Should Your Church Rollout Member Access to Breeze?

I’ve had the amazing privilege of speaking with hundreds–if not thousands–of churches as a Breeze support Advocate.

Of the churches I’ve talked with, I have found it’s fairly split between those who have rolled out member access to Breeze and those who haven’t.

In some ways, it’s a calculated move, but for the majority, they simply haven’t rolled out Breeze to their church members because:

• They haven’t thought about it.
• They don’t see a reason to do so.

We actually have several articles which provide valuable documentation on the how to aspect of this topic, but I want to share with you a few reasons WHY I believe you should at least consider this option.

Update Their Own Information

When you roll out Breeze access to your members, you are empowering them to do something that...allow me to put it bluntly…you won’t have to do!

As a bi-vocational Pastor, I’m often looking for ways to save time.

In fact, one of the lenses I try to look at things with is: Is this something only I can do?  Or, is this something that someone else can do?

When it comes to updating member info, sure, you or someone on your staff could hop into your church’s Breeze account and update people’s information, but why not allow your church members access so they can do this on their own?

Especially if they are constantly changing email addresses.  

Keep in mind, you are giving them permissions to edit ONLY their information, so there’s low to no risk.

Go ahead, and roll out access to your members to save yourself time and avoid that dreaded hour of data entry!

Online Directory

I remember in my early days of ministry, I would receive calls from companies specializing in printed church directories.

These were important ministry tools years ago when we didn’t have everyone’s numbers and contact information in our pockets.

While Breeze still receives requests to help print physical directories, they aren’t as popular as they used to be.

More common are our online directories that members can access.

One of the benefits of online directories in Breeze is that you can automatically set who shows in the directory using Tags.

For instance, when someone in your database is marked as a member, you can have Breeze automatically add them to your church directory.

This can be helpful as many churches have far more contacts in their database than members.

As an example, you might have a database of 1,000 contacts, but a membership of only 250.

You wouldn’t necessarily want your members to have access to 750 contacts that aren’t currently members of your church.

Manage Their Recurring Giving

Lastly, it can be helpful for your members to have access to Breeze so they can manage their giving.

Keep in mind, givers do not have to have member access in order to give a one-time or recurring gift.

However, in order for them to manage it, they will need access to Breeze on their own.

Some churches do prefer these types of giving edits to be processed through the church office, as they want to know if there will be major changes to giving impacting their budget.

Your church will need to weigh these decisions in order to evaluate the option right for you.

Nevertheless, members will only be able to manage their recurring gifts on their own if they have been granted access to Breeze.

Wrap Up

If your church is considering providing your members access to your Breeze account, you’ll need to plan a rollout to them first.

If you’re looking for guidance on how to do so, we’ve put together some great resources in our support site.

I hope these points help you and your church determine how best to utilize Breeze with your members.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us–we’re here to help!

Nate has been a Support Advisor with Breeze since January 2020. In addition to working for Breeze, Nate is a full-time Pastor at The Hills church is rural Kentucky. He is happily married with three children, and has an amazing sneaker collection!