Watch These Tutorials to Practice Your Beliefs Comfortably in Our Online Church

How to Use These Tutorials

Dear Ones: These tutorials are designed for you. Whether you've gathered online in other social networks or not. Of course, those among you who are advanced will not need much guidance.

Welcome all newcomers! We're so glad you're bringing unique gifts and talents to our Beloved Community. We create a sacred presence by sharing the content of our character, our virtue. We hope these short tutorials will help you share your beliefs and that you'll be enriched by what we've created here so far.

Together, we keep our online church safe by extending our covenant to participation in this site. Each of us also has control over what we share of ourselves and who can see it. This keeps our online experience safe too. Perhaps the biggest take away from this introduction is that our "Privacy Settings," "Friending," and other features do not work the same way for you as they do on Facebook. We gather together as one network and not as a collection of relationships that each person on Facebook makes. We assemble here as one body, one network, one Beloved Community. We diverge from some social networking practices for this reason.

We recommend that you watch the tutorial on "Our Church and Facebook.

And Dear Parents, You can ensure our online church is warm and welcoming by watching this particular video. Please watch it before you grant access to your under-age children. They may be on Facebook, and it will be too easy for them to assume that our online presence is modeled on that network's paradigms.

You can skip around and view the tutorials in any order. Many of them, however, refer back to ones earlier in the series. They are meant for viewing on a computer or iPad. They will not be legible if projected onto a wall or movie screen.

From the comfort of your home, you'll learn in less time than it would otherwise take for in-person sessions at the church. Plus, you can pause and replay the videos as many times as you like. They are here for you, whenever, you need them.

The length of each tutorial ranges from 7 to 25 minutes. The longer ones are in two parts, and we believe it's important you watch both.

These tutorials were lovingly made in Sept. 2010. Our platform provider, Ning.com, often updates its features. These lessons may become slightly out of date sooner, rather than later. But the general concepts will likely be the same. The voice of the instructor in the tutorials is that of UUCA member June Herold. She's delivered them at the same rate of speech of a sermon to ensure that all can hear and follow. However, you can always click the pause button and replay anything as many times as you like.

In the spirit of meditation and prayer, it's comforting to know that our online church is built on "tranquility." The word "ning" means tranquility in Chinese. It's also a gender neutral name for males and females.

It's beneficial to all newly registered members, to watch, at a minimum, tutorial #3, which discusses what is private and what's public on this site.

May peace and ning be with you. Sign in, rejoice and commune!

• Tutorial #Tutorial 1: Overview Tour (12:16)

  

• Tutorial #2: How to Sign Up (13:50)

  
  Who can sign up?

• Tutorial #3: What is Public? Private? (11:00 each part)

  
  My Settings
  How to set privacy controls

• Tutorial #4: My Page aka Profile Page (11:00 for each part)

  
  What's it for?
  How to change its appearance
  What guests to your page see

• Tutorial #5: Navigation and Shortcuts (7:11)

  
  How to navigate the site
  Shortcuts to popular items

• Tutorial #6: Blogs, Comments and Text (14:56)

  
  How to write them
  How to publish them
  Set privacy and access controls
  Put videos and photos in them

• Tutorial #7: Our Church & Facebook (14:44)

  
  Important privacy differences
  Share UUCA arts and activism on FB
  UUCA's page on FB, Join it!

• Tutorial#8: Videos (14:55)

  
  How to Add Them
  How to Embed Them Into Blogs
  Sharing on Facebook, Please!

• Tutorial #9: Photos and Albums (11:25)

  
  Uploading multiple pics
  Albums aren't private but...
  Editing Photos and Albums

• Tutorial #10: Groups (12:57)

  
  What are they?
  How to set one up
  How to join one
  What's a public group?
  What's a private group?

• Tutorial #11: Friending (9:30)

  
  What are they?
  Benefits of Friending
  How to Add a Friend
  Friending & Messaging
  Accept a Friend Request
  Blocking and Removing Friends

• Tutorial #:12 Messaging and Your Inbox (13:51)

  
  How to send private messages
  Messages and "Friends"
  Broadcast messages with Groups

• Tutorial #13: Live Chat & Instant Messaging (9:31)

  
  Where is it? How do I use it? Why use it? Please, use it!