Life Events Ministry and GDPR
A Life Event service is a wonderful opportunity to show the warmth of God’s love, and to welcome those who may not otherwise find themselves walking through the church doors. By carefully considering your approach to data protection, you can take advantage of these opportunities while ensuring safety and security for everyone involved.
This reassuring video summarises the main points: To properly administer a Life Event service, whether a wedding, a funeral or the baptism of a child, you need to collect data, and from a pastoral perspective it makes sense to use that data to build and maintain a relationship after the service. You will want to invite a recently-baptized child and their family back to church, to support them on their spiritual journey. You might like to contact a married couple on their anniversary, or offer marriage counselling. For those who have experienced a church-led funeral, whether at church or at a crematorium, you may wish to send cards, offer bereavement support, and of course remember them in prayer. So, once GDPR is enshrined into law, will I still be able to do all of this? A simple key thing to remember around GDPR for churches is that a good deal of your processing of data will be based not on consent, but on one of the legitimate interests allowed for managing the administration of the parish and providing pastoral support for your parishioners. Can I share data with third parties? What about praying for people – is that affected? This article was written with the kind help of church admin software supplier iknowchurch.co.uk. For more information on GDPR from iknowchurch, visit their dedicated website: http://www.gdprforchurches.org.uk.
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