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, fundraisers and tenants bring money, and the people next door have opinions about your bells. All of this lives on the Community screen, and your tradition shapes all of it: which ministries it values, how it reaches out, what it will raise money by, and what its code of life won't have on church property.

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, some tenants, fundraisers, and some outreach raise it. Above 0.3 it brings more newcomers: 0.5 brings a fifth more. It's also what wins back unhappy neighbours, and fundraisers bring in more where it's high.

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.

What your tradition values

Each ministry has a kind: evangelism, service, justice, peace, education, health, heritage, or fellowship. Your tradition emphasises each kind low, medium, or high, and a ministry's newcomers, what it means to those it serves, and the standing it earns are all scaled by that: 60% where the tradition's emphasis is low, 140% where it's high. A ministry of a kind your tradition emphasises highly also earns a little of the wider body's regard each month. A food pantry (service) does more than twice as much in a United Methodist or Presbyterian church, which emphasise service highly, as in a United Pentecostal one, which doesn't; a preschool (education) is at its best in a Catholic, Adventist, or Nazarene church.

• Institutions are offered only where your tradition runs them: the parish school for Catholic, Missouri Synod Lutheran, and Seventh-day Adventist churches; the thrift store for Mennonites. Where the wider body shares costs (a Catholic diocese, an Adventist conference), it pays a fifth of an institution's running cost: for a parish school, $4,400 a month.
• Social services is for a tradition that is also a social-service agency (the Salvation Army), in the social-service office it requires.
• The code of life rules some out: no blood drive where blood is refused (Jehovah's Witnesses), no health clinic where healing is by prayer alone (Christian Science).

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.

Your tradition's outreach

Community → Evangelism lists the ways your tradition reaches out, each with its cost and a Go button. Households who respond may visit over the next few Sundays. The volunteers each takes tire a little.

Missionaries away are listed on the Evangelism tab and on the People screen.

Vacation Bible School

Once a summer (June to August), with a classroom with seating and at least two Sunday school teachers. Children come as your standing draws them, up to twice the classrooms' seats; for every two, a family visits over the following Sundays 30% of the time. It costs $400 and $12 a child, raises standing by 0.03, and counts as three shifts for each teacher.

Missions

Give 5% to 20% of each month's income away. Standing rises a little each month, so it settles higher, and everyone at a service is glad of it (+0.02 at 10%).

Small groups

Small groups meet in homes on Tuesday evenings, each led by a group leader (a volunteer). Start a group takes the next free leader, their household and friends, and fills to eight; a group takes in one more a week up to twelve. Each meeting meets its members' need for fellowship and makes friends among them. Members who met that week gain 0.03 at the service; regulars in a group join twice as fast, and households in one drift away less. $10 a group a month.

Membership classes

Once a quarter, the People screen can hold a membership class, in a classroom or an office, led by the pastor. Regulars of 16 and over who've come three months and are content are invited, and most join. Regulars who go to Sunday school or a small group also join on their own sooner. Where the members vote to receive new members, or joining means leaving any other church, joining is a little slower; where the tradition asks much of its people, slower again.

Fundraising

Community → Fundraising lists the fundraisers, each with the volunteers it needs, its cost, and Hold it (its tooltip says why one can't be held). What your tradition allows comes first:

• None where the tradition's churches are kept by what their people give: Churches of Christ, Jehovah's Witnesses, Latter-day Saints.
• Only the modest ones (bake sale, car wash, raffle, rummage sale, soup supper) where it limits them: most Protestant and Pentecostal bodies, the Adventists, the Coptic Orthodox, the Friends.
• All of them where it holds fundraisers freely: Catholic, Orthodox, Ukrainian Catholic, Episcopal, ELCA, UCC, Unitarian Universalist, AME, COGIC, National Baptist.
• Never anything the code of life forbids (below): no bingo, raffle, or casino night where gambling is forbidden, no casino night or parish festival in a dry church.

What a fundraiser brings in is a base sum plus a sum for each active person, more the better the community thinks of the church (standing 0.4 gives the full per-person sum), and less in proportion if too few willing volunteers (16 to 80, content, and not worn out) turn up to run it. Each volunteer it takes gains burnout. Something the tradition only frowns on (a raffle where gambling is discouraged) can be held, but unsettles members (−0.02 each for each such thing).

Income beyond giving

Below the fundraisers, the Fundraising tab lists what your tradition takes in besides its offerings:

• Candles (Orthodox, Coptic, Ukrainian Catholic): 60¢ for each person at each service.
• Mass stipends (Catholic, Ukrainian Catholic): $15 a service, and more with weddings and funerals.
• The public appeal (the Salvation Army's Red Kettle): each December, $40 for each active person, more the better the community thinks of the church.
• Fast offerings (Latter-day Saints): $8 a member a month, given straight on to those in need.
• The share plate (Unitarian Universalists): 5% of each offering, given on.
• Renting space, where the tradition's churches are known for it (Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, UCC, United Methodist, and others): tenants pay 15% more.

Appeals and fasts

Some calendars carry appeals: the Lottie Moon and Annie Armstrong offerings for Southern Baptists, the American Baptists' offerings, the Army's Self-Denial appeal and Red Kettle season, the Adventists' Ingathering. On the Sundays an appeal runs, a tenth of the offering is given to it, and everyone there is glad of it (+0.01). In a tradition's strict fasts (the Orthodox and Coptic fasts), church meals cost a tenth more, fewer stay for them, and weddings aren't held.

Auxiliaries

Most traditions have an auxiliary or two of their own: the Altar and Rosary Society and the Knights of Columbus, United Women in Faith, the Woman's Missionary Union, the Mothers' Board and the usher board, the Women's Department, the Relief Society, the Home League, the Pathfinders, a Christian church's youth group and its summer conference. They're listed on the Fundraising tab, each with how many could belong.

• One forms once enough members could belong (four to eight, of the women, the men, the mothers, the youth, or everyone, as it is).
• Its members are heartened each month, and most can give more as volunteers: one more service a month, two for the usher board, the Women's Department, and the Relief Society.
• It keeps its own day once a year, raising money (a sum for each of its members) and, for many, the church's standing.

You don't start an auxiliary; you grow the membership it draws on.

The wider body's places

Some traditions have places beyond the church: the conference camp, the temple, the Holy Convocation, the Assembly Hall, the Christian school. They hearten members a little each month and hold households (they drift away less), for what the church gives toward them each year for each member. The Denomination tab names them.

Calendar and reports

Calendar shows a month at a time: services and their coffee hours and meals, Sunday school, small groups, special services, weddings and funerals, and the feasts. Hover over a day for everything on it.

Reports chart the church week by week. The Overview puts the satisfaction index (how content members and regulars are, 0 to 100) over weekly attendance, and shows the congregation's growth; Engagement charts services, Sunday school, small groups, coffee hour, meals, and each ministry week by week, with a table of the last eight. Each small group's weekly attendance is under Community → Ministries.

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. The Rentals tab lists every kind of tenant, what it would pay, and whether some members would be uneasy about it.

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. Where the tradition keeps a strict Sabbath (the Adventists), tenants keep off the worship day and pay 15% less.

The code of life

Each tradition's code of life says what it forbids on church property and what it only frowns on. A tenant, ministry, or fundraiser that involves something forbidden can't be offered at all (its button says why); one involving something frowned on can, but unsettles members: a tenant costs them 0.01 for each such thing after every service for as long as it rents, a fundraiser 0.02 when it's held.

The code reaches the church's own life too. Vegetarian meals (the Adventists) cost 15% less; fewer stay for coffee where caffeine is discouraged (a tenth fewer) or forbidden (a fifth fewer, the Latter-day Saints). A strict Sabbath keeps weddings off it. And the code brings its own dilemmas: jury duty where members only affirm, a Masonic funeral, champagne at a reception, a raffle for the roof, a candidates' forum.

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.