Connecting Mercy Hill on The City

In a day and age when connecting is harder than ever, ironically, it has become more important than ever.

Over the past few months, Mercy Hill's community has been slowly implementing tools to make connecting easier through an online connection space called The City.

What is The City?  The City is the online community we're implementing for Mercy Hill. It is an excellent tool for church plants designed by some people who are part of our church planting network, Acts 29, and sold to Zondervan (the Bible people).  

Click here to visit The City's public "plaza" for Mercy Hill. (You can also find a link to this in the nav bar to the right.) From this page, you can open a page with a form that enables you to join The City.

Before you join--or if you're reluctant to do so, I want to explain some of the benefits that The City provides to our church plant.

So, below, I'm going to talk about (1) easier communication connections; (2) an online church membership directory; and (3) serving one another. 

Easier Communication Connections

From the time our launch team started meeting I realized the importance of communication for our growing group to stay connected.

But, knowing the importance of communication is different from implementation; and implementation is much harder.

For example, keeping people who visit once or twice in the loop to promote their ongoing involvement is pretty important.

The City provides an always up to date forum for communications for our church.

You get to choose what groups you are (or wish to be) a part of. You determine how you receive information and updates on the activity of that group. You can even have the group’s schedule exported to your calendar.

The leader of the group is then relieved of the responsibility to cut-and-past a list of email addresses for group communications. Plus, there are built-in features within groups of the City that allow you to keep the group current about how to contact you. All in one place.

An Online Church Directory

As our church grows, we will meet people and want to remember their name, their children’s names, what they look like, when their birthday is, where they live/what their contact information is, and how they are able/willing to serve.

Some or all of these features have traditionally been included in “church directories.”

With a church directory, you can find out that person's name you forgot.  You can see what their childrens' names are.  You can get the phone number and address (if they have them visible). 

With The City, you can do all that.

What does it look like? 

Well, suppose you lost track of my children’s names—not an easy task!  Or maybe you wanted to know how to get in touch with me.  Maybe you just want to know what I've been up to.  When you go to my profile on The City this is what you'll see... (look to the image on the right.)

A screenshot of Phil's profile on The City Notice you can grab my phone number, my address, or the birthday of my oldest daughter (which is next week, by the way...)

All this info can be selected to be visible, or not--and again, it is all in one place.  

Serving Others

Let's say you're not electronically, digitally, technologically, or otherwise inclined.

I get that. But as a human being, and as a person who's part of this church, I know you're excited about serving other people, and helping me, as the pastor, serve well in this community.

A fellow church planter (who also uses The City with his church plant) has observed that many churches spend lots of time, money, and energy keeping track of the people who are part of the church and their contact information.

While we may need to invest in something like that in the future, for now, The City gives you the ability to keep track of your information.  

For example, whenever you update your profile, it ensures that everyone you're "friends" with in the City have the most current contact info for you.

This is how The City functions as our church databse for our members, frequent visitors, and first time visitors.  

 Who should join The City?

• Members - If you're a member of Mercy Hill's launch team, or call Mercy Hill your church home, you should join The City.
• Frequent Visitors - If you're a frequent visitor of one or more meetings that Mercy Hill hosts, then you too should join The City.
• First Time Visitors - While we may still use visitor cards, what we really want you to do is join The City

Who shouldn't join The City?

• Children under 13 
• Someone who does't physically attend Mercy Hill - what sets The City  for Mercy Hill apart is that it connects people who are physically a part of this community. (Note: if you want to see what's happening in The City but aren't local, then I recommend checking out The Plaza, the public web space for The City at Mercy Hill.)

Ready, Set, Join...

Now that you're ready to join—and remember that we're looking for 100% participation—this is all you have to do:

1. Visit our online sign-up form here. 
2. Provide a unique email address.
3. Set your profile and personal information, including a picture of yourself, in the "settings" section (upper right hand corner of the screen, in blue)
4. Once you've updated your personal info and settings, click "groups" to the left and join the group, "Learning the City." Here, you'll find notes, ideas, and tutorial videos showing you how to use The City.

Meanwhile, if you have any questions, you can email Scott Leary at scottleary79 at gmail dot com.