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New in Realm: Manage Congregant Relationships

Realm: Connecting through Relationships

As a former church administrator, knowing as much as I could about the individuals who are part of our church was vital to how successfully we fulfilled our mission. The more we knew, the better positioned we were to serve them. Our latest release gives your staff the ability to capture how people in your ministry are connected by adding who they are related to and how by using Relationship tags.

Types of relationships you can track

Realm allows you to use the default relationship tags included with this release or create new Relationship tags that you can begin tracking right away. Here are some examples:

  • Aunt/Uncle
  • Brother/Sister
  • Brother in Law/Daughter in law
  • Daughter/Son
  • Granddaughter/Grandson
  • Grandmother/Grandfather
  • Fiance
  • Nephew/Niece
  • Cousin

Relationship tags are completely customizable to fit the relationships your ministry would like to track. 

Why should your church track Relationships?

There are many reasons why your church may want to understand how people are connected within your ministry. Let’s picture this scenario:

Aaron and Lisa are both members of your church. Aaron is Lisa’s uncle. Unfortunately, Aaron passed away and your church wants to send his family a card to let them know their church family is praying and thinking of them during this time. Thankfully, your church has used Relationship tags to indicate who in your church is related to Aaron, outside of his immediate household, and can reach out to them. This allows your ministry to show that you know and care for your people.

Create Relationship tags

To get started with this feature, staff users with the ‘Manage Relationship Tags’ permission can create Relationship tags in just a few steps:

  1. Navigate to Profiles – Settings
  2. Click on the Relationship Tags tab
  3. Click + Add Tag
  4. Click Save

Add Relationship tags to profiles

To view the relationships for an individual in your ministry:

  • Search for the individual’s profile
  • Navigate to the Relationships tab

Here you will see a list of individuals that have a relationship with the person you’ve searched for. From this screen, you can also add more relationships. To do this:

  • Click + Add Relationship
  • Search for the relative’s profile
  • Select how they are connected to each other
  • Click Save

If you add the wrong person, select the wrong relationship tag, or simply want to delete this connection you can:

  • Click on for the relationship you want to delete or edit
  • Select Edit to make changes to that relationships tag
  • Select the appropriate relationship tags
  • Click Save
  • To delete a relationship click on for the relationship you want to delete
  • Select Delete
  • Confirm that you want to permanently delete this relationship for both people

If you find duplicate profiles that have Relationship tags, the system will automatically merge the Relationship tags when the profile is merged.

A powerful feature to help you do ministry better.

Using relationship tags in profiles not only helps you know your people better but allows you to truly make an impact in the lives of those under your care. In ministry, sometimes it’s the small things that help others feel seen, valued, and truly cared for. Relationship tags can be that small thing that profoundly impacts your ministry!
Want to know how best to gather accurate information in your system to help you better serve your people? Check out this blog: Centralizing Data for More Effective Ministry: A Critical Pillar.


Lily joined the ACST team in 2020. She worked six years at a large church in Atlanta, GA, as the Business Systems Analyst. Lily understands the mission and challenges of the church. She spent her time in ministry utilizing Realm to help solve those challenges. She is passionate about helping our Ministry Partners leverage technology to fulfill their mission and grow their ministry impact.

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