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For the church that keeps a roll

Know one another
by name.

Everything a church keeps about its people, in one place — the roll, the families, the life groups, the ministries, the papers, and what the elders need to say on Sunday. All of it hanging off a directory your congregation already knows how to read, and printed as a real book whenever you want one.

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Free while we are getting started, and we will tell you long before that changes. Bring the spreadsheet you already keep.

A page of the printed directory, filed at B. Two Bothas and two Bugarins, side by side, because that is what filing by surname is for.

A roll at the centre, and the church’s week around it.

It began as a directory and it still is one — that is the spine, and everything below reads from it, so a number corrected once is corrected everywhere. What it is not is a filing cabinet. This is what a church actually runs in it.

The roll
Every member, regular attender and child, with photographs, phone numbers, addresses and the date each one was received. Searchable in a second, filed by surname like the book.
Families
Husband to wife, parent to child, recorded once and true from both ends. A household carries one address, so a family that moves is one change rather than five.
Life groups
The areas each one covers, when and where it meets, and who leads it. Members move themselves when they move house; an administrator can place anyone.
Ministries
Choir, hospitality, the men's and women's studies, the welcome team, the sound desk. Named in your church's own words, with whoever leads each one keeping their own list.Arrives switched off. Yours to turn on.
Elders, deacons and interns
Who holds office, since when, and which church sent the intern you are training. On their entry, on the officers' page, and in the printed book.
Announcements
To the whole church, to members only, to the elders and deacons, or to one life group. On the noticeboard and, if you choose, in every inbox — with the rota still attached where anyone can find it again.
Birthdays
The whole year, month by month, adults and children apart. A quiet list can go to the elders and deacons each morning so nobody passes unmarked.
Corrections, decided
A member may fix their own number or address outright. Their name, their family and the date they joined they may only propose — the church's record of a person stays the church's.
Invitations
One at a time, or the whole congregation in a single send. Each person lands on the entry the spreadsheet already made for them and puts it right.
Identity papers
Passport scans, residence permits, safeguarding checks — held for the people who need them held, and opened only by the officers your church has named one at a time.
Who can do what
Six roles, from administrator to member, granted and taken back in one press. A church is never left without an administrator, and everything anyone does is written down.
Asking for help, and giving
Where a member goes to ask the deacons, and where they go to give — set out in the church's own words rather than as two links in a footer.
The printed book
The whole directory as a PDF: cover, covenant, the congregation, the officers, the name list, the birthdays. Generated in a minute and kept as an edition you can print again.
On a phone
It installs to the home screen without an app store and opens when the signal does not. Most of a congregation will only ever see it this way.

What comes out of the printer

One button, and the whole thing is a book.

  1. Cover, and the church covenanti
  2. Why we keep a roll1
  3. The congregation, filed by surname3
  4. Elders, deacons and those in training44
  5. Life groups, and where each one meets48
  6. Every name, alphabetically52
  7. Birthdays, month by month58

A4, two columns, twelve entries to a page, set in a real book face. Ready for the copy shop, or for the church printer and a long afternoon.

Why a church keeps a roll

You cannot love a congregation you cannot name.

Scripture never treats the church as a crowd. It gives us a hundred commands to one another and assumes we know who the others are. Membership is the church saying out loud who it has taken responsibility for — and a directory is that list, in a form you can pray through.

“Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.”
Hebrews 13:17

An account of whom? Elders cannot watch over a number. They watch over names.

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”
1 Corinthians 12:27

Membership is not a modern invention bolted on to the church. It is the New Testament's own word for belonging.

“If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.”
Matthew 18:17

You cannot tell it to a church whose edges nobody can see.

“There were added that day about three thousand souls.”
Acts 2:41

Added to what? Somebody, that day, was counting.

Most churches do it in a week.

Every church already keeps a list. It is in a spreadsheet somebody updates when they remember, and half of it is a year out of date. That list is not the problem — it is the raw material, and the week below is the whole of what it takes to turn it into something a congregation can hold.

  1. Monday

    Upload the spreadsheet

    Names, numbers, birthdays, children, whatever columns you happen to have. You see exactly what will be created, changed and left alone before anything is written.

  2. Tuesday

    Invite the congregation

    One send. Each member gets a link to their own entry and fixes what the spreadsheet had wrong — their number, their address, the spelling of their daughter's name.

  3. Through the week

    The families join up, the groups take shape

    Link a husband to a wife and a parent to a child; draw the areas your life groups cover and appoint who leads each one. If you run ministries, switch them on and name them as your church names them.

  4. Saturday

    Print it

    Cover, covenant, the congregation, the officers, the name list, the birthdays. One button, one PDF, and a copy shop on Monday.

  5. Sunday

    The church speaks

    An announcement to everyone, or to the members, or to the elders and deacons, or to one group. On the noticeboard, and in every inbox if that is what it deserves.

  6. Ever after

    It stays right

    People move, marry, change their number, join a group, leave one. They do it themselves, on their phone, and the next edition is correct without a single email to the church office.

Two answers, and the stricter one wins.

Your church decides how open the directory is. Each member decides how visible they are. A member can always be more private than their church and never less — and whatever is hidden is removed on the server rather than merely tucked out of sight in the page. It is an address book of real people. It should behave like one.

Wife of. Father of. Sister of.

Link two people once and it is true from both ends. Children appear under their parents on the printed page, filed beneath the family surname, exactly as a paper directory has always set them. A household carries one address, so a family that moves is one change rather than five — and somebody new can see, on one screen, that these two are married and those four are theirs.

It is also how a church stops handing a visitor a list of two hundred strangers and starts handing them forty families.

What churches actually ask us.

Half the numbers in our spreadsheet are wrong.

Then so is your directory, and it always has been. Import it anyway — the point of the invitation that follows is that four hundred people each correct one entry, which is the only way an address book has ever become accurate. You will see exactly what the file is going to do before a single row is written.

We do not want our members' addresses on the internet.

Nothing here is on the internet. A church decides whether addresses appear at all, whether birthdays do, whether children are listed; each member can be more private than their church and never less; and anything hidden is removed on the server rather than tucked out of sight in the page. Nothing is public, indexed, or reachable without a sign-in.

Do we have to use all of it?

No, and most churches do not. Ministries and interns arrive switched off, and a church that wants a directory and nothing else has a directory and nothing else — no empty pages in the sidebar, no half-built sections waiting to be filled in. Turn a thing on the month you actually need it.

What about the children?

They are in the book the way a paper directory has always put them: first names, beneath their parents, under the family surname. A church that would rather not print them turns that off in one press.

Our people are not going to install anything.

They do not have to. It opens in whatever browser is already on their phone, and it remembers them. Anyone who wants it as an icon can add it in two taps; nobody has to.

Who can delete our church?

You can, and only you. Closing the account hides it from everybody the same minute and destroys the records thirty days later — long enough for somebody to ring us and say it was a mistake, short enough to be an honest answer to a member who asks.

What happens when somebody leaves?

An administrator records it, with a reason and a date. Their entry leaves the directory the congregation reads and stays in the church's own record, because a church's memory of who it has walked with is worth keeping.

“He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

John 10:3

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