One of the main benefits of using Church Center is the ability for leaders to easily communicate with Group members: weekend team, new Pescadores, the entire local community, Board or Secretariat members, Reunion Groups, or whatever other groups you lead in the SCTD community. There is no need to set up email distribution lists in your personal email program or use a third party program; simply click one button from within Planning Center/Church Center.
Chat or Email?
There are two ways to communicate with large groups through Planning Center: one-way email and two-way chat. Email is the tool for sharing information when you do not want a group conversation. Replies will be sent to the sender only (there is no “reply all.”) For situations that require a group conversation, Church Center Group Chat is the perfect solution. This post will focus on sending email through Planning Center Groups.
How to Send Email from Planning Center Groups
Sending email from Planning Center Groups:
- Log into Planning Center Groups
- Navigate to the Group, then select the Members tab
- Click on the mail icon.
- To send to everyone on the list, do not click any names.
- To send to specific people, put a check beside their names before clicking the icon.
- Verify your distribution list at the top.
- Type your message and add formatting and links as needed.
- Click “Send.”
Tip!
Select your name in Step 3 to send yourself a test message before you send to the entire group.
Make sure to test any hyperlinks from a private (or 'incognito') browser!
No Attachments! Share Documents in Group Resources
Sharing Documents
Instead of attaching documents to an email, you will post the documents in the Group Resources and include a link to the Resources in your message.
Your team members will not have to search through email to locate the most recent version of a document; they know that Church Center Resources will always have the most current version posted.
The IT Committee will pre-load each weekend team with the community documents that do not change from weekend-to-weekend such as:
- Job Descriptions
- Essentials of the Tres Dias Method
- Space City Team Manual
- The Flow of the Tres Dias Weekend chart
Weekend team leadership will add the current weekend documents including:
- Weekend Timelines
- Candidate Rosters (shared by Pre-Weekend Committee)
- Team Rosters
- Storeroom Inventory
- Links to Signup Genius for Team Meeting Breakfast/Lunch
- Link to the Weekend Song Video
How to Create a Hyperlink in the Email
To create a hyperlink, highlight the word (or phrase) that will be your link, click the chain link icon from the tool bar, paste the url, and tap “Link.” The word (or phrase) will now appear orange indicating a link.
- Important: when sharing a link to Church Center Resources, make sure to select your link from the public Church Center, not from the admin Planning Center Groups. Only the Group Leaders have permissions to access Planning Center Groups; team members would get an error message if the shared link was from Planning Center.
Step 1: Open the Group in Church Center
Access the group in Church Center by clicking “View on Church Center.” Note: you must be logged into Church Center to view the private Groups.
Step 2: Open the Resource Landing Page
Locate the group, then tap on “Resources” then tap to open the landing page of the document you want to share.
Step 3: Copy the link
Copy the url link to the WHITE LANDING PAGE, NOT the actual document page. The user will not be able to open the pdf stored on the server.
Step 4: Add the link to the email
Paste the link into your email using the Hyperlink instructions above.
