Church Email, Email Lists & Delivery Status

Church Email (Email in the main navigation) is Parsonage’s built-in email broadcast tool for Owners and Admins. Instead of copying and pasting addresses into a personal inbox’s BCC field—or exporting spreadsheets to a separate mailing service—pastors and church administrators can write pastoral letters, share mid-week announcements, and send published Sunday bulletin digests directly from the church directory.

Every broadcast is sent on behalf of your church with your configured sender name, reply-to address, church postal address, and a one-click unsubscribe link so congregation members know who is writing and how to reply.

When you preview or send an email, Parsonage resolves your chosen audience directly from your live People directory and active Groups rosters at that moment:

• Shared family addresses are combined automatically: If two or more people in the audience share the same email address (such as spouses who share a household inbox), Parsonage combines them so that address receives a single copy rather than duplicate messages.
• Automatic exclusions & opt-outs: Anyone without an email address on file, anyone marked as Deceased, anyone with Do not email checked on their directory profile, and any address on your church’s suppression list (from a previous unsubscribe, hard bounce, or spam complaint) is automatically skipped.
• Re-checked at delivery time: Preferences and suppressions are checked when you build the preview and checked again right before each recipient’s message is handed to Amazon SES.

Who can access Church Email

Owner

Full access to compose, preview, and send church emails, manage saved email lists, configure sender and footer details, and review or retry sent blasts.

Admin

Same email access as Owners: can compose and send emails, create and edit saved lists, update sender settings, and inspect or retry delivery.

Member

Cannot view the Email workspace, saved lists, or sent history. Members only receive emails sent to audiences that include their directory record.

Before you can preview or send your first email, open the Settings tab in Email to fill out Sender & church footer:

• Sender name (required): How your church appears in recipients’ inboxes (for example, Grace Fellowship Church).
• Reply-to email (required): The church office or pastor address where replies should go when someone hits Reply (unless you are sending to a saved list configured to send replies to the whole list).
• Church postal address (required): Your church’s physical mailing address, printed at the bottom of every email.
• Additional footer text (optional): Up to 2,000 characters for service times, office hours, or a brief church tagline.

Click Save sender details when finished.

The Compose tab stays mounted while you switch to Sent, Lists, or Settings, so you can check a list or update your sender details without losing an unsent draft.

1. 1

   Choose who receives the email (Send to)

   Pick an audience from the Send to menu:

   • Recorded church members: Everyone in the directory whose membership status is Member.
   • Everyone in the directory: All active people in your directory who have an email address and haven’t opted out.
   • Choose people: Search by name or email and check individual directory people for a one-off message.
   • Group members: Select one or more active ministry groups, Sunday school classes, or teams. Everyone currently in any selected group is included.
   • Lists: Choose any of your church’s saved email lists under the Lists group in the dropdown.
2. 2

   Write your subject and message (or start from a template or Sunday bulletin)

   Enter a Subject (up to 200 characters) and write your message using the rich-text toolbar (Bold, Italic, Heading, Bullet list, Numbered list, Add link, Remove link, and Add image).

   To insert an image or link, use a public https:// web address and include a helpful image description. Images stay hosted at their original https:// address.

   Whether you prefer a clean No template note, a warm Pastoral letter with headings and blockquotes, or a structured Announcement with bulleted details, Parsonage wraps your message in your church’s email layout with your sender header and footer. You can also start directly from any published Sunday bulletin by clicking Send as email on that bulletin—Parsonage pre-fills the subject and bulletin digest so you can edit anything before sending without changing the published bulletin itself.

3. 3

   Click “Preview & review recipients”

   Nothing is sent when you click Preview & review recipients. The right-hand panel renders the exact email (including the church footer and unsubscribe link) and shows the count of unique email addresses, how many records were excluded, and how many shared household addresses were combined. Expand Review recipient addresses to inspect the exact list of names and addresses.

4. 4

   Confirm and click “Send to N addresses now”

   Once the preview and recipient list look right, click Send to N addresses now. If you edit the audience, subject, or message after previewing, Parsonage asks you to preview again so the confirmed send always matches what you reviewed.

Open the Lists tab (Email → Lists) to create reusable mailing lists for your congregation or ministry teams. Each list has its own email address (<address>@<church-slug>.<domain>) and can be used both from the Compose tab in Parsonage and directly from a normal email inbox. Click New list to configure:

• List name & Mailbox name: Give the list a clear name (such as Wednesday Bible Study or Deacons). Parsonage fills in the Mailbox name before the @ automatically (for example, wednesday-bible-study@your-church.lists.example.org), or you can type a shorter mailbox name by hand using lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens, and single dots. System mailbox names (postmaster, abuse, mailer-daemon, noreply, no-reply, hostmaster, and root) are reserved. If you rename an existing list’s mailbox, the old address stops working as soon as you save.
• Who receives it: Choose Everyone in the directory, Recorded church members, Chosen people, or Group members. When you choose Group members or Chosen people, the picker appears right underneath so you can select groups or people in the same card.
• How replies and emailed posts work: Start from the Announcements preset (staff send updates; replies go privately to the sender) or the Group discussion preset (anyone on the list can email the address and reply to the whole list), or customize any of the three settings below:
  • Replies go to: Choose Only the sender (replies go privately to whoever sent the email—the poster’s own address for messages posted by email, or your church’s configured reply-to address for broadcasts sent from Parsonage) or The whole list (replies go to the list’s address so the conversation is shared with everyone on the list; requires incoming email to be set up).
  • Who can email this list: Choose Staff only (owners and admins), Anyone on the list, or Anyone (even outside the church). People on the list are recognized by their directory email address and can post even if they have opted out of receiving emails.
  • Approve posts before they go out: Choose Send allowed posts right away or Hold every post for staff approval (every incoming post waits in Posts until an owner or admin approves it).

Group-backed lists stay in sync automatically

When a list is set to Group members and linked to one or more active groups, you never have to maintain two separate rosters. Whenever someone joins or leaves those groups in Groups, the email list automatically uses the current group membership the next time anyone sends to it.

If a group attached to a list is later archived or deleted, Parsonage prompts you to remove the archived group or select an active group before sending to that list. Deleting a list removes its address without deleting any people from the directory or any emails already in your Sent history.

When incoming email is enabled for your list domain, people can start or reply to a list conversation right from their normal email app by emailing the list’s address (such as deacons@your-church.lists.example.org)—no Parsonage login required.

How an email post is delivered to the list

• Clear sender & threading: Each delivered post appears from “Sender Name via List Name” at the list’s address and preserves email conversation threads (In-Reply-To and References).
• A short, plain footer: Posts end with three lines written for people who have never used a mailing list, such as “Sent to the Choir group at Grace Church.”, “If you reply, everyone in the group will see it.” (or “only Ruth Hale will see it” when replies go to the sender), and a Stop getting emails from the church link. Unlike broadcasts, posts leave out the church postal address and the additional footer text from your sender settings.
• No echo to the sender: The person who sent the email is automatically excluded from that post’s recipient list since they already have their sent copy.
• Attachments: Regular file attachments up to 10 MB total are forwarded along with the post.

When posts are sent immediately vs. held for approval

Open the Posts tab (Email → Posts, which shows a badge count whenever posts are waiting) to see the 50 most recent emails sent to your list addresses:

• Sent to the list: The sender is allowed by the list’s Who can post by email setting, their email provider passed DMARC authentication confirming the sender address, and list Moderation is set to Off.
• Waiting for approval: A post is held for owner/admin review whenever:
  • The list’s Moderation is set to Hold every post for approval,
  • The sender’s address isn’t in the list’s allowed posting group (for example, a non-member emailing a List members or Staff only list), or
  • The sender’s email authentication (DMARC) could not be confirmed, so Parsonage holds the message rather than trusting an unverified From address.
  When a post is held, Parsonage emails your church’s owners and admins a link to Email → Posts (up to 20 notifications per hour per list) so you can inspect the message and click Approve and send or Reject. Held posts can be approved for up to 30 days after they arrive.
• Not delivered (dropped automatically): Messages that fail virus or spam checks, automatic out-of-office replies and bounce notifications, messages from another list address (preventing mail loops), empty messages, or messages with attachments over 10 MB are dropped automatically and never sent to the list.

Open the Sent tab (Email → Sent) to view your 30 most recent email sends and inspect per-recipient delivery status.

What each recipient status means

• Accepted by SES: Amazon SES accepted the message for delivery and returned a provider message ID. (This confirms handoff to the mail provider; final inbox placement still depends on the recipient’s email provider.)
• Waiting (pending) / Sending: The recipient is queued or currently being handed off to the email worker.
• Failed: The provider rejected the send with a known error before accepting it. You can safely retry failed recipients.
• Skipped: The address was opted out or suppressed before delivery so no email was sent.
• Outcome unknown: The connection dropped or timed out after the request was sent to the mail provider, so Parsonage cannot be certain whether SES already accepted the email.

When to use “Resume / retry”

If an email blast still has recipients in Waiting, Sending (after a stalled worker), or Failed, the Resume / retry button becomes active on the Send status card. Clicking Resume / retry re-queues only the unfinished or failed recipients—never anyone already marked Accepted by SES, Skipped, or Outcome unknown.

How Unsubscribe links work

Every email includes a signed Unsubscribe link in the footer (and a one-click header for mail apps). When a recipient clicks it and confirms:

• Parsonage checks Do not email on every matching person record in your church’s directory.
• Parsonage also records a church-level email suppression for that address. Even if a staff member later unchecks Do not email on a person’s profile—or adds a new directory entry with that same address—the suppression remains in effect so your church never accidentally emails someone who unsubscribed or whose address hard-bounced.