The church in its community

A church is more than its Sundays. Ministries serve its people and its neighbours through the week, outreach brings newcomers, tenants pay rent, and the people next door have opinions about your bells. All of this lives on the Community screen.

Standing in the community

At the top of the Community screen is the church's standing in the community, from 0 to 1, with the newcomers it brings. Standing drifts back toward 0.3 (by 5% of the gap each month), and ministries and some tenants raise it. Above 0.3 it brings more newcomers: 0.5 brings a fifth more. It's also what wins back unhappy neighbours.

Ministries

Start a ministry from Community → Ministries. Starting one pays its start-up cost. It needs an enclosed room of a type it can meet in (or, for the choir, choir stalls), and runs as far as it's staffed. Each month it:

• takes its volunteers from people who are satisfied enough (0.5 or more), 16 to 80, and not already serving on Sunday (the choir's are the people signed up to sing);
• pays its monthly cost and takes in any income, scaled by how well it's staffed;
• uses the building for its weekly hours, which wears it (every hour a month beyond Sunday wears the building 0.5% faster);
• raises the church's standing in the community.

After each service, the people a ministry serves are glad of it, up to +0.08 in all. A ministry that loses its room (to a building site, say) is suspended, at no cost and no good, until it has one again.

• The preschool pays for itself and brings the most newcomers. Build a classroom early. It wears the building a fifth faster, so budget for maintenance.
• The food pantry builds standing fastest, which brings newcomers and calms the neighbours.
• The choir is cheap, and its singers also lift every service (+0.04 with four or more).
• The youth group holds families with teenagers.

Outreach

The mailing

At the top of Community → Ministries. A mailing goes to 300 homes nearby for $225. Each mailing has a response rate of 1% to 2%, so it usually sends 3 to 6 households. They visit over the next few services, on top of the usual newcomers. You can send another a month later.

The live stream

The live stream sends each service out for $50 a service. It needs an A/V rack and a Camera (Furnish → Utility), and an A/V tech volunteer on duty. Without one, the service report says what's missing.

• It reaches half the members and regulars who stayed home, and 5% of the visiting households who didn't come.
• Each viewer takes that day's sermon as their tradition leans. At the next service, their household is likelier or less likely to come in person by four times the sermon's reception. Fire & Brimstone (+0.08 to a conservative household) makes it a third likelier to come.
• With no sermon topic chosen, or no sermon at all, streaming has no effect on attendance. So stream, and choose sermons that suit your people.

Rentals

Outside groups rent space. A group needs an enclosed room of a type it rents. Each month it pays rent, uses the building for its hours (wearing it), and may raise your standing.

Tenants give notice from a building below 0.35 condition (a one-in-four chance a month), or one that no longer has their room. Rent is steady money for a struggling church; a nesting congregation's $1,500 is often worth the small unease.

Neighbours

Church → Church shows how the neighbours feel. Relations run from 0 to 1 and settle toward 0.7, closing a tenth of the gap each month. Noise costs them every month, scaled by how many neighbours you have (a city lot 1.6×, a suburb 1×, the country 0.3×):

With bells, relations settle near 0.22 in town, 0.4 in a suburb, and 0.61 in the country.