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Ministry Areas

The overarching organization of the group structure.

Ministry areas are the larger categories that your church sets up to organize your groups. Before adding groups, you must first set up ministry areas.

An example of a ministry area is "Worship". The "Adult Praise Team," "Youth Praise Team," and "Drama Team" are likely groups that would fall under that ministry area. Another ministry area might be "Music," with the groups "Choir," "Instrumental Ensemble," and "Women's Trio" underneath.

Each ministry area can be assigned a leader. A youth minister would be the typical leader of a "Youth" ministry area.

You will probably have some "nested" ministry areas, or ministry areas within other ministry areas. In the following example, each yellow box represents a ministry area. Those marked with a "1" are primary ministry areas. The numbers "2" and "3" are nested ministry areas.

In this video, we show you how to organize your ministry area structure.

Add a Ministry Area

Create your ministry areas.

Before adding groups, you must first set up ministry areas. Ministry areas can contain other ministry areas and groups.

  1. In the top-left corner, click your ministry hub then Realm. Then click Groups > Ministry Areas.
  2. To add a primary ministry area, click Add a Top Level Ministry Area. To add a new ministry area within an existing one, point to the ministry area, click the ellipsis icon, and select Add Ministry Area.
  3. Complete the fields.
  4. If you are finished and want to add another ministry area, click Save & Add Another.
  5. If you want to add Leader Positions and Attributes, you can do so on the ministry area's Info and Attributes tabs. These tabs display after you click Save. You can also add these by editing a ministry area once it's been saved.

In this video, we add a top level ministry area.

Ministry Area Setup Field Descriptions

Details about some of the fields you'll encounter when setting up ministry areas.

Ministry Area
This field allows you to move a sub-ministry area to another parent ministry area.
Leaders
The name of the ministry area leader. Examples could include your youth minister or music minister. Leaders of specific groups will be assigned later. This field only accepts the names of people who exist in your data. Once you begin typing, a list of valid individuals is displayed. Ministry area leaders can share resources with groups and, in the event that a group does not have a leader, automated emails regarding attendance will be sent to this person.
Include attendance data on dashboard

This option appears only when adding top-level ministry areas.

If selected, it will appear as an option when editing groups created in this area and its sub-areas. It allows:
  • a group's attendance to appear on the Attendance Dashboard
  • an individual's attendance for that group to appear on the Groups tab of their profile
  • a group's attendance numbers to be included when calculating involvement statistics on the Involvement Dashboard.

If not selected, the option will not appear on when adding or editing groups. Attendance for groups will not appear on the Attendance dashboard, on profile Groups tabs, or in involvement statistics.

Leader Positions
The leadership roles you want to assign in this ministry area. Examples could include Coach, Assistant Coach, Team Leader, Mentor, Prayer Leader, etc. Leader positions must be set up at a top-level ministry area. They can then be assigned at lower-level ministry areas. Leadership positions are managed on the Info tab of a ministry area.
Attributes
Specialty skills, traits, or roles exercised by individual group members. Examples could include Singer, Graphics Design Experience, Electrical Training, etc. Attributes must be set up at a top-level ministry area. They can then be assigned at the group level. Attributes are managed on the Attributes tab of a ministry area.

Edit a Ministry Area

Change a ministry area name, description or other information.

Ministry areas are the larger categories that your church sets up to organize your groups. Administrators can edit and make changes to ministry areas if needed.

  1. In the top-left corner, click your ministry hub then Realm. Then click Groups > Ministry Areas.
  2. Next to the ministry area you want to edit, click the ellipsis icon, and select Edit Ministry Area.
  3. Make your changes and save.

Delete a Ministry Area

Done with that ministry area?

Ministry areas are the larger categories that your church sets up to organize your groups. Administrators can delete ministry areas when they are no longer needed.

  1. In the top-left corner, click your ministry hub then Realm. Then click Groups > Ministry Areas.
  2. Next to the ministry area you want to delete, click the ellipsis icon, select Delete Ministry Area, and confirm.

View the Groups in a Ministry Area

See which groups belong to which ministry area.

Every group is a part of a ministry area. You can view this hierarchy on the Ministry Areas page. The number of sub-ministry areas and groups (active and inactive) are display beside the ministry area's name.

  1. In the top-left corner, click your ministry hub then Realm. Then click Groups > Ministry Areas.
  2. Click a ministry area name. If there are ministry areas or groups in it, they display below the ministry area you selected.
  3. To display any inactive groups within the ministry areas, select Show inactive groups.

Reorder Ministry Areas and Groups

You can move ministry areas and groups to reorganize them.

To move a sub-ministry area or group, navigate to the sub-ministry area or group to move, click it, then drag and drop it where you want. Keep in mind that you cannot drag and drop a top-level ministry area into another top-level ministry area. The order of ministry areas and groups on this page is mirrored wherever they are displayed in Realm.

Note:

Moving groups to a new top-level ministry area may affect the following:

  • Previous top-level ministry area attributes associated with group members will be deleted.
  • Previous top-level ministry area resources will be deleted from the group.
  • Check-in kiosks and attendance profiles may be affected, depending on how they were configured
  1. In the top-left corner, click your ministry hub then Realm. Then click Groups > Ministry Areas.
  2. Click the ministry area you want to move, then drag and drop the ministry area where you want.

Add a Resource to a Ministry Area

Share documents, links and other resources with a ministry area.

  • Administrators and users with responsibilities who have the Edit Group permission set to Allow can add resources.

If you have a resource, such as a document or link, that you want to share with an entire ministry area, you can do this on the ministry area page. Files cannot exceed 20MB.

You can add the following file types:
  • .xls
  • .xslx
  • .doc
  • .docx
  • .pdf
  • .png
  • .jpg
  • .jpeg
  • .mp3
  • .wav
  • .wma
  • .zip
  1. In the top-left corner, click your ministry hub then Realm. Then click Groups > Ministry Areas.
  2. Next to your ministry area, click the ellipsis icon, and select Manage Resources.
  3. Click Add Resource.
  4. Complete the fields, then click Save.