Welcome to the Guide, Let's dive in. I recommend using a computer to view this guide, while navigating the menu's from your phone.

At the bottom of the home screen of Church Center, you should see a "Groups" icon. Select it.

On the Groups page you will see "My Groups" which will navigate to a list of all the groups you are in.  "Interest Form" which is a guided way to help people find a group and let's the Discipleship Director be notified so they can guide them into finding a group. "Community Groups" which shows all open and available to join Community Groups. "Connection Groups" which shows all open and available to join Connection Groups. Below that is the weekly updated curriculum which will rotate each week. At the very bottom of this page is a button called "Leaders" which will take you to this guide.

When you click on "My Groups" you will have a list of all the groups you are currently in, select the one you lead.

This is the Groups home page which give a preview of your chats and upcoming events.  Select events.

This will display all upcoming events. To create a new event, select "Actions" and "New Event". Once created, these events will show up on your groups page.

Fill out the information as best you can.  If you are in need of a room reservation at Lakeland for your group, you will want to create these events first. As we will tie the room reservation directly to the group. To request a room, fill out this "Small Group & Ministry Room Request" form which can be found in the "Toolkit" on Church Center.

Once an event has nearly begun, you will get a notification on Church Center and an email asking you to take attendance. This is very important for the church. staff uses this data and cross references it with other data such as Serving attendance, Check-in and more. When humans are struggling their first instinct is to recluse, having these metrics help us identify people who may be struggling. Staff will be notified when someone has stopped participating in these metrics and lets us identify steps in assisting them.

Resources is the next tab and this is a great place to link resources your group will be using in a recurring manner.  Such as a document, web page, or curriculum your group will access regularly.

Members tab will show who all is your group and information about them.  Don't be fooled by the "Add" button at the bottom. It just takes you to a QR code. The consistent method Lakeland uses for group leaders to add people is showing the potential members how to navigate to the group from the app and click "request to join group". Once someone selects that you will get a notification to add them. Before you add them, it is recommended to do a vetting process, you will have access to their personal information that was you can ensure it is a real person (not a bot) / appropriate fit for your group. This is important because if you get a randomly timed, unfamiliar request, it could be a scammer.

If you click on a Group member, this is how you can remove people, see their attendance history, see their phone number and email address (removed from example) and elevate them to take attendance on behalf of the leader.

The last section is the chat. We recommend as few threads as possible to keep Church Center a quality experience for all groups. Shown is an example of three threads that should cover most of your needs.

When you select a thread, you will notice at the top of the page next to "General" you will see a down arrow, if you select it, this will open up to options for this specific thread.

This is important to relay to your group members. Muting a thread will simply cause notifications for that thread not appear on your phone. Freezing the thread is a useful tool for leaders so they can reserve a thread for announcements and prevent others from flooding the thread.

For additional needs such as changing someone to a Leader, Adding a picture, or updating your group description, please reach out to the Discipleship Director.