One of the major challenges we’ve faced as we work to re-merge our congregations is our use of different communication platforms. Right now, 2 Pillars Near South uses a tool called The City while 2 Pillars Northeast uses Church Community Builder (CCB).
This all changes next week as both congregations will be moving to a new platform called Realm.
Don’t Miss Your Realm Invitation
Invitations to Realm will go out on Monday or Tuesday of next week. You’ll want to make sure you don’t miss this!
Before then, please log into your City and/or CCB account and update your email address. This is the address to which your Realm invite will be sent, so make sure it’s an email account that you actually check regularly.
If you have both a City and CCB account, your invite will be sent to the address attached to your City account.
A Note to City Users
Realm is a product from the same company that owns The City. Essentially, it’s a new platform that leverages what they’ve learned since they acquired The City from Zondervan in 2011 as well as features and functionality from some of their other products.
When you log in for the first time, you’re going to notice that Realm has a familiar look and feel. I think you’ll find that most of what you’re looking for (messages, groups, giving, etc.) is, more or less, in the same place. There are many features that have been brought over from The City, some that didn’t make the cut, and still others that are completely new. I’ll do my best to highlight the most important changes over the next couple weeks.
One of the benefits of moving from The City to Realm is that much of our data will be automatically transferred over to Realm: profiles, family, groups (though discussion threads will not transfer), giving history, and online giving information (including recurring online giving). If you already have a City account, then setting up your Realm account will be very simple.
A Note to CCB Users
If you’re a CCB user, I think you’ll find Realm to be a pleasant change. The interface is simple and intuitive and, unlike CCB which is built primarily for leaders, Realm is designed to serve the average church member and make communication with others simple and easy.
Also, did I mention that Realm has a mobile app?!
Unfortunately, if you give online to 2 Pillars Northeast (through our provider, Pushpay), your giving will not be automatically transferred. You’ll need to set up online giving through Realm after you create your account. We’ll post more information about this next week.
Finally, most of the groups that you are in on CCB will be replicated on Realm.
Stay Tuned
I’ll continue to post more information here about Realm over the next several days.
I’ll also start a thread on both The City and CCB where you can post any questions that you might have. Please let me know there how we can help make this transition as smooth as possible for you.