Your job as the Local Administrator of Vital Concern for your congregation is straightforward. You should access admin functions from the "Admin" link in the upper right corner of most pages. Most of these functions are explained. Here are a few important pointers.

Managing Membership. To add a member to Vital Concern, enter their email address at Admin/Members/Add New Member. Enter email addresses carefully. The new member will receive an email with instructions and an initial password (which can easily be changed by the user at "My Profile"). To delete a member, go to AdminMembers/Delete Member. When deleting members, keep in mind that all of their postings will be deleted. If they must be added back, they will be starting over.

All member information must be kept completely confidential, as specified in the Member Agreement.

Getting Vital Concern rolling in your congregation. Pray for this ministry, and consider the following suggestions. First, present the program enthusiastically to the church, and ask members to submit their email addresses on a 3x5 card to get a password. Then enter the email addresses. Vital Concern will automatically send out passwords.

Second, always post the prayer requests that are currently available to the congregation in other ways--through the weekly bulletin, worship announcements, etc. These new requests should be posted every Sunday night, because the automatic weekly emailed prayer lists are sent out about 4 a.m. Eastern time Monday mornings. This is extremely important! Be diligent! Everyone wants to know the latest requests, and this keeps everyone from having to capture prayer requests announced in worship services.

Third, announce every Sunday morning, "Prayer requests will be posted at Vital Concern, and if you are not yet a member, give your email address to [name of the Local Administrator]."

Always help those who struggle with computers. Willingly post their requests if they ask you to. Even those who don't use the Internet can often benefit from the emailed prayer lists! And be patient. God's promises are guaranteed, but only on His timetable. Let His Name be praised!

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Congregation Administration. Please keep your congregation profile updated and accurate at Admin/Congregation. If you have a website, make sure to enter it here. When members log out, they will be sent to your website. The church name, city, and state in your congregation profile are also important in identifying your congregation in the global sections.

At Admin/Congregation/Congregation Groups, you may assign members to groups, and this will initially limit the prayer requests they see to this specific group (mainly for large congregations). They can then also view all other requests at their option. However, the default is "ALL GROUPS," so, unless you assign members to groups, they will see all requests of the congregation.

Groups. At Admin/Groups, you can create or delete group designations. Do this with caution, as deleted groups are removed irrevocably from the system. However, you can always create a new group and assign members to it.

Removing a Request. You may remove a request for any reason, but you are not required to. If someone is misbehaving, you may certainly delete their posting or membership. If you need to modify or delete someone's request, go to Admin/Requests.

Directory. At Admin/Directory, you may take complete control of the directory, adding member information if you have their approval. Members may be encouraged to keep their entries updated. Members may make entries for individual family members as they choose. If you decide to upload photos, try to keep them under 50K.

Managing Local Administrators. For help with administrative functions, the Primary Account Holder can create new Local Admins from the local membership at Admin/Manage Local Administrators. This is a matter of great trust for purposes of confidentiality. It raises their security clearance to do anything except modify the billing profile.

Billing Profile. At Admin/Modify Billing Profile, you can sign in and change your address/billing information, but you cannot change your credit card information here. To do this, or if you have trouble signing in here, please call customer service at 813-681-6770. To change the Primary Account Holder designation to another person in your congregation, please call us.

Any kind of help. If you have questions, problems, or suggestions, you can email us at support, or call 813-681-6770. We welcome your questions and comments.