Parish Guide

Parish Leadership — How It Works

The clergy, staff and councils who serve your parish — published from the records your office already keeps.
A simple, step-by-step guide for parish staff · Powered by Nave

At a glance

The Parish Leadership page answers the question a visitor most often calls the office to ask: who do I talk to? It lists your clergy and parish office staff, with the address that actually reaches each of them, and — if your parish chooses — the councils and commissions that help guide the parish. Nothing here is typed twice: the staff list is drawn from the org chart in Admin → Team, and each council is drawn from its own membership in Admin → Groups. Keep those current and the public page is current.

1 · Your org chart already lists the office→ 2 · You mark which seats are public→ 3 · You choose which councils to publish→ 4 · The page shows exactly that
Two switches, both off until you say otherwise. The page itself is a feature your parish turns on in Admin → Features. Publishing a council is a second, separate decision, made one body at a time — because a council roster is your parishioners' names. Turning the page on publishes only your staff seats; no council appears until you publish it yourself. Tools that go a step beyond the basics are marked Advanced in this guide.

What appears on the page

Two sections, drawn from two different places in your back office.

Clergy & parish staff

Each public seat from your org chart, grouped as Clergy, Parish office, Faith formation and Operations. Shows the seat's title, the person, and their email if one is recorded.

Councils & commissions

Each body you have published, with what it does, when it meets, and its members. The chair is shown first, in the parish's own words — "Chair", "President", "Advisor".

A tab beside Ministries

The page sits next to Ministries as a pair. Ministries answers "what could I join"; Leadership answers "who runs this".

Nothing else

A seat you have hidden, a council you have not published, and a vacant post never appear. No member emails are published — the office is the way through.

Part A · For parishioners

No account or sign-in needed — the page is public for anyone visiting your parish website.

Use case 1 · Find who to ask

Who: Anyone visiting the parish website.   Goal: Reach the right person the first time.

  1. Open Parish Leadership from the menu, or the Leadership tab on the Ministries page.
  2. Find the role you need — the office manager for a certificate, the director of faith formation for classes.
  3. Tap the email address to write to them directly.

Result: A question reaches the person who can answer it, instead of the front desk at the busiest hour.

Use case 2 · See who guides the parish

Who: A parishioner or a newcomer.   Goal: Understand how the parish is led.

  1. Scroll to Councils & commissions (shown if your parish has published any).
  2. Read what each body does, when it meets, and who serves on it.
  3. To reach a member, contact the parish office — the address is at the foot of the section.

Result: Governance stops being a mystery, without putting volunteers' contact details on the open web.

Part B · For parish staff

Everything on this page is edited where it already lives: staff in Admin → Team, councils in Admin → Groups. There is no separate "staff page" to maintain, which is exactly why it does not go stale.

Use case 3 · Turn the page on

Who: Pastor or parish staff.   Goal: Publish the leadership page.

  1. Open Admin → Features and switch on Parish Leadership.
  2. The page appears in your menu and as a tab beside Ministries.
  3. It shows your public staff seats only. Councils stay private until you publish them.

Result: A staff directory is live, built from records you already keep.

Use case 4 · Put someone on the page (or keep them off)

Who: Pastor or parish staff.   Goal: Control exactly who is listed.

  1. Open Admin → Team and find the seat in the org chart.
  2. Use the eye control to show or hide it. Hidden seats stay in your chart and off the website.
  3. A seat with nobody in it is never listed — a title with no name reads as a broken page.

Result: The public sees the people you meant it to see. A hidden seat is genuinely private, not merely unlinked.

Use case 5 · Publish a council

Who: Pastor or parish staff (not a council chair).   Goal: Show a body and its members publicly.

  1. Open Admin → Groups and expand the council or commission.
  2. Check its description — that is what a visitor reads first — and its member list.
  3. Click Publish. You will be asked to confirm, and told how many names will become visible.

Result: That one body appears on the page. Every other body is untouched, and Remove from site takes it down again at any time.

Use case 6 · Fix a name that appears twice

Who: Parish staff.   Goal: One parishioner, recorded once.

  1. If the same person is spelled differently on two bodies — "Fernando López" and "Fernando Lopez" — Admin → Groups shows a gentle warning at the top.
  2. Beside each member, use Link to a parishioner and choose their record from your directory.
  3. The seat takes that person's name, and every body they serve on now follows their record.

Result: Published side by side, they read as one person — because they are one person. Nothing is ever linked by guessing at a name; you choose.

Use case 7 · Show a council in the org chart Advanced

Who: Pastor or parish staff.   Goal: Place a body in the reporting structure.

  1. In Admin → Team, add or edit a node and choose the council or commission under Governance body.
  2. Leave the name and email fields alone — the node takes its name and chair from the body itself.
  3. Drag it under the pastor (or wherever it belongs) as you would any other node.

Result: Rename the council or change its chair once, in Groups, and the chart follows. The node is never a second copy to correct.

Quick reference

Where does the staff list come from?The org chart in Admin → Team. Only seats marked public, and only those with someone in them.
We turned the page on and no councils appeared. Why?That is intended. Publishing a council is a separate decision, made per body in Admin → Groups — a roster is your parishioners' names.
Can a council chair publish their own body?No. Publishing is a parish-office decision; a chair can run their body's membership and meetings.
Are council members' emails shown?No. Names and roles only. The parish office address appears beneath the section as the way to reach anyone.
Someone appears twice under two spellings.Link both seats to the same parishioner in Admin → Groups. The warning at the top of that page points them out.
Is a hidden seat really hidden?Yes — hidden seats are withheld from the website itself, not merely left out of a list.
Does it work in Spanish?Yes. The page and its headings appear in each visitor's language; your own titles and descriptions appear as you wrote them.
Where does it appear in the menu?As a tab beside Ministries, and in your sitemap so search engines can find it.
The big idea: a parish already knows who serves it — in an org chart, and in the councils that meet each month. This page publishes that, rather than asking anyone to keep a second list that is wrong by the time it is printed.

Parish Leadership — How It Works · A guide for parish staff · Powered by Nave