The Christian Chain

During this fiscal year, we launched a unique prayer app for churches and individuals to deepen their prayer life and connection to others. This prayer app, called Prayer Nook (prayernook.com), was designed to meet the "connecting people to people" part of our mission statement. The objective is to offer a way for members to journal, request prayers, pray with their friends, and strengthen their prayer life - all in one easy to use web and mobile app. Members are able to pray for those in their groups, share personal prayers within their inner circle, and journal prayers in their own private notebook. During this fiscal year, Prayer Nook went from a concept to the drawing board, to development and initial launch, all within a short 3-month period. From its launch in the second fiscal quarter until the close of the fiscal year, we have averaged 334 monthly visitors to the site, with 165 new members joining. Also, during this time period, 107 journal entries have been created, 133 prayer requests have been submitted (with 158 updates to prayer request added, and 46 prayer requests being marked as answered), and members have recorded 596 times that they have prayed for a prayer request.

During this fiscal year, we launched a program called Partners in Unity (partnersinunity.com), which is at the heart of our organization's vision, that is to see unity within the Body of Christ. This program was designed to meet the "connecting churches to churches" part of our mission statement. The objective is to offer a way for members to become bridge builders among the many Christian denominations seeking to enhance the long-term health of the Church by supporting church leadership and interdenominational cooperation. The Partners in Unity program seeks to promote unity within churches by identifying areas of growth opportunity within congregations and providing tools and actionable resources that churches can use to strengthen unity within and outside their congregations. During the second fiscal quarter, this program went from a concept to initial launch of two projects all within a short 2-month period. The first project was a questionnaire called the Unity Gauge (unitygauge.com). This questionnaire helps church leadership to decipher how their congregation feels and understands Biblical unity and offers a comprehensive report to the elder board of the church along with detailed offerings designed specifically to help them grow in the area of Biblical unity. During the development of this project, we held a round table meeting of ministers and church leaders from various ecclesiastical backgrounds in an effort to gain insights into the questions that we should include. The second project was an online resource called the Unity Accord (unityaccord.org). This is an online portal where individual members can explore the doctrines and history of Biblical unity as well as providing active ways for the member to engage with others to help promote Biblical unity. Since the initial launch of the Unity Accord website, we have seen an average of 357 monthly visitors with an estimated 75% engagement rate. The grant listed was a donation given to a small organization that was seeking funds for a book on the unity of the Body of Christ.

During this fiscal year, we took the program that encompassed the primary work of our organization for the past eight (8) years and rebranded and built upon the foundation to make this program more accessible across the United States. This program, called Samaritan Bags (samaritanbags.com), was designed to meet the "connecting the world to Jesus Christ" part of our mission statement. The objective is to offer a way for people to meet the needs of vulnerable individuals around the Phoenix Valley and throughout the United States. The Samaritan Bags program connects churches and community organizations to pack bags with non-perishable food and personal care items. These bags can be donated outright to organizations or rescue missions; or be carried around in volunteers' cars for chance encounters. Due to the challenges faced with the COVID-19 global pandemic, we were unable to hold our normal in-person packing events and then distribute the bags to those in need. So, we took this opportunity to update and expand the design our website to include an online packing and event guide, online shopping help, tutorials and aids, as well as a portal to help organizations and groups organize their packing event and take online donations of cash and items. Though we have missed our in-person packing events, we were able to use the time to prepare for the future and saw a quick return on our efforts. During this fiscal year we have averaged 221 monthly visitors with an estimated 46% engagement rate compared to the average 72 monthly visitors with an estimated 21.79% engagement rate seen from the initial launch of the website in 2013 until the start of this fiscal year.

Our Heis Soma (heissoma.com) resource has the objective of offering a way for members to create a global login for all our current and future program offerings. In the original Greek, heis soma means "one body." The reason that we chose Heis Soma as the name for this resource is as a reflection of being one body in Christ. Through this system, our members can have one password as a central point of login for the various ministries of The Christian Chain with plans to open this login system to other ministries in the future. This login system allows members to track giving, stay up to date on events, manage subscriptions and access our other websites and apps - all with one username and password. Unlike other logins, we won't track activity across the web without member knowledge, and their information will never be sold for third party advertising - which means they are free to focus on the ministries we offer and the work the Holy Spirit is calling them to do. Since its launch in our second fiscal quarter, there have been 168 new member accounts created with an estimated 122 monthly visitors even though going to the site is not required for logging into our other websites.