the ability to log into your financial contribution statement any time you want to do so. This is set up and running now! Go ahead. Log in and check it out.
I know for many of you this is a brand new thing. Some are just now coming into the computer and Internet age. I'll be more than happy to guide you through this great new system. It's easy to learn and will be so beneficial for you and for the entire church!
