This article reflects the new benefice functionality released in March 2023.
Who is benefice functionality for?
If you have more than one church in your benefice, you may find it helpful to use our benefice functionality. This is optional.
- You can have a benefice site within AChurchNearYou.com that you point people to.
- The benefice features are also useful if you don't want to show people a benefice site but do edit multiple churches and want an easier way to copy and control events and news across all of them.
Access to edit benefices
When you are approved as an editor for any church, you automatically also get access to edit the associated benefice. How to become an approved editor.
To edit a benefice, you need to open the benefice in editor view so you can see the editor menu - just like you do to edit a church. How to open a church or benefice in editor view.
What you get on a benefice site
You get:
- A benefice homepage. Benefice homepages are substantially different to church homepages. When you edit the benefice homepage, you'll find options to control your homepage content, fields you can use to control the language displayed (e.g. you can avoid the word 'benefice') and checkboxes to control whether and how the churches in your benefice display links back to benefice site.
- A benefice 'about' page. This works in the same way as church About pages.
- A benefice services and events page, and a benefice news and notices page and custom pages. Add content in the same way as you can at church level. The difference is there is an option to control whether you want the content to also display on any/all of your church sites, as well as on your benefice site. How to add services and events. How to add news and notices. How to add custom pages.
'Find us' 'Get in touch' 'Facilities' and 'More Information' pages are not available on benefice sites. They are only available on church sites. Instead of a 'Get in touch' page, you can display a range of contact buttons on your benefice homepage including a button people can select to email you.
Features on church sites that are accessed through the 'Marketplace' are not available on Benefice sites at the moment. The 'Marketplace' does not exist on the benefice edit menu.
Swap out 'benefice' and 'churches' for your preferred term
We always say 'benefice' in guidance that editors see (such as this article!), but you can adjust the language that you show to the public. Your benefice site never says 'benefice' unless you want it to. You can also stop it displaying 'churches' and have as 'locations' or something else instead.
That means it works for scenarios such as 'multi church benefice', 'team parish', 'team ministry', 'group', 'one church with two locations' or similar.
To control the language, open your benefice homepage in editor view and find the 'Replace with...' fields. Full instructions here.
Search and discovery
When you search on AChurchNearYou.com it does not bring up benefice sites, it still brings up church sites. So they can't use the site search to find benefices. However, there are other ways your benefice site can be found:
1. You can choose to display a link to your benefice site on your church sites within AChurchNearYou.com. To control this, open your benefice homepage in editor view and find the 'Display benefice block...' and 'Display benefice link....' checkboxes. Full instructions here.
2. You can also arrange for a URL you already own (such as anytownbenefice.org) to point straight to your benefice site on AChurchNearYou.com.*
3. On request we will soon be able to offer you a local AChurchNearYou.com domain name (e.g. achurchnearyou.com/anytown-benefice) if you would like this, that would forward to your benefice site. Contact us if you are interested in this.
*For those who had custom domain names pointing to the old-style benefice pages:
If you were doing this, you may find this no longer works. If that is the case contact us immediately and we will set up a redirect to resolve this.
Background: Before the introduction of the new benefice features in March 2023, basic benefice pages existed. There were actually multiple URLs you could use to access a single benefice page. That's because the URLs were structured with a church number combined with /benefice/. This meant there were as many different URLs for your benefice page as there were churches in your benefice. Knowingly or unknowingly, you picked one to point your own custom domain name to.
Now, we have had to move to single fixed benefice URLs based on benefice numbers rather than church numbers. This is 1) because it was confusing to have multiple possible URLs and 2) because occasionally churches are closed and if the benefice URL that was relied on was based on the number of a closed church, that URL would cease to work.
However, if you were pointing to an old style URL, we've very sorry, we will have caused you a problem in this switchover. As soon as you contact us we will put a redirect in place to instantly resolve it, but you may also wish to change the URL in your domain name settings as soon as you are able.
FAQ
Can I have a site for my deanery? Can I have a site for my group of churches that is not a benefice? Can I control which churches show up in the benefice?
We're sorry, at the moment it is only benefices that can have a site together. All churches that are part of the benefice will show up as members of the benefice and this can't be changed.
Our hope is that we have created something that will be helpful now but that we can also build on in the future, based on your feedback. Please log your suggestions at cofe.io/SuggestionsACNY.
Can I get content (services, news etc) currently on my church sites to appear on benefice sites?
So sorry, no. Content can flow down from benefice sites and out to church sites, but not up from church sites to benefice sites.
You may have to recreate some of your events at benefice level, and then delete the church-level versions. So sorry about this! We went through various possible ways of making the connection between benefices and churches work. The way we have done it may have some short term pain (so sorry!) but we believe it is the best option for clarity and ease of editor use in the long run.
Can I control the order the churches are listed in for my benefice?
No, sorry about that, not at the moment.
Our hope is that we have created something that will be helpful now but that we can also build on in the future, based on your feedback. Please log your suggestions at cofe.io/SuggestionsACNY.
Can I add more than one email address or contact number to the benefice homepage?
You can't at the moment. Sorry about that. We recommend putting your general enquiries contacts on the homepage. You could create a custom page to explain alternative contacts such as for Room Bookings or other specific types of enquiries.
How do I...?
Contact us if you need help with any of these new features.
But what about....?
We think what we’ve delivered is a strong starting point, focusing on benefice homepages and benefice services and events listings. We know there will still be lots more that editors will want us to make available at benefice level in the future.
Our hope is that we have created something that will be helpful now but that we can also build on in the future, based on your feedback. Please log your suggestions at cofe.io/SuggestionsACNY.