When you want to build your church membership and increase overall attendance, it’s time to use text messaging for church communication. According to Pew Research, 92% of Americans own cell phones, while 67% of those phones are smartphones. This means that most of your congregation is going to be able to receive text messages from your church, and you will be able to use SMS texting to benefit your church. You will be able to welcome new members more effectively, improve communication with existing members, and reach your congregation within minutes.

Remind Parishioners of Upcoming Events

If your congregation is an active one, it can be difficult for church members to keep track of all of the events that are going on. While bulletins printed for the service are one way to keep your members in the loop; however, text messages will help you reach a wider audience. Whether you have an event that was created at the last minute, or you want to remind everyone about a benefit concert, text messaging is going to reach the highest amount of people in the shortest amount of time.

When You Get a Prayer Request

Prayer is at the heart of any church. When the office gets in a prayer request, it’s important that the request gets sent out to as many parishioners as possible. While a phone chain might work for some of your members, text messaging is going be highly effective for the rest of the congregation. People are always carrying their cell phone, and an urgent prayer request can reach many people within minutes through texting.

Encourage New Member Participation

One of the hardest parts of becoming a member of a new congregation is learning how to get more involved in the church. It is crucial to be able to connect with others when joining a new church community. Texting allows new members to sign up to receive text messages, including them automatically in any events or reminders that are sent out to the parish. In addition, you can create specific messages to be sent out to new members, encouraging participation in various ministries throughout your church.

Cancel Services Through Text Messaging

Sometimes emergencies come up. When the weather is poor or the power goes out and you have to cancel church services, you can send out a mass text message to let your members know of the cancellation. If an event needs to be postponed because of illness, you can send out a quick message so that people don’t come for the event and leave disappointed.

Send Out a Church Survey

As a church, you probably try to keep your members happy. You can send out a survey to your parishioners, asking questions about coffee hours, service times, or any other information they may want to know. Ask parishioners for feedback, those that will take the time to fill out your survey are likely to provide you with valuable guidance on how to proceed further.

Once you establish good communication with your parish through text messaging, engagement will improve. You will see people becoming more involved in events and ministries, simply because they will be reminded of the ways in which they can participate through texting. This improves connectivity among the members of your parish.

Discuss it

• Is your church texting? If so, how?  If not, what’s holding you back?

Ken Rhie

Ken Rhie is the CEO of Trumpia, which earned a reputation as the most complete SMS solution including user-friendly user interface and API for mobile engagement, Smart Targeting, advanced automation, enterprise, and cross-channel features for both mass texting and landline texting use cases.

trumpia.com/

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