Text messaging for churches or church text messaging – why?
Churches, ministries or any other religious groups prefer an engaging community, and the key to an engaging community is proper communication. In a world where everything moves fast, you need to keep up your communication efforts in your community with that fast pace. Moreover, all your efforts should reach all members.
Is there any other communication mode that is quicker as well as reliable than text messaging? Well, if you do know of one, please let me know!
A church text messaging service allows churches, ministries, and other religious groups to send mass text messages to your community (of course, who have given consent to receive texts). From new to old members, there are numerous instances where you will not be able to do without or better than text messaging.
Why Use Text Messaging for Churches?
- Increase attendance at your church events.
- Update members on bible study groups, sermons, virtual events, and charity programs.
- Convert visitors to members.
- Text specific ministries separately or the entire congregation at once
- Improve member retention.
- Get instant text replies from members.
- Organize members into separate messaging groups to send highly relevant messages
- Personalized reminders for each community member.
- Schedule important notices to be automatically sent later.
- Get event participation confirmation for a head count.
When to Use Text Messaging for Churches?
1. Welcoming to Church
For any new members, whatever organization it is, the first SMS message we usually send is a welcome message. So, the same goes for a church. Extend a warm welcome to your new members via SMS. Let them know that you are only an SMS away for any questions or support.
2. Regular Mass Schedule
So, you welcome the new church members, and that’s it? No! In order for them to be engaging members of the church, they need to be aware of the service times. So, text new members with regular mass times and dates. Moreover, you can also send text message reminders to your entire congregation to increase mass attendance.
3. Event Reminders
As a church, you organize various community events and activities. They could include Bible study groups, potluck dinners, community services, educational seminars etc. Your entire congregation needs to be uptodate of all these events that the church organizes or holds regularly. Then only can they be regular, active members participating in all events. In turn, as a church, you will have an active, engaging congregation for all events.
The easiest way to update the entire congregation quickly is to send an SMS with all necessary information. Moreover, in case there is a date or time change, or a cancellation, you only need to send a mass text message to update the community.
4. Charity Programs and Donations
As a church, you could be running various charity and donation programs. Congregation participation will increase if they get regular updates on the charity programs you hold, where you hold them, times and dates and other information. If there is a website where the church community can read or watch more details of the programs, or an online link where they can make donations, you can include the links in the SMS, as well. It makes the donation process much easier. Since there are character limitations in SMS, it is important that you use a link shortening tool to reduce the URL length.
5. Prayer Requests
People can easily miss phone calls and emails. In contrast, SMS easily reaches people. Even if they forget to check. Simply put, prayer chain requests make it to people much faster via SMS than any other way. It is much easier for members too as they can message you for prayer requests.
6. Online Event Links
Due to traveling restrictions, health regulations, or weather conditions, members might not be able to visit the church for events or the church will not be able to hold events. Unprecedented and sudden instances such as these will not leave you much time to inform your entire congregation. What comes to rescue is a quick SMS. You can quickly send an online link through which you will carry out the event or program for that day. This is another instance where mass text messaging for churches comes in handy as it will not take more than a minute to reach the whole church community.
7. Community Surveys
From learning about what the congregation thinks about the church, to collecting details for various programs, surveys are a great tool for information collection. You can easily carry out SMS surveys or online surveys via mass texting for churches. You can get everyone to reply with a number or include the link for an online form.
How to Enable Text Messaging for Churches?
The first and foremost thing you need to do is to select an easy to use SMS tool well-equipped with features and functions that facilitate mass text messaging for churches. A few of the important features to consider include personalization, customization, scheduling, contact segmentation, URL shortening, click tracking etc. The ShoutOUT SMS tool comes with all these features and MORE!
Once you complete the initial registration and setting up, you can get your church community to send you a short code (eg: your church’s name) that you provide, to build the SMS member list with consent. You can inform your members about the shortcode during your sermons and via bulletins and online platforms.
Once you do this, you are all set! Start sending out SMS message campaigns, engage and retain your community members!
Check out the ShoutOUT SMS tool – http://getshoutout.com/
Sign up for free, try it out with free SMS credits – https://getshoutout.com/signup
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