The 7 Essentials of Being a Connecting Church Leader (with videos)

Overview

NOTE: This article and the Connecting Church training content it references are being redeveloped after CarePortal's recent platform update. Stay tuned for the refreshed versions of this training!

The Connecting Church Leader is one of the most important and influential roles you can have in the CarePortal network, which means it's critical for you to feel well-equipped to serve. In this article, you'll be taken through the seven essentials of being a Connecting Church Leader plus a handful of embedded videos that complement these essentials.

Use this content to help guide locally contextualized conversations with your own church and network leaders. The goal is for you to have a strong grasp of what this will practically look like in your community. 

Note: This training assumes you have a base level of understanding of how CarePortal works. If you need to back up and start there, here's an article with a great collection of our church leader training videos! 

Intended Audience

Connecting Church Leaders (and their Point Person)

Included in This Article

1. Understand Your Ministry Philosophy & Posture 
   Training Video: Review of Ministry Philosophy
   
2. Understand Who You'll Be Connected to
   Training Video: Community Responder Perspective
   
3. Know Your Connecting Church Radius
4. Get Acquainted with Your CarePortal Card
   Training Video: Settings & Tools for Connecting Churches
   Training Video: CarePortal Card Training Video  
   
5. Be Ready to Commit & Claim Available Funding and Take the Lead
6. Be Ready to Commit & Claim Available Items and Take the Lead
   Training Video: Response & Commitment Process
7. Keep Track of Your CarePortal Card Transactions

The videos embedded throughout are intended to compliment the essentials included on this list.

Essential #1: Understand Your Ministry Philosophy & Posture

The CarePortal platform was built to put the Christian Church at the point of care for families and kids in crisis, but there's a seat at the table for anyone who wants to help meet the needs identified by child serving professionals. As a Connecting Church, you are uniquely positioned to steward the resources of others in order to make direct connections with families you may not have otherwise gotten the chance to meet and serve. 

At the same time, in making these connections, proximity to the family can significantly increase the likelihood of a healthy connection being established. So even as you are given the opportunity to use other people's resources to meet the needs of families, it's important to look for collaboration opportunities with other churches that meet in or are closer to the family's neighborhood. These represent worthwhile opportunities to display unity in Christ and have the potential to spark valuable ministry partnerships.

Discuss with your local leaders:

• What can local church collaboration look like?
• What are the practical steps to take to make that happen?

Training Video: Review of Ministry Philosophy

Essential #2: Understand Who You'll Be Connected to

If a responder wants to help on a request, it won't matter where they live-- only that the family lives inside the range your church is willing to travel (more on this with essential #3).

This means you'll be connected to local and non-local community responders! And since community responders can sign up with CarePortal and begin responding to requests right away, you may find that you and your team are the very first members of the CarePortal network a community responder has interacted with!

Being a Connecting Church with a CarePortal Card also allows your own church's response team members to fund specific needs through the platform. In these cases, you'll be given the first chance to Commit & Claim the donated money.

Discuss with your local leaders:

• Who are some current or potential Community Champions in your local area?
  (Community Champions are non-church organizations that are signed up in CarePortal to respond and help meet needs. A Connecting Church like yours will need to Commit & Claim the resources they and their team(s) offer for each request.)
• What are some different ways you can interact with a Community Responder?
  (Community Responders are individuals who have signed up in CarePortal without a church response team affiliation. A Connecting Church like yours will need to Commit & Claim the resources they offer for each request.)

Training Video: Community Responder Perspective

Essential #3: Know Your Connecting Church Radius

This church setting identifies how far away from your church you're willing to serve. When a community member offers resources on a request for a family inside this area, you'll be among the churches notified and given a chance to use them to serve the family!

This will naturally affect the volume of families you are empowered with community resources to help. And keep in mind, you can change this setting at any point, whether for seasonal adjustments or to account for your response team getting larger and building capacity to go further. 

Discuss with your local leaders:

• What has/should your Connecting Church Radius be set to, and why?
  
  

Essential #4: Get Acquainted with Your CarePortal Card

Your Point Person can request one of these pre-paid debit cards for you. Once you receive and activate it, you'll be alerted to not just items you can use to serve local families, but money that's been donated toward specific items as well! You'll find this often simplifies the logistics of serving the family because there are fewer hand-offs and fewer schedules to coordinate. 

Whether you still need to request a CarePortal Card or your church already has one for you, it's important to understand the best practices and restrictions for using CarePortal Cards. The videos below will help!

Discuss with your local leaders:

• If you don't already have a CarePortal Card, are you able to request one through your church's Point Person?
• Since CarePortal Cards can sometimes get mistaken for junk mail, what can you do to make sure it doesn't get lost?

Training Video: Settings & Tools for Connecting Churches

 

Training Video: CarePortal Card & CarePortal Fund Training Video

More training and resources: CarePortal Card, and CarePortal Fund

Essential #5: Be Ready to Commit & Claim Available Funding and Take the Lead

Commit & Claim is the process where a Connecting Church publicly Takes the Lead on a request that a community responder has offered to help with. Being the Lead Church for a request means all community responses for remaining items on the request (if there are any) will be sent your way as well, which helps reduce confusion and simplify logistics on the agency worker and family side of things.

When someone has donated money toward a request through CarePortal, the Commit & Claim / Take the Lead process is how you'll be able to:

• Notify the agency worker (who will be able to provide you with the family's contact information)
• Transfer the donated money onto your CarePortal Card (an email confirmation will be sent when the money is available on your card)
• Say "Thank you" to the responder who gave (possible connection here as well)
• Engage your community to invite more responses for any remaining items on the request (optional)

Note: If you have leftover money on your card after meeting a request, it'll remain available for meeting future needs through CarePortal. And since the money is already on the card, your response to those future requests can be made by simply "providing" items.

Discuss with your local leaders:

• What are some local tips for using the CarePortal Card with stores in your area? 
• How can you leverage available funding to foster church-to-church collaboration?

Essential #6: Be Ready to Commit & Claim Available Items and Take the Lead

When a community responder already has the needed item(s) or would like to make the purchase themselves outside of the CarePortal platform, you'll be given the chance to take the lead and begin the necessary coordination with the responder. In cases where the responder has a piece of gently used furniture or other item that needs to be transported, it will be up to you, your church's team, and the responder to arrange this. These logistics are great ways to engage and empower your response team to help!

In other cases, you may be able to guide the responder in having something they purchase online delivered to your church. In all cases, it's important to develop the habit of following up with the responder to share the story of what happened.

When someone offers to provide items or services toward a request through CarePortal, the Commit & Claim process is how you'll be able to:

• Notify the agency worker (who will be able to provide you with the family's contact information)
• Receive the responder's contact information for coordinating logistics
• Engage your community to invite more responses for remaining needs on the request (optional)

Discuss with your local leaders:

• What are some ways to build out a team that can help handle logistics?
• How might your church be able to offer connection with community responders in a way that makes them want to keep responding to more requests?

Training Video: Response & Commitment Process

More training and resources: How to Commit & Claim Resources

Essential # 7: Keep Track of Your CarePortal Card Transactions

Every deposit onto your CarePortal Card and every expense you make with it will be shown in the Transactions tab of your CarePortal dashboard. You'll also see the current balance of your CarePortal Card on this page, as well as in the profile pop-up box in your dashboard, and in the email alerts, all card holders receive when your card balance changes. 

If you have more than one leader who's been assigned a CarePortal Card, be advised that all cards will have the same shared balance/spending limit. So it will be important to coordinate activities and stay on the same page together. 

Discuss with your local leaders:

• How can you ensure that all CarePortal Card holders at your church have a healthy level of accountability so trust is maintained with responders?