Church text messaging, as an outreach and communication tool, is HUGE! I believe rather strongly that we should stop asking people to turn their cell phones OFF during worship services and instead, ask them to turn them ON and use them…
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- For accessing Bible apps
- To interact with the service
- To snap and share photos and videos
- To check-in and share about their church
According to Text In Church,
- 23 billion texts are sent each day
- 90% of texts are read within 3 minutes
- 45% of texts receive a reply
The question is, how can the church tap into text messaging as a means of reaching more people and making more disciples?
While we’re still learning in this arena, here are some thoughts and practices that may be worth implementing and experimenting with. Some of these, my church is already doing, and some of them, we’re just talking about.
5 Ways Church Text Messaging Connects With Your People
1. Helping people plan their first visit.
Our church website utilizes a service from Church Hero called Plan Your Visit.
It allows people, from any page of our website, to click a button and let us know they’re coming. We then, in turn, send them a text with information about the service time they chose, and then we send them a reminder text.
Our First Impressions Director prepares one of our first-time guest gift bags especially for them with their name on it.
2. Allowing people to text-to-give.
We manage all of our online giving with Planning Center Online. There are tons of competitors on the market and each has their advantages, but Planning Center’s Online Giving app integrates seamlessly with our people tracking, volunteer scheduling, kids’ check-in apps, etc.
One of the features we use is the text-to-give feature. Donors can send a dollar amount to a five-digit phone number via text and they’ll be guided through the process of making sure it gets to us. Once they’ve given by text once, it’s set up forever and is simple and easy to do.
