Parish Guide

My Inbox — How It Works

Your parishioners can finally write back. Every message the parish sends now has a home they can read, reply to, file and search — and every reply comes back to the parish office, not to one staffer's personal email.
A simple, step-by-step guide for parish staff and parishioners · Powered by Nave

At a glance

Before My Inbox, a message from the parish was a dead end. It arrived as an email in someone's personal inbox, or as a bell notification that vanished the moment they clicked it. If a parishioner wanted to answer, they had to email back — outside Nave, into whichever staffer's mailbox happened to be on the "from" line. The parish lost the thread, and the next person on duty had no idea the conversation existed.

My Inbox closes that loop. Parishioners read what you sent, reply in one tap, and the reply lands in a shared parish inbox that any staffer with permission can pick up.

1 · Parish sends→ 2 · It lands in their inbox→ 3 · They reply→ 4 · The office is notified→ 5 · Any staffer answers
Where to find it: parishioners tap My Inbox in the account menu, the notification bell, or their portal. Staff open Admin → My Inbox, which has two tabs: Mine (messages addressed to you — a pastor is a parishioner too) and Parish office (the shared queue of parishioner replies).

The one rule worth knowing

A broadcast goes to hundreds of people. A reply must never go back to hundreds of people.

Replying to an announcement starts a private conversation

When a parishioner replies to something you sent to everyone, Nave does not append their reply to the broadcast. It quietly starts a private conversation between that person and the parish office — nobody else in the parish sees it. The reply box tells them so in plain words, so no one ever fears they are about to write to the whole parish by accident.

Why this matters: a single "reply-all" on a 500-person parish email is the kind of mistake you cannot take back. Nave makes it structurally impossible.

Replies go to the parish, not to a person

The office side of a conversation is the role, not the individual. Any staffer with Manage messages can read and answer it, and a reply is sent as the parish. So when a volunteer finishes their term or a secretary changes, the conversation keeps working — nothing is stranded in a departed staffer's mailbox.

For parishioners

Everything the parish has said to you, in one place — in your language.

Read

Who: Any signed-in parishioner.   Goal: Never miss a message.

  1. Unread mail shows as a red count on the bell, in the account menu, and on the portal.
  2. Tap My Inbox. Unread messages sit at the top with a dot; the rest are newest-first.
  3. Open one to read it. It's marked read automatically — and if the parish replies later, it pops back to the top as unread again.
Reply

Who: Any signed-in parishioner.   Goal: Actually be heard.

  1. Type in the reply box and send. That's it — no email app, no address to look up.
  2. Your reply reaches the parish office, and the staff on duty are emailed about it.
  3. When they answer, you get it in your inbox, on the bell, and by email.

Keep it simple and kind: messages are for short notes (about 500 words), and they reach real people in your parish.

File it

Who: Any signed-in parishioner.   Goal: An inbox that stays tidy.

  1. Make your own labels — "Volunteering", "My kids' Confirmation", whatever helps. They're private to you.
  2. Tick several messages at once to mark read, archive, delete or label them in one go.
  3. Archived messages step out of the way; deleting removes it from your inbox only.

For the parish office

A shared desk, so nothing depends on one person being at theirs.

The queue

Who: Pastor or staff with Manage messages.   Goal: No parishioner is left unanswered.

  1. When someone replies, everyone on the office team is emailed, and the admin bell shows "N replies waiting in the parish inbox".
  2. Open Admin → My Inbox → Parish office. Unread conversations are on top.
  3. Answer in the thread. Your reply is sent as the parish and reaches them by email and in-app.
  4. Read state is shared: if a colleague has picked one up, it isn't sitting there looking unhandled.

Deliberately not possible: bulk-deleting the shared queue. A staffer can't delete a parishioner's conversation out from under the parish just because they've read it.

Where messages come from

Anything the parish sends lands here automatically — a Broadcast, a segment message, or a personal 1-to-1 note. You don't have to do anything differently: keep sending as you do, and the inbox fills itself.

Still emailed as always. The inbox is an addition, not a replacement — every message still goes out by email, honouring opt-outs. Reminders, alerts and receipts continue to be emailed and are listed in the member's email history.