The Congregation Annual Report (ELCA) is exclusively used by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America member churches This report is designed specifically to assist users in filling out the yearly Congregational Report requested by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
These reports are usually expected to be returned about the middle of February. Contact the ELCA Office of the Secretary if you have any questions about completing the Congregational Report.
The ELCA report contains the following tabs:
» Church Info—General church information—Note that the church contact information fields are filled with information entered on the System Settings window (accessed from the main menu, System button, Program Settings, Church tab). You will also fill out your reporting year, Primary Worship Events and Liturgy Language(s) here.
» Membership—This tab contains information about your baptized and confirmed membership for both the prior and current reporting year.
» Financials 1—This tab lets you select what accounts in your finance module are to be considered for Receipts for the selected reporting year.
» Financials 2—This tab lets you select what accounts in your finance module are to be considered for Disbursements for the selected reporting year.
» Financials 3—This tab includes additional account selections for disbursements for the selected reporting year.
Notes on this report:
» The report prints out annual statistical data for a single calendar year (January through December). It cannot be printed for a non-calendar year or any time period other than 12 months.
» You must be using the finance module of Shepherd's Staff in order to fill in information in the Financials Tab.
» This report is looking for the specific terms for Received By and Removed By fields. Users are encouraged to check that their member information in their database is using these terms before running this report. The accepted terms are listed below:
Received By Terms:
Baptism
Affirmation of Faith
Transfer ELCA
Transfer
Other Lutheran
Transfer LCMS
Transfer WELS
Non-Lutheran
Other
Unknown
Removed By Terms:
Death
Transfer ELCA
Transfer
Other Lutheran
Transfer LCMS
Transfer WELS
Non-Lutheran
Moved (No Transfer)
Inactivity
Excommunication
Other
- Select Reports within the Membership Module
- Select the "Statistics: Denomination-specific" option on the list of reports
- In the "Denomination" field, select "Lutheran - ELCA" and then click the "Select" button
- In the Church Info tab, select your Reporting year in the reporting year field, and select your Primary Worship Event(s) by clicking the button with the checkmarks and lines to the left of the field. Also, fill out your Liturgy Language(s) in the Liturgy Language(s)
- The Membership tab will show you your membership statistics including Total Baptized and Confirmed membership, and membership gains and losses. Click the question mark button next to each figure to see how that figure is being calculated, or click the i button to see who is included within the figure the button is associated with.
- In the Financials Tab, click the button with the checkmarks and lines next to each field to select what accounts you want to use in that particular field.
- At any point during the process, you can click the Save and calculate process to update the generated fields based on the information you've filled in.
- Click the Print button to get a preview of your report. Click the Print button on the preview window to print out your report.