The Membership Status field stores one of the possible 300 menu choices you can define for Membership Status. This menu is pre-defined with a number of default choices when you first create a CMD file, but can be modified by using the Menu Items option on the Preferences Menu. You may also modify the Membership Status list of choices by double-clicking in the edit box for Membership Status.

The purpose of the Membership Status field is to provide a way to define how this name relates to your church at the most basic level. Generally, you will want to provide a variety of choices to reflect the different ways a name can be a member such as Active Member, Inactive Member, Homebound Member, Out of Area Member, and others.

If a person is not a member of the church, this field is still useful. Perhaps they are a spouse of a member, an interest in joining your church, a member of a local ministerial association, or other possibility.

This field provides a way of letting you track just why it is this name is in your file.

Making Your Selection

Click on the arrow icons to the right edge of the drop-down box to see the list of choices. Scroll the list to see all the choices with the scroll bar or the arrow keys.

Once you've found your selection, highlight it with the colored highlight bar and then press Enter. Once the item is selected, you can press TAB to move to the next field. The combo box will close up, and your selection will be displayed in it.

Default Choice

You may also determine which choice on this menu is the default choice. The default choice is the choice which will appear each time you enter a new name in your file automatically. If this choice is what you want, all you have to do is press TAB to move to the next field. If you wish to make a different selection, simply locate it on the list, click on it, and then press TAB to move to the next field.

You may specify the default choice for this menu by selecting the Menu Selection Defaults tab page on the General Preferences dialog.