Connecting with Our Online Community: Realm

Realm is a service provided to our members that allows you to stay connected with your small groups, your committees, and the church staff. It works kind of like Facebook Groups, except it has nothing to do with Facebook. On Realm:

You can see everyone in each of your groups
You can contact them by phone or email or chat
You can post announcements to your group
You can create events and send reminders

And the best part: you can keep your own contact information up to date, and you can set your own privacy levels for that information.

About Privacy

You have complete control over who can see your contact and personal information.
Contact information is never public or searchable on the Internet. Any information you elect to make visible to your church family is always protected behind a login.
Authorized staff will always have access to your profile information.
You and certain authorized staff may update your profile information.
For safety reasons, sharing contact and personal information for children under 18 is limited. Parents determine whether or not to display their child’s name in the church directory.
Children under 13 may not participate and will not be able to sign in.

Using the Realm Website

When you visit the Realm website onrealm.org, and enter your login information (an invitation must be sent to you by the church to be able to log in), you will find the Community Menu--your anchor for our online community.

You'll only see things related to groups you're a part of. Think of "News" like a Facebook feed for all of your groups, "Inbox" like email just for church stuff, and "Chat" like a group message.

Learn more about the Events tab on our Member Calendar page.

Learn more about the Giving tab on our Online Giving page.

The Groups tab will list all of the groups you're a part of, and when you click on one, you'll be taken to a page with everything you need to know about your group (see below).

The Directory tab will list everyone in all of your groups and anyone else that has given you permission to see their contact information.

Finally, the Pathways tabs will show you any special membership process you're a part of, something we will be building in the months to come.

Realm Groups

Your groups page will show you everything you need for your group. If someone has posted an announcement, it will show up here (these posts are private for your group). If there is a document you need for a Bible study or a meeting, it will show up here. You also have a list of all of the participants in your group--click on one and you'll see all of the information you're allowed to see about that person.

Setting Notifications:

Click on the three dots next to your group name, and you can set what kind of notifications you want to get.

The Files tab will show you any files special to your group, and the Info tab will tell you basic things about your group: leaders, meetings, and recent activity.

Setting Privacy and Updating Your Information

On the top-right of the website is a helpful menu. The icons take you to help pages. The Search will take you directly to people or groups you have permission see.

The icon with your name is very important. Click on that, and you will see a menu that gives you quick access to:

"My Profile" lets you update any information about yourself that you want the church to know.
"Manage Privacy" lets you control who in the church gets to see that information.
The other items are related to your user account for Realm.

Manage Privacy

Click on the three dots next to your group name, and you can set what kind of notifications you want to get.

What People May See

By default, the viewing of your contact and personal information is limited to members of groups you are in, group leaders, and staff members. If you choose to, however, you can make your information visible to the entire church. But if you prefer to be more private, you can customize how people see specific information.

Contact Information: Name, Address, Phones, and Email.
Personal Information: Marital Status, Family Position, Member Status, but you also have the option of sharing your birthday, gender, allergy information, and skills with people in your church.

Privacy Settings Options

Everyone—Like a church directory listing, everyone in our church will be able to see whatever profile information is marked as visible to everyone.
My Groups + Group Leaders + Church Staff (default) —This setting means information will only be shared with the people you are involved with at church ("Groups" includes Bible studies and committees).
Group Leaders + Church Staff—Only your group leaders and church staff can see your information.
Church Staff Only—This setting effectively removes you from the church directory. Your information will only be available to authorized church staff.
Custom Privacy—Choose different privacy levels for specific contact fields and personal information. You can do this in two places: when you edit your profile information or when you manage your privacy settings.

The Realm Connect App