Hello, all! I'm excited to walk you through what we've put together here. This platform is designed to serve our broader confessional Lutheran community with tools that are both familiar and purposefully crafted for how we need to be connecting, learning, and growing together.

Traditional Forum Software – Thoughtfully Done

At its core, you'll find the features you'd expect from solid forum software. Each member gets an account with a username, profile page, and notifications to keep you in the loop. We've organized discussions into topical channels that you can follow or ignore based on your interests, all feeding into a primary feed that gives you a single place to see what's happening across the network.

Discussions with threaded commenting, which can be rolled or unrolled, keep conversations organized and easy to follow. We've intentionally structured registration to require either an invite from an existing member or community owner – this helps maintain the relational nature of what we're building. Registration also requires assent to confessional Lutheran doctrine, ensuring we're grounded in shared confession from the start.

If you're seeking an invite code to join the network, feel free to email support@lutheran.network and we'll get you connected.

Networking: Communities & Pastoral Connections

We've built in features that go beyond typical forum functionality to support real ministry and connection.

Pastoral Connections

We recognize the unique role pastors play in our communities. Pastors are identified via a Pastor group, and members can mark association with a user as their pastor directly from their profile. This creates a layer of pastoral care, connection, and accountability that's woven into the platform itself. Pastors will be able to readily access a list of all such users.

We've also created "The Shieling," a dedicated channel explicitly for pastors to interact with one another – a space for pastoral encouragement, discussion, and support.

Pastors can email support@lutheran.network with evidence of ordination so that we can label their account accordingly and grant access to pastoral features and channels.

Communities

Anyone can create a community through a paid subscription model, giving you the tools to gather and lead your own group within the network. Communities are member-run channels that anyone can join. Whether you're a congregation, an organization, or a small group, this communities features may serve you well. There are two types:

• Dedicated communities require access to an invite code and provide both meetings and presentations for your group – full video chat capabilities along with larger presentation features
• Open communities are listed in the network directory and open for any member to join, with presentation capabilities (up to 600 viewers) led by owners and moderators

Dedicated communities support video chat meetings from 1-200 participants with publicly shareable links and breakout rooms for smaller group discussions. Both types offer presentation capabilities for up to 600 viewers with separate shareable links for presenters and viewers.

Community owners and moderators can set sticky posts to keep important information visible and accessible to all members of their community.

Invite Links

Growing the network is built right into the structure. Owners of dedicated communities and members of open communities get a unique invite link for bringing others into their space and the broader network. Beyond that, all users are provided a unique link to invite others – everyone has a part in building the connections. Let's see truly how small the Lutheran world is.

Content Handling

We've included practical tools to make your experience more useful and less overwhelming:

• Customizable feed – follow/unfollow channels and communities to see what matters most to you
• File uploads for sharing resources
• Embedded media from links to enrich discussions
• Save post drafts when you're not quite ready to publish
• Bookmark discussions and comments to return to them later
• Roll and unroll comment threads to manage how much detail you're seeing at any given time

Questons? Reach out – we're happy to connect!

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Hebrews 10:23-25
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.