Creating and managing groups

Groups are the smaller circles inside your church — a women's Bible study, the worship team, a young-adults ministry, the prayer team. Each group has its own discussion feed where members post, reply, and share photos, and you decide who can join and who can see it. You'll find them under Groups in the admin sidebar. Only admins create groups; members join the ones you open up.

Creating a group

Click New group and fill in a short form:

• Name — what the group is called (up to 80 characters). This is how it shows up everywhere.
• Description — an optional line or two about who the group is for and what it does. It helps members decide whether to join.
• Icon — pick from a set of friendly icons (a heart, a Bible, a coffee cup, music, and more). There's no cover photo to upload — the icon and a tinted tile are the group's look, which keeps the directory clean and fast.

The two settings below the basics — who can join and whether it's listed — are the ones worth a moment's thought. They're covered next, and you can change either one later by editing the group.

Open or closed: who can join

Every group is either open or closed.

• Open — anyone in your church can join with a single tap, and members can post to the feed right away. Best for groups you want easy to walk into: a general announcements group, a newcomers' circle, a church-wide ministry.
• Closed — joining takes a request that you approve. The discussion feed is members-only, so nobody outside the group can read what's posted. Best for groups that should be a bit more private: a leadership team, a care or counseling group, a small accountability circle.

You can switch a group between open and closed later by editing it.

Listed or hidden: who can find it

Separate from joining, a group is either listed or hidden:

• Listed ("List in directory" — on by default) — the group appears in the Discover section when members browse Groups, so they can find and join (or request to join) it on their own.
• Hidden — the group doesn't show up for anyone who isn't already in it. Use this for a group you want to keep off the directory and bring people into yourself.

The two choices combine however you need: a listed-open group anyone can find and join, a listed-closed group anyone can find and request, or a hidden group only your existing members see.

Managing members

Open a group and go to the Members tab to see everyone in it. From here you can remove anyone who shouldn't be in the group — they lose access to the feed immediately. Members can also leave on their own, so the roster generally takes care of itself.

Approving requests

For closed groups, a Requests tab shows everyone waiting to join. For each person you can:

• Approve — they're added to the group and can see the feed and post right away.
• Decline — the request is dismissed.

Open groups have no Requests tab — there's nothing to approve, since anyone in the church can join them directly.

Moderating the discussion

Inside a group, the Posts tab shows the same discussion feed members see — posts, their single-level replies, and any photos. Members write the posts; your job is to keep it healthy. You can remove any post or reply in the group, not just your own (removing a post also removes its replies). A short confirmation guards against accidental deletes.

Members can post a short message, attach one photo, and reply to each other; replies are a single level deep, so conversations stay easy to follow. There's nothing to set up — the feed is ready as soon as the group exists.

Announcing to a group

When you have news for just one group rather than the whole church, you don't post it in the feed — you send an announcement to that group. In the announcement composer, choose A group as the audience and pick the group; only its members are emailed and notified. For the full flow, see Sending announcements.

Deleting a group

Editing a group lets you change anything — name, description, icon, open/closed, listed/hidden. Deleting a group is different: it removes the group along with its membership and its entire discussion feed (posts and replies), and it can't be undone. If a group has simply run its course, deleting it is the clean way to retire it — but if you might want it back, consider hiding it instead.