Good Shepherd UMC has moved to a new kind of church record-keeping software called Realm® Connect. It primarily serves the administrative needs of our staff, but it also offers some exciting opportunities to support the way YOU are involved in our church. Not only will this improve work life for our ministry staff, but it will also make it easier for our church family to connect with each other, keep up with what’s going on, and grow as a connected community of believers.
WHAT IS REALM CONNECT?
Realm Connect is a real ministry tool.
Realm Connect is an online ministry tool designed for real-time connection. It helps our church connect with you, and you connect with us. If you consider yourself part of this church family, you’ll love it. Realm Connect allows you to manage your personal information and who is allowed to see it, control your giving, and keep in touch with the groups that matter to you.
WHAT ABOUT MY PRIVACY?
Realm Connect is safe, private, and secure.
Your privacy is one of our greatest concerns. Realm Connect is only for the people in our church; it’s not like a social network that’s open to everyone. Realm Connect keeps your data safe and gives you control over what information you share and who can see it.
WHAT ABOUT GIVING?
Realm Connect gives you control over your giving.
Giving should be easy, and Realm Connect places giving right in the palm of your hand. You may set up recurring gifts, view your giving history, and make changes at any time. Realm Connect automatically records all electronic gifts and adds them to your giving record, making it easy for you to give and easy for our financial assistant to track.
HOW DO I START?
Follow a few simple steps.
- If you haven’t received an invitation to join Realm Connect yet, send an email to gsrealminvite@gmail.com to request an invitation to set up a Realm login. Once the invitation is sent, please follow the link to set up an account login and password. Invitations sometimes end up in Spam or Junk folders – please check these folders for the invitation you have requested! Once you set up a username and password, you will receive another email to verify your email address. Please click on the link to verify.
- Your Realm login works on your home computer and on your mobile devices. Please create a login on a computer browser first and then use the login for the app on your mobile device. NOTE: Realm does not support IE (Internet Explorer) browser. Please use Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, or Safari.
- Check to make sure that we have your address and other personal information entered correctly under My Profile. If anything is incorrect, you can change it.
- Change your privacy settings (through Manage Privacy) so that other SGUMC Realm users can see your basic contact information (just as they have through printed church directories in the past!)
- Look at the e-giving options.
- If you are not an e-giver, please consider this option as a simple, easy-to-control way to give regularly to support the church’s ministries.
- To reach Realm on your desktop after you initially respond to the invitation and get logged on, visit www.onrealm.org or visit www.gsumcrva.org and click on the “Realm Log-In” menu.
- If using Realm on your tablet or smartphone, locate and download the Realm Connect (from ACS Technologies) mobile app from the iTunes or Google app stores.
Questions? Please contact Rev. Lisa at communications@gsumcrva.org.
Will we print a directory? Yes, from Realm, upon request.