The United Reformed Church

A free guide to help you set up a Zoom account for your church or church organisation.

What is Zoom?

Zoom is a popular cloud-based video conferencing service you can use to virtually meet with others – either by video or audio-only or both.

People can access it via an app on their smartphone or tablet, or via a browser on their laptop or desktop computer. Landlines can also be used, for those without access to the above.

A free guide to help you set up an Instagram account for your church or church organisation. 

What is Instagram?

Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social networking service owned by Facebook.

The app allows users to upload photos, graphics and videos, which can be edited with filters and organised with hashtags and location information and posted to your account. You can also choose to allow your posts to be shared publicly or with pre-approved followers. 

Instagram users can search for content using hashtags, locations or by seeing what’s trending on the platform. You can follow different accounts and like or comment on their content if you wish.

A free guide to help churches and church organisations understand virtual funerals.

How this guide can help 

This is not intended to be a definitive collection of resources, but will hopefully give you a starting place with words and ideas that could be useful for you, or to pass on to family members. Please tailor to the needs of your situation.

A free guide to using Facebook, Youtube and Zoom to record and broadcast acts of worship from your church or church organisation. 

Why record acts of worship? 

There are times such as now during the Coronavirus outbreak when people will be unable to attend church services and all church events are cancelled.

It's during these periods that recording and broadcasting acts of worship is one of the many things a church can do to stay in contact with its congregation and local community.  

A free guide to setting up public wi-fi for your church or church organisation. 

Why offer public wi-fi? 

Offering free wi-fi inside your church can be a really good way of opening up your building for more uses and could potentially bring more people inside. There are lots of considerations to make when deciding to offer wi-fi. Below are a couple of different options to think about.

The overall cost will vary hugely depending on how advanced the system is, how strong it is, how much space you’re looking to cover, how you plan on using it and what internet speeds you are looking to offer. It’s important to do your own research and speak to experts to find the best option for you.

A free guide to help you set up a WhatsApp account for your church or church organisation.

What is WhatsApp?

WhatsApp is a free tool, owned by Facebook, that allows people to message individuals, small or large groups of people with the app on their mobile phone or on a computer.

If you don’t have WhatsApp, visit the App Store on your iPhone or iPad, or Google Play on an Android phone, tablet or device, and download the app.

The icon is a white speech bubble with a white phone symbol in a green square or circle. WhatsApp is used by more than 1 billion people, is free, is encrypted, which means it is secure, and offers video and audio calls using the internet.

You can also use it to share images and forward messages from others. 

A free guide to help you set up a Twitter account for your church or church organisation.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a globally popular microblogging and social networking service on which users post and interact with messages known as tweets. Tweets can be made up of 280 characters (including spaces), you can also embed photos and images and include links to other online content or videos.

A free guide to help you set up a Facebook group for your church or church organisation. 

What is Facebook?

Facebook is a social networking website where users can share information, post comments, share photographs and links to news or other interesting content on the web, relevant to your church or community, and you can also chat live and watch videos. You can also use it to share acts of worship or host events.

Shared content can be made publicly accessible, or it can be shared only among a select group of friends or family, or with a single person.