Classes
Classes are the things somebody finishes — a membership class, a new believers' course, a workshop, a retreat. They have sessions, they can have prerequisites, and completing one can count toward membership.
A class is something you finish. A group is people who meet. If it runs indefinitely, it is a group.
What you need
- A Passport account with the Admin or Super Admin role
- Your people imported — see Importing & Exporting Data
Add a class
- Open Classes in the main navigation.
- Click Add class.
- Fill in the details:
| Field | What to enter |
|---|---|
| Name | Required. What members will see |
| Type | Class, Workshop, Program, Bible study, Retreat, or Other |
| Description | Shown to members in the portal |
| Category | Keeps related classes together — see below |
| Virtual | Tick for a self-paced class taught with video and text modules rather than in a room |
| Prerequisite classes | Optionally require another class to be completed first |
| Requires approval to enroll | Turn on if enrolment should be reviewed before it is confirmed |
| Teachers | Staff who can approve, add and remove people in this class |
- Click Add class. Passport opens the new class's page.
A class's page
Click a class's name on the Classes list to open it. It has the same tabs as a group or ministry page, less the ones a class has no use for:
| Tab | What is there |
|---|---|
| People | Teachers and everyone enrolled. Approve, Mark complete, Remove, or Add person |
| Sessions | Upcoming and past sessions. Each has Take attendance (from the day of the session) and Add person |
| Details | Everything you entered when adding the class. Admins edit it here, and can Copy or Delete the class |
Copy a class
On the class's Details tab, click Copy class to start a new class with the same settings, useful for a course you run every term. People and sessions are not copied.
Reorder
Drag classes by their handle under Settings → Classes to set the order members see, the same as groups.
The Passport class library
Passport maintains a set of ready-to-run studies so you do not have to write one from scratch to get started. You will find them under Settings → Classes, at the bottom of the page:
| Study | Roughly |
|---|---|
| His Marvelous Light | 11 lessons — the new-convert study most Apostolic churches teach first |
| Who Is Jesus? The One True God Revealed | 11 lessons |
| The Power of the Name of Jesus | 11 lessons |
| Life in the Spirit | 12 lessons |
| Holiness: Called Out of Darkness | 12 lessons |
| The Apostles' Doctrine | 11 lessons |
There are two ways to use one, and the difference matters:
| What happens | When to pick it | |
|---|---|---|
| Enable | The class appears for your members exactly as Passport maintains it. You cannot rename it, categorise it, assign a leader or attach an incentive — and it stays up to date on its own. | You are happy with it as-is |
| Copy | You get your own copy of everything, including the lesson content. From then on it is an ordinary class of yours, and Passport's updates do not reach it. | You want to change the wording, the order, or who teaches it |
:::tip Start by enabling, copy later Enabling costs nothing and can be undone. If you find yourself wanting to change a line, copy it then — you lose nothing by having enabled it first. :::
Organise classes with categories
Categories group related classes together, both in the portal and in your admin view — for example Believers pathway and Path to ministry.
- Go to Settings → Classes.
- Under Categories, add, rename, or reorder categories.
- Assign a class to a category on the class's Details tab.
Classes and membership
A class can be one of the things your church requires before somebody counts as a member. If you have set that up under Visitor-Member Path, a member's progress through the required class shows on the Grow tab of their portal — so they can see what is left rather than having to ask.
:::note Prerequisites are enforced, not advisory If a class has a prerequisite, members who have not completed it cannot enrol. Use this for genuine sequences and leave it off otherwise. :::
Common questions
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| How do members enrol? | From the Grow tab of the portal or the app. |
| Can I see who has completed a class? | Yes. Open Classes in the main navigation and click the class's name. |
| What is the difference between a category and a type? | Type describes the format (workshop, retreat). Category is your own grouping, and is what members see. |
| Does completing a class make somebody a member? | Only if you have made it a membership requirement. |
Next steps
- Something ongoing — set up a group instead.
- Make a class count toward membership — Visitor-Member Path.
- Record who attended — Attendance Tracking.