Our Church Online Directory and Database

by UPB Editor, March 10, 2025

We are proud to introduce to you United Parish’s member portal called Realm.

Our online church photo directory is called Realm and it is THE way to stay connected. We want you to participate so that you can connect with your United Parish friends, and they can connect with you! It’s essential for everyone to get on board so we can continue to be cohesive and connected as a community. Now more than ever, it’s important to know your neighbors and support each other as a community during this time.

What: It’s an online church photo directory and database. It’s private members-only platform just for the United Parish community. It’s a website (and an app) that you can access 24/7. It’s free for church members and easy to set up and use.

With Realm you can:

• View your ministry teams, music groups, or affinity groups, and access group documents and resources
• Update your contact information and post a profile picture
• Access the church’s online directory and select what personal information appears on your profile when other congregants view it
• View your pledge information, giving history and download your giving statements
• See church resources and documents
• Send messages to other church members
• Make online contributions to United Parish
• And more!

Watch this video overview.

Who: Members and regular attendees of United Parish. Whether you’re a long-time member, or newly active in church life, you probably already have a record in our database. If you haven’t receive an email invitation from Realm, it might mean that we don’t have your information on file.  

When: NOW!

Where: Online at onrealm.org/TheUnitedParish, which you can also access through upbrookline.org. Click the link on the top right labeled “Realm Login.”

Why: Realm is a modern cloud-based version of the member database that church staff and treasurers have been using for years. Realm supports the missions and ministries of United Parish. Realm’s online format makes it easier for staff and congregants to access contact information, pledge information and giving history in real time. Our treasurers and staff have been using it successfully for several years. It’s user-friendly and has lots of potential for supporting our ministries. Now it’s time to get the whole congregation to participate! The directory only “works” if everyone manually opts-in. It’s only as good as the number of people who participate. We need your help for it to be successful!

How: Contact the Church Office at office@upbrookline.org for an invitation to join Realm.

If you need help, please watch this video tutorial.

You will receive an invitation from Realm. Click the link and follow the instructions to claim your church record and create your account.

It only takes 5 minutes to get started.

• Create a username and password for your account and log on to onrealm.org/TheUnitedParish.
• Verify that your information is correct. Make any changes if needed.
• Opt-in to the church directory by updating your privacy settings to “Anyone in the Church.” Remember that “anyone” only means people in United Parish using Realm. Learn more about privacy settings below.

Check out this video from Realm about privacy settings.

Resources

Download instructions without photos and with photos.

Download the FAQs.

Learn more about online giving and viewing your giving history.

Realm is primarily a website but you can also access all of the same features and tools on the Realm Connect App. Download it for Apple and Android here.

Can’t find what you’re looking for or need more help? Check out the Realm Help Center.

How United Parish Can Use Realm 

Realm is for everyone in our church community.

If you’re a convener – you can manage events, send messages to group members, upload meeting minutes to the Resources tab, and track meeting attendance and member involvement. Check out this Content Creation Guide and Group Leader Guide to help your group more fully utilize all of the features that Realm has to offer.

If you’re a ministry team member – you can see the newsfeed and calendar, receive email messages from group leaders and others, and see group resources like meeting minutes.

If you’re a congregation member – you can see your personal giving history, update your contact information, see the newsfeed and calendar, view the directory, and add family members.

If you’re a pastor, staff member, treasurer or on Council or Discernment – you can log important information, log contributions, and track church members’ talents and interests.

Learn More about Realm

We’ve updated the administrative tools our staff uses to run the daily operations of the church. You determine how much you want to make this a part of your experience with United Parish, but we encourage you to participate.

Everyone in our church gets a unique profile. Your profile contains everything you want people in our church to know about you. Your profile also enables you to join a group or ministry team, RSVP to events, track your giving, update your contact information, change family details, set notification preferences or replace that outdated family photo. By keeping your information current, you are helping our staff, ministry team conveners and our church community.

Your profile includes:

• Contact info including name, address, email, phone. (You can decide what data you want to hide online by setting your privacy preferences.)
• Photo
• Family members
• Personal information (martial status, birthday* etc.) *Feel free to enter your full birthday. The year and your age will not be displayed on your church directory profile.

Review your giving history or make new donations online or through the mobile app on your phone. Simply sign in to look over your year-to-date giving, check pledge progress, print a contribution statement, or make a new one-time or recurring donation. It’s always available and kept secure in an easy-to-use online environment. No matter how you choose to give toward our ministry, you can review all of your giving history anytime.

Register for an event. View upcoming church events and register for the ones you’d like to attend. If an event’s registration requires payment, you’ll see its cost, any required deposit amount, acceptable forms of payment, and its no-refund date, if applicable. You can also manage your active registrations and see any outstanding balances.

Privacy Information

Your information is your information.

• You have complete control over who can see your contact and personal information.
• Contact information is never public or searchable on the internet. Any information you elect to make visible to your church family is always protected behind a login.
• Authorized staff will always have access to your profile information.
• You and certain authorized staff may update your profile information. In some cases, your ministry team convener may update your contact information if you have made it visible to group leaders.
• For safety reasons, sharing contact and personal information for children under 18 is limited. Parents determine whether or not to display their child’s name in the church directory.
• Children under 13 may not participate and will not be able to sign in.

What People May See

• By default, the viewing of your contact and personal information is limited to members of groups you are in, group leaders, and staff members. If you choose to, however, you can make your information visible to the entire church. But if you prefer to be more private, you can customize how people see specific information. (If you are a group leader or host an event, certain contact information may be visible regardless of the settings you choose.)
• Contact information = Name, address, phone, email.
• Personal information = marital status, family position, member status, but you also have the option of sharing your birthday, gender, allergy information, and skills with people in our church.

Privacy Settings

• Anyone in the Church = like a church directory listing, everyone our church will be able to see whatever profile information is marked as visible to everyone.
• Leaders and group/serving team members = this setting means information will only be shared with the people you are involved with at church. This is the default setting.
• Leaders = you would use this setting if you wanted to keep some profile information hidden from anyone who is not a group leader or on staff.
• Users with permission only = this setting effectively removes you from the church directory. Your information will only be available to authorized church staff (while you can hide the majority of your information from most of your church, you should know that, regardless of your settings, contact data will still be visible to certain members of our church staff.)
• Custom privacy = choose different privacy levels for specific contact fields and personal information. You can do this in two places: when you edit your profile information or when you manage your privacy settings. (The Directory page shows all individuals who have a login, along with individuals without a login who have been opt-ed in to the directory.)
• Family Privacy: A family member with a primary position such as “Spouse” can change privacy settings for other members of the family and opt family members into the church directory. Birthdays are required for children (as a means to prohibit access), but it’s up to you if you want to share the birth date with your church family.

User Agreement

Disclaimer: By participating in Realm, you are agreeing to respecting the privacy of other church members.

By logging into United Parish’s Realm database, you are agreeing to the following:

• As a member/friend of United Parish in Brookline, I understand that the personal contact information contained in United Parish’s Realm database is to be maintained as private and confidential.
• I will be respectful of people’s privacy as I would if this was a printed church directory.
• I understand that as a member of the United Parish community, I am also responsible for keeping the online environment safe.
• To that end, by logging into United Parish’s Realm database, I agree to the following:
  • The username and password issued to me are for my personal use only. I will not share my username and/or password with any other individual.
  • I will not use contact information from United Parish’s Realm database for any commercial purposes, to engage in illegal, immoral, fraudulent or malicious conduct, or to annoy or harass persons listed.
  • If I see inappropriate or questionable use of the online church directory, I will contact the Church Office at office@upbrookline.org.
  • The church staff hold the right to revoke the privilege of accessing United Parish’s Realm database.