Metropolitan Adventists

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Metropolitan Adventists

Jesus told his followers that they were “the salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13). With over 80% of the population of the United States and Canada now living in “urban” areas, how much salt do Seventh-day Adventists contribute to North America’s largest metropolitan areas today?

The US Census Bureau uses “metropolitan statistical areas” (MSA) and Stats Can uses “census metropolitan areas” (CMA) so we compared the populations (2015 US Census, 2011 Canada Census) to current membership of churches (eAdventist) in each of these areas. The 5 largest metro areas looked like this:

largestmetroareas

 Total Population (blue), Members (green)

Clearly, a little salt is having to go a long way in these large cities. To get a better comparison, we magnified the members by a factor of 100 and used stacked bars. Note that the population totals are still correct but the “population” (blue) is reduced by magnifying the “members” (green).

largestmetroareas_x_100

Members x 100 (green)

It’s safe to say that there is no shortage of opportunity for the “salt” in these areas. The metro areas with the highest ratio of members have Adventist hospitals, headquarters offices or both.

mostpresence_x_100

Members x 100 (green)

Predictably, the metro areas with the lowest ratio of members do not have hospitals, schools or headquarters offices in them. This provides them with a fantastic opportunity and challenge.

mostopportunity_x_100

Members x 100 (green)

Here is an Excel spreadsheet (nad-metro-areas) of the 38 largest areas in North America, including population and members. Contact us at help@eadventist.net if you would need more of this kind of information for church planting or metro outreach.

Transfer Comments

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Transfer Comments

eAdventist makes most membership transfers easy by connecting church clerks and eliminating “snail” mail. However, some transfers aren’t “business as usual” and require a conversation:

  • “Did you mean Maxwell Sr or Maxwell Jr?”
  • “Sorry, Ayeisha transferred to Rock Solid Church last year”
  • “Any update on the status of this transfer?”

“Online” clerks have always been able to contact each other by email, but Transfer Comments make these conversations even easier to start and follow.

addcomment

As soon as you click “Save”, eAdventist will email the comment to each of the “online” clerks involved in the transfer. For any “offline” church, the email will go to the conference clerk. The “Email” tab lets you check the delivery status of these messages.

Transfers that have comments are easy to spot on the Transfers page. Just look for the “comment” icon.

commenticon

PRO TIPS

  • Sort all transfers that have Comments to the top by clicking on the “comment” column heading.

sortcomments

  • Sort all transfers that have green “lights” to the top by clicking on the “lights” column heading.

sortlights

 

Attach a File

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Attach a File

eAdventist’s Mailing Lists are a powerful way to stay in touch with members in your church or conference. Now you can include file attachments in your messages – the agenda for your next board meeting, PDF announcing an upcoming event, registration forms, reports, photo images, and more. Just be sure that any file you want to send is under 9MB.

Here’s how it works. Create your message, then click on the “paperclip” icon and choose a file to attach. That’s it!

messageattachment

Here’s what it looks like in action!

messageattachment

Oh, and one more thing. If you’d like to see what you’re about to send to your entire list, you can now send a test message to yourself before clicking “Send” to everybody.

testemail

Extra power and insurance for your Mailing List.

Officer Labels update

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Envelopes

Officer Labels is powerful tool for communicating with your organization’s officers. Based on your feedback, it now handles two challenging situations even better:

Officer has been “dropped”

If the listed officer has been dropped (deceased, missing, removed, duplicate), the Officer Labels screen displays their status in red. However, the officer was still included in the mailing labels with the officer’s name and address. Now, this label will be an “Anonymous” label with the office title and the church’s address.

Treasurer
Rock Solid SDA Church
123 Granite St
Bedrock WA 98123

Officer’s address is empty or stopped

Until now, Officer Labels provided to option to exclude these labels or include them – with the officer’s name and empty/stopped address. Now, these labels will be “Anonymous” to ensure that the church is not left out of the mailing.

For more information on Officer Labels, check out this article in our knowledge base.

Even If Your Name is…

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hello-my-name-is

Some of us inherit names that are a little “more” than we want for everyday use. We’ve just added the Legal name field to eAdventist so that you can record these names for your members and use First name for their “everyday” name. Here is what the Person screen looks like now.

person_show

person_edit

Person Search helps you find these members of this by searching both “First name” and “Legal name”.

person_search

You’re welcome, Fredegar.

Tagging just got easier

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tags

Tags give you a flexible way to identify groups of people in your church or conference. However, tagging people in eAdventist to create those groups has been a bit tedious. You could only tag one … person … at … a … time. The waiting is over and you can now add people to tags (and committees) so easily you’ll probably want to do it just for fun.

On Person Search and Advanced Search, the results list has checkboxes beside the names. As soon as you check one of them (1), a tool bar will appear (2) with the option to choose a tag or committee for the selected people.

Person Search

Choose a tag …

Select a tag

… and it’s done. eAdventist lets you know what happened with each selected person. Green = “added”. Yellow = “already added before”. Red = “couldn’t add”. Hover over any of the indicators to see an explanation.

Tagging results

If You’re A Pastor…

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pastor

 

You probably thought that eAdventist was just for clerks. That is where we started but we’ve been growing eAdventist to help pastors and churches, too. Here’s a quick summary of several new tools designed specifically to help you.

Tags

Create “tags” to track small groups, spiritual gifts, Bible study requests, visitation lists and other groups in a way that’s fast and flexible. Use your tags to select people, create mailing labels, or send email messages.

Photos

Membership records come to life when you add photos of individual members and entire families. Use family photos to create a pictorial church directory.

Church Directory

In addition to the family pictures, eAdventist makes it easy to print a current, up-to-date directory whenever you need one. Include mobile phone numbers and email addresses for the adults, if you choose to.

Attendance

Capture a valuable indicator of church health and growth by recording attendance. eAdventist makes it easy to start by recording attendance counts for each service or event.

Mailing Lists

Create a church mailing list (email, that is) and use it to send your church newsletter, pastor’s letter, small group invitations, church calendar or announcements. Get your message out quickly and avoid spam folders.

Member Maps

We just added “People Map” (in the Explore section) to help you create a map of members. Use it to plan visitation, outreach events and more.

Graphs

The Explore section (under Reports) offers charts and graphs of members and baptism – by gender, by age. Explore the makeup of your church now and through time.

Pastor Notes

Now you can use eAdventist to record pastoral notes that are available to the pastoral staff – and only the pastoral staff – in your church. Track visits, needs and background that will help you serve your members safely and confidentially.

If you would like to know more about any of these features, we’ll be happy to help. Email us at help@eadventist.net.