Member Status
While the Family Record is the building block of our ChMS, we recognize that an individual's relationship with their parish may differ from their family's relationship with the church. Our ChMS reflects this reality by providing Member Status options for an individual's Member Record that, in most cases, function independently from the Family Status option found in their Family Record.
Notes about Member Status:
- Member Status is global, spanning across all of the church databases a Member Record is connected to - If St. Timothy changes Jane Smith's Member Status to Active, this WILL change her Member Status in all the other church databases Jane Smith is connected to.
- Member Status functions independently of registration - If St. Timothy marks a family as Unregistered in the Churches tab of their Family Record, this will NOT change the Member Statuses of this family's members.
- There are some cases where changing Family Status will automatically change Member Status(es) and changing Member Status(es) will automatically change Family Status. Please see this section for more details.
- Each member can only have ONE Member Status - Jane Smith family CANNOT have a Member Status of Active AND a Member Status of Seasonal.
The ChMS has a more limited number of Member Status options than Family Status options. Fewer Member Status options makes it a bit more straightforward to quantify a member’s relationship to their faith community. Below are the list of Member Status options within the ChMS alongside brief descriptors of each status. These descriptors are simply our team's perspective but they are open to interpretation! Please use the status options in the ways that make the most sense for your parish. What is most import is connecting with your parish staff to ensure consistency in how all staff members are using these status options throughout your database.
- Active – Selecting this option ensures the most functionality for this Member Record within the database. Consider this option for members who are regularly involved in your parish.
- Deceased - Consider this option for members who have passed away.
- Homebound - Consider this option for members who are unable to leave their homes but otherwise are or would be participating in your parish.
- Inactive - Selecting this option will impact some functionality of this Member Record within the database. Consider this option for members who were involved in your parish but no longer are.
- Seasonal - Consider this option for members who live elsewhere for part of the year and thus only participate at your parish during certain times of the year.
Family Status & Member Status
While Member Status globally indicates an individual's participation in their faith community, Family Status designates a family's connection to a particular church. In most cases, Family Status and Member Status function independently from one another. For example, changing the Smith family's Family Status to "Seasonal" will not automatically change Jane Smith's Member Status to "Seasonal." Likewise, changing Jane Smith's Member Status to "Seasonal" will not automatically change the Smith family's Family Status to "Seasonal."
However, there is one instance where a change in Member Status(es) does automatically change Family Status. When all member records tied to a family record have a Member Status of Deceased, the Family Status will automatically change to Deceased.
There are also some instances where a change in Family Status does automatically change Member Status(es).
Important Note: The Family Status-Member Status changes listed below will only occur if the Family Record is connected to only one parish. If the Family Record has ties to multiple church databases in the ChMS, a change in Family Status will NOT result in automatic Member Status changes.
- If the Family Record is connected to only one church database, changing Family Status to Inactive will automatically change all Member Statuses (of the Member Records connected to that Family Record) to Inactive.
- The one exception is if a Member Record in this Family Record has a Member Status of Deceased. Marking the Family Status as Inactive will NOT change a Member Status of Deceased, but it will change all other (non-Deceased) Member Statuses for all other Member Records in the family to Inactive.
- If the Family Record is connected to only one church database, changing Family Status to Deceased will automatically change all Member Statuses (of the Member Records connected to that Family Record) to Inactive.
- Again, the one exception is if a Member Record in this Family Record has a Member Status of Deceased. Marking the Family Status as Deceased will NOT change a Member Status of Deceased, but it will change all other (non-Deceased) Member Statuses for all other Member Records in the family to Inactive.