ACNY is a major signpost to your church. The website attracts over a million page hits per week and it the first port of call for many looking to explore faith. This offers an amazing opportunity for you to reach out to people in their community and welcome them to the church.
For a full update on the benefits of using ACNY and instructions to use the system please download this presentation:
CHurch of England guide to ACNY | PDF
To promote your services
Please remember to add your church's services and events to www.AChurchNearYou.com. Use the relevant tags so your services are clearly signposted such as 'Remembrance' or 'Christmas', and if your service will be online, use the 'Live stream' and 'Recorded service' options.
On the tourist trail
You can also use ACNY to help you encourage tourist visitors to return to your churches in a safe way. We encourage you to post on ACNY as much information as you can as well as posting on social media, so it is easy for people to
- understand the hours you are open,
- what sort of measures they will be expected to take to stay safe,
- what facilities such as toilets, accessible changing places, cafés etc. are open.
Resources hub
You can use the site to download editable videos, music, photographs and more. You can even turn your entry into your own website. There are new resources to generate personalised videos to encourage giving plus you can use the A Church Near You 'giving' button as part of your fundraising. Finally, parishes can download a certificate to show their charitable status.
Administration
At the moment (January 2024) w4e are pleased that 55% of our churches have recently logged in to use their ACNY accounts. However 13% have unread messages (compared to 14% in 2021) and this is a missed opportunity.
If you are the vicar who leads a church you have automatically been given a log-in to your churches on ACNY. You can administrate ACNY automatically so long as:
- You have listed an email address on your Crockford’s entry
- You have not requested to have your Crockford entry contact details restricted
- The email address you've used for your ACNY account matches the email address on your Crockford's entry.
As administrator you can approve or decline requests from other people to edit that church, and can remove existing editors from that church. Click here to visit a ACNY help page to get started.
