Growing Community

Your Guide to Joining, Creating, and Managing a Community

This document gives a quick look at interfacing with communities on the Lutheran.Network forum.

Types of Communities

Dedicated Community Channel

Dedicated channels are invite-only spaces designed specifically for established Lutheran congregations, schools, and ministry organizations. These secure environments allow your community to maintain fellowship and communication within the trusted Lutheran Network infrastructure.

Open Community Channel

Open communities can be joined by any member of the Lutheran Network. These channels are great for larger organizations, districts, podcast authors, and other synod-wide initiatives looking to connect with a broad Lutheran audience.

Who Should Consider a Community Channel?
  • Congregations seeking a private space for member communication
  • Lutheran Schools needing a platform for staff and parent interaction
  • Districts & Regional Groups requiring coordinated communication
  • Ministry Organizations wanting to enhance collaboration
  • Seminary Communities fostering academic and spiritual discussion
  • Mission Teams coordinating efforts and updates
  • Specialized Ministries serving specific populations or purposes
  • Podcast Creators building and engaging with their listener communities
  • Extended Families maintaining connections across geographic distances
  • Professional Development Groups sharing resources and expertise
  • Study Groups collaborating on learning initiatives
  • Event Planning Teams coordinating logistics and timelines
  • Mentoring Networks fostering professional growth relationships
  • Book Clubs organizing discussions and reading schedules
  • Alumni Groups maintaining institutional connections
  • Research Teams sharing findings and coordinating projects
  • Creative Collaborators working on joint artistic endeavors
  • Volunteer Organizations managing activities and schedules
  • Interest-Based Communities sharing specialized knowledge

Accessing Community Groups

Viewing Your Community Groups

Communities to which you belong are listed on the Communities page. The page will first list any communities you have created and then community groups to which you belong.

Joining a Community Group

Navigate to Communities from the left sidebar and click the Join Group button. You can then join a private community by providing your invite code or join any sponsored community from the list shown.

Notifications

Within your account's notification settings, you can request to be notified of newly-created communities that are open to all Lutheran Network members, when someone joins a community you manage, when a new presentation is created, and when someone registers with your unique invite URL.

Starting a Community

Navigate to the communities page and click Create Community. Provide the following details for your community:

  1. Community Name (visible to all members)
  2. Community Groups: number of group channels you will be allowed to create in your community ($1/group/mo)
  3. Member Limit: number of members that can belong to your community ($.20-$.02/member/mo based on community size)
  4. Video Minutes / Month: how many meeting & presentation minutes are available to your community each month ($.004/min)
  5. Directory-Listed Group Seats: how many groups can be listed in the directory for open membership ($40/seat/mo)
  6. Subscription Renewal Term: how often should subscription billing occur (annual subscriptions benefit from 17% discount)

Stewarding Your Community

If you've created a dedicated community, a unique invite code will be generated. Any member of Lutheran Network having this code can join your community. You will be provided a unique invite URL that can be shared and each community will also have a persistent URL at which discussions can be viewed. As owner of the community, you will be granted moderation privileges for the channel. Use those privileges wisely.

Managing Your Community Groups

You have control over several settings for your Community Groups. The following actions can be taken from the management page of each community group:

  • Change group name (must be unique across all groups of the Lutheran Network)
  • Change group description.
  • Change posting instructions (shown to user when creating a new discussion thread)
  • Roll the Invite Code.
  • Directory Listing (whether the group is listed in the network directory for all to join)
  • Video conferencing permission (set who can initiate meetings and presentations in a group)
Basic Stats

Your management pages show you basic stats for your community and each group.

Suspending a Community Channel

From this management page, you can also suspend your community. This will prevent all access to the community channel. Current members will no longer see content and new members will not be able to join.

Upgrading/Downgrading a Community Subscription

At any time, you can upgrade or downgrade your subscription. When doing so, a prorated price may be calculated and displayed requiring immediate payment.

Cancelling/Restoring a Subscription

You can also cancel your subscription at any time from this management screen. When doing so, your community will remain active until the scheduled expiration date of your subscription. You can immediately close a group by suspending it. Your subscription can be restored any time prior to expiration. After having expired, your community will be automatically archived and the channel URL will remain unavailable for any new communities. Currently, you cannot restore a community after it has expired.

Best Practices

Building Active Participation
  1. Welcome new members personally
  2. Maintain regular communication
  3. Encourage member involvement
  4. Foster meaningful discussions
Community Health
  1. Monitor discussions regularly
  2. Address concerns promptly
  3. Maintain appropriate boundaries
  4. Keep content organized and relevant

Getting Support

Our team is here to help you build and maintain a thriving online community. For technical assistance or questions about getting started, post to the support channel or reach out to support@lutheran.network.

"And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near." - Hebrews 10:24-25