Introduction to Realm
St. Luke’s currently uses a record keeping solution called Realm. It primarily serves the administrative needs of our staff, but it also offers some exciting opportunities to support the way you are involved here.
As of October 9th, 2023, we will no longer use the separate platform, Instant Church Directory. Our directory will be housed within Realm. We are also using Realm (synced with Constant Contact) to deliver our weekly email newsletter.
Some of our members are already using Realm to track their online giving. Those that have never logged into to Realm will receive an email invitation on Monday, September 18th. In this email, you will be asked to log-in and create a password at www.onrealm.org.
Let's Connect!
Stay connected to our church wherever you go by downloading the free Realm Connect app for iPhone and Android devices. Use it to manage your giving, update profile information, and more. It makes it easier for us to connect throughout the week and know what's happening. You can also use the desktop version at www.onrealm.org
Links to the Realm Connect App
iPhone:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/connect-our-church-community/id1052274581?mt=8
Android:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.acstechnologies.android.realm.engagement
Update Your Profile
Everyone in our church gets a unique profile. Your profile contains everything you want people to know about you. Your profile also enables you to track your giving, update your contact information, change family details, set notification preferences, or replace that outdated family photo.
By keeping your information current, you are helping our staff, group leaders, and our church community. Your Profile includes:
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Contact Information* (e.g. name, address, email, phone)
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Photo
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Family Members
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Personal Information (e.g. marital status, birthday**, etc.)
*You can decide later what data you want to hide online by setting your privacy preferences.
**Feel free to enter your full birthday. The year and your age will not be displayed on your church directory profile.
Manage Your Giving
Review your giving history or make new donations online or on your mobile phone. Sign in to look over your year-to-date giving, check pledge progress, print a contribution statement, or make a new one-time or recurring donation. It's always available and kept secure in an online environment. Please see privacy details below.
Ways to Give:
No matter how you choose to give toward our ministry, you can review all of your giving history online anytime.
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Check or Cash
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Online Gifts (one-time or recurring)
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Text Giving*
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Pledges
*Requires a unique keyword for our church. Text [Stlukes] and amount to 73256 on your smart phone. So, to give $10, text Stlukes10 to 73256.
Notes About Privacy
Your Information is your Information
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You have complete control over who can see your contact and personal information.
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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.
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Authorized users (staff) will always have access to your profile information.
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You and certain authorized users may update your profile information.
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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.
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Children under 13 may not participate and will not be able to sign in.
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, users with permission, and administrators. 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.
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Contact information: Name, Address, Phones, and Email.
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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.
*If you are a group leader or host an event, certain contact information may be visible regardless of the settings you choose.
Privacy Settings
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Everyone— Like a church directory listing, everyone in our church will be able to see whatever profile information is marked as visible to everyone.
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My Groups + Group Leaders + Users with Permission— This setting means information will only be shared with the people you are involved with at church. This is the default setting.
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Group Leaders + Users with Permission— You would use this setting if you wanted to keep some profile information hidden from anyone who is not a group leader or a user with permission to view profiles.
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Users with Permission Only— This setting effectively removes you from the church directory. Your information will only be available to authorized users.**
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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.***
**While you can hide the majority of your information from most of your church, you should know that, regardless of your settings, contact data will still be visible to certain people who work in our church.
***The Directory page shows all individuals who have a login, along with individuals without a login who have been opted-in to the directory. Currently, individuals with a login cannot opt out of being listed in the directory.
Family Privacy
A family member with a primary position such as "Head" or "Spouse" can change privacy settings for other members of the family and opt family members into the church directory. Birthdays are required for children (as a means to prohibit access), but it's up to you if you want to share the birth date with your church family.
Privacy statement video from Realm: https://player.vimeo.com/video/176604542
For more details, please refer to Realm's Privacy Policy at: http://www.acstechnologies.com/company/privacy-policy
ACCESSING THE DIRECTORY IN THE APP:
Frequently Asked Questions about Realm
What is Realm?
Realm is an online ministry tool designed for real time connection. It helps our church connect with you and you connect with us. If you consider yourself part of this church family, you’ll love it. Realm allows you to manage your personal information and who is allowed to see it, control your giving, and keep in touch with the groups that matter to you.
What about my privacy?
Realm is safe, private, and secure.
Your privacy is one of our greatest concerns. Realm is only made up of the people in your church, it’s not like a social network that’s open to everyone. Realm keeps your data safe and gives you control over what information you share and who can see it.
What about giving?
Realm gives you control over your giving.
Giving should be easy, and Realm places giving right in the palm of your hands. You may set up recurring gifts, view your giving history, and make changes at any time. Realm automatically records all electronic gifts and adds them to your giving record making it easy for you to give, and easy for our bookkeeper to track.
How do I start?
Follow a few simple steps.
You will receive an email invitation to join Realm on Monday, September 18 if you have not already logged in. Follow the instructions in your email to set up your account.
If you haven’t received an invitation to join Realm yet, please contact Caroline Stephenson.
1. Once you’ve set up your account, you can download the mobile app called Realm Connect.
2. Your Realm login works on your home computer and on your mobile devices, so when you sign into Realm, use the login you created in step 1 for the computer or the app. Check to make sure that we have your address and other personal information entered correctly under My Profile. If anything is incorrect, you can change it.
If you have any questions, contact Caroline Stephenson at cstephenson@SLS.church or 704-633-3221 during office hours.
