Experience.FellowshipOne.com

Currently we leave all children within a household, even those over 18. Their status may be changed to Visitor or Attendee or Member, but their Position would be Child, as that is their position within the household.

I am thinking that it would be a better practice to transfer these adults to their own Household and make them the Head, even though they have the same address. This would allow us to contact them individually and treat them as the adults that they are. It would also help with Contribution records.

 I'm looking for any feedback you can provide on this...pros and cons...what has worked for your church? And what should I know before I make this transition? Also, what would be the easiest, least labor intensive way to make this change in our database?

Thanks!

Lisa Eaton 

Impact Community Church, Sacramento, CA

Hi Lisa,

We have been moving them into their own household. The drawback is that the parents' will sometimes add them back to their households so you'll have duplicates to merge. 

Debbie Doell 

 

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Debbie Doell
Fellowship One Coordinator
Cornerstone Fellowship 348 North Canyons Parkway Livermore, CA 94551
www.cornerstoneweb.org

Thanks, Debbie. Sharon at First Baptist said that they move them into their own household, too. That's what prompted me to think about it. I think we'll go ahead and make that transition, I just want to think through any possible drawbacks before we make that next step (and I don't mind dealing with duplicates).

 Lisa

We also move them into their own household, but have also started adding an attribute called "Family Member/Next of Kin" and then individual attributes of Parent, Sibling, Grandparent, Child of, etc. with their names to keep up with the family relationships.  We've started doing this on any members that we know their other family members, not just on the graduating students.  It has been a big help with our bereavement and hospital visits, as well as just general information for our ministers.

Andrea

We leave the children that are >18 in the same household (until we hear otherwise), but change their status to "other". One reason we do this is for some of the same issues listed in this thread. However, the main reason is that they are still part of the household, and technically not on their own.