With the launch of the new website, you may have noticed this cryptic little link in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage that says "Login to MyVineyard". What is that? What are you supposed to do with it? Well, here in the 411 blog, I'll be taking some time over a number of posts to explain all about MyVineyard and what it means for you.

So, what is it?

MyVineyard is a private social network site just for Vineyard OP. It is similar to Facebook in a number of ways. It allows you to:

• Maintain a personal profile with your picture and your personal information
• Become friends with other people on the site
• Join groups you're interested in
• Browse events and sign up to attend the ones you're interested in
• Post and respond to messages and communications within the groups you join

But, MyVineyard is NOT Facebook. It differs from Facebook in many, important ways:

• MyVineyard is a private site. Only people who attend Vineyard OP have access to the site.
• MyVineyard is associated only with Vineyard OP. So all people, groups and events are associated exclusively with Vineyard OP (you won't be hassled by the latest Mafia Wars or Farmville request).
• You can choose to be completely private on this site. You choose your own privacy settings, anywhere from "everyone can see me" up to "no one can see me". You have complete control over who is able to see your information, who you are friends with, what groups you join and what events you attend.

Why would Vineyard OP offer something like this?

MyVineyard provides the opportunity to connect and communicate better with the groups you are already involved with, and to open opportunities to connect at a deeper level with groups and service opportunities you may not know about. For instance, the Outreach Group I sent the email out about yesterday is one of the public groups on MyVineyard. You can choose to join this group to receive updates about outreach and to interact with all the other people at Vineyard OP who are passionate about outreach. If the emails I send start bugging you, you can go into your settings and specify that you don't want to receive email updates from this group any more. When outreach events are posted, they are posted to this group, and you'll be notified via email - if you choose to receive those notifications. See how this works?

In the near future, small groups that choose to participate will have their own groups on MyVineyard. The small group leaders will have the option to use the MyVineyard small group to stay in touch with the small group members, post updates, share ideas and plan events. And it is always up to you what groups you choose to be in, and what communications you choose to receive.

MyVineyard is also part of our church congregation database. Vineyard OP pastoral and administrative staff use MyVineyard to manage events and keep records for everyone who attends Vineyard OP. For instance, our Prayer Network is a public group we use to communicate prayer needs out to the members of that group. We also use it to help offer people opportunities to serve that fit who God made them to be. In your personal profile, you can update information about the gifts you have, the ministries you are interested in and the issues you are passionate about. Based on this information, we can search for people who are passionate about the homeless and see if they want to volunteer to serve at Hope Faith with us.

Your personal profile is how you communicate your personal information to Vineyard OP. If you change your phone number or move to a new street address, you can simply update the information in your profile, and you will have notified Vineyard OP of the change. This is the information Vineyard OP uses for sending emails, giving statements and other information.

This first post is just to help make you aware of what MyVineyard is. We understand MyVineyard is probably not for everybody, but you should login and update your personal profile information if nothing else. The next section deals with what you need to do to get a username and password and get logged in.

Requesting a Username and Password

1. Click on the "Login to MyVineyard" link on the homepage
2. Click on the "Sign-Up" link on the left side of the screen
3. Fill out all of the fields and click the submit button
4. You will be emailed a username and password at the email address you put into the form

NOTE: MyVineyard only sends usernames and passwords to people who have attended Vineyard OP and given us their contact information. If you have not given us your email address and contact information, then MyVineyard will give you a message saying that you aren't in the system. If this happens, you won't get a username and password automatically and you need to send me an email with the same information you entered to sign up and I'll take care of it.

Logging In To MyVineyard

Once you have the username and password,

1. Click on the "Login to MyVineyard" link on the homepage
2. Enter the username and your password in the appropriate fields and click Login
3. You'll be taken to your MyVineyard homepage

As always, if you have any questions about MyVineyard that aren't answered via these posts, you can email me. I reserve the right to point you to a blog post if I've already answered your question. Please be patient as I will be blogging about different aspects of MyVineyard over the next several weeks.

Over and out,

David Andersen
Vineyard Church of Overland Park