Yesterday I had the privilege of being a part of an M2LIVE webinar where I talked about texting and how we use it at Park Community Church. A huge thanks to Matt and Sean for having me on and thanks to everyone who tuned in. And, thanks to Jarbyco for providing a free weekend texting campaign to one of the viewers.
Also, if you have been thinking about doing texting at your church, my friends at Jarbyco are offering a special deal now through this Friday. You can get $50 off your first texting campaign if you connect with Jarbyco by 5 PM CST this Friday [10/8]. You don’t need to run the campaign by that date, just claim your $50 by emailing prizes@jarbyco.com!
We’ve been using Jarbyco for texting at Park for over 2 years now and have loved working with them. If you are looking for someone to work with to get your church texting, definitely contact them.
In my last post I shared about how we changed the way we ran our most recent stewardship campaign at Park. We didn’t do much of the prescribed hubbub that surrounds most church stewardship campaigns. Read more about that here.
One of the unique things we incorporated into this campaign was texting.
We’ve been using texting at Park for over two years now, both in our weekend services as well as a means to communicate important announcements and events.
During the campaign we used texting in some new ways that helped extend our message, engage our audience, and communicate information about the campaign.
Opt-in Text Group
At the beginning of the campaign we set up an opt in group for people to get text reminders throughout the sermon series.
During the week we texted questions for them to consider, highlighted what was coming up, and texted various verses and quotes on generosity and giving. It was also a great way to communicate announcements related to the campaign.
We announced the opt in group the first week of the [IN]VEST campaign and had over 950 people [that’s over ½ of our church] sign up to receive them.
It was a huge success and something we’ll consider repeating for future series as way to help people continue the conversation around our messages.
Text Polls
We’ve done text polls in service before, but for this series specifically, we wanted to ask some tough questions and challenge people’s understanding and motivation for giving.
There’s two distinct benefits to doing text polls in service:
1 – They create a shared experience. We all come into church with different experiences, thoughts, and ideas. Many people just spectate and never engage in the service. Something as simple asking people a question invites them to participate, and in doing so, see that there are other people in the room who feel the same way they do.
One of the questions we asked during the series was, “Do you think people outside of the church view the church as being generous?”
2 – They help the speaker gauge the audience.
Texting in service can help bridge the gap between the speaker in the audience. And, it can help the speaker know where the audience is coming from or their understanding of a particular topic. In the few times we’ve done text polling the audience’s response has helped refine our pastor’s message and made the content more applicable to people’s experiences.
One question we asked toward the end of the campaign was what people’s primary motivation for giving was. It was a great way for our teaching pastors to see how our church viewed the topic of giving.
Commitments via Text
We printed about 3,000 paper commitment cards for people to fill out indicating how they’d like to commit to our campaign. Less than 100 printed cards were returned.
It took some creativity to make it work, but thanks to our friends at Jarbyco we were able to create a way for people to text in their commitment to the campaign.
Since our campaign was called [IN]VEST, we created the keyword IMIN and asked people to text in if they’d like to respond via texting. Nearly ¾ of our commitments for the campaign came in via texting!
The Results
455 households are [IN], representing roughly 600 adults – that number reflects the number of new people in our church since we did our last two campaigns!
People committed to invest in hundreds of lives to help their friends cross the line of faith.
People committed to invest in nearly 50 different neighborhoods around the city
Our church has committed to fighting many different injustices, the greatest being those around education, human trafficking, and poverty.
Our primary financial goal going into the campaign was to pay down 2 debts totaling $2 million.
Thanks to those who continued to fulfill their pledges from previous campaigns and the new [IN] pledges we have enough commitments to meet our goal of paying off the 2 notes totaling $2 million!
Closing Thoughts
This was by no means a perfect campaign. There are probably many things we could have done differently, but it worked.
We didn’t follow a prescribed path, but charted our own course that was reflective of our congregation’s thoughts and experiences around a tough subject.
We focused more on the holistic aspect of stewardship instead of zeroing in on money. As a result, people are focusing on creative ways they can invest, make a difference in their neighborhoods, and in the lives of their friends.
More than anything else, we recognized there were many new faces in our audience and used the campaign as an opportunity to share our vision, tell our story, and invite them to invest in our future.
Texting has certainly changed the way we communicate. I’m notorious for not answering my cell phone. One of my friends’ voicemail says, “Don’t leave me a message I don’t check them, send me a text.”
I think the only person I talk to on the phone for longer than 10 minutes is my mom. And that’s only because she can’t text.
Beyond texting, mobile technology is altering the way we interact and engage with information. While for years, the computer screen has been the “first screen” people see, the mobile screen is now the first place people go to.
iPhones, Blackberries and SmartPhones are now a lifeline for most people… so, it would make sense, that in thinking through how to better communicate and engage with your audience that your church would consider using text messages.
When we were considering using texting at Park, we decided to start simple: using it as a way to notify people about important information [service time/location changes, daylight savings time, etc).
So, we put together this little video and encouraged people to sign up.
It worked.
In under two months, we had nearly 1,000 people signed up to receive text alerts from us.
That taught us a valuable lesson: this was something our people would engage with, therefore it would be a great communication channel for us to consider.
I think many people are quick to jump on the texting bandwagon because it’s hip and cool, and everyone else is, but the truth is, depending on who your audience is, it might be a hit or a total miss.
For us, and our young demographic at Park, it makes sense that we’d engage people with texting. However, that might not be the case if you have an older congregation.
When people have called and asked for advice about how to roll out texting in their churches, I always tell them to start small. Try it out for a weekend or find an inexpensive service and try it out. See how people respond.
The proof is in the numbers.
I was part of a conversation not too long ago where someone mentioned their church had introduced texitng but not many people were using it. They asked for advice on what to do to get more people engaged with it, and I said, “try something else.”
Not to be a downer, but that’s just the truth. That's not to say if you don't get a great initial response you should kill it. It takes people time to latch onto new ideas, so give them some time. But, if after a few tries, people aren't responding how you anticipated, it might be a good idea to think of a new idea.
However, if the adult population isn’t ready to text, your youth group most certainly is.
The avereage teenager sends over 1,700 text messages per month. And while I don’t think every church needs to use text messaging in their services, I completely believe every youth group needs to begin to implement texting into their services.
But as for why… because it’s a way communication is changing. It’s another point of contact. It’s another way to get your message out there.
Some cautions… don’t rush into it. Introduce it gradually. And don’t SPAM people with messages. At Park, we send no more than 2 or 3 text alerts per month.
Who to go with… there’s a number of GREAT texting companies out there. At Park, we’ve partnered with Jarbyco, but there’s other great service providers out there including TextHub and EzTexting.com.
Some questions to consider as you think about tuning into texting…
What’s the average age of your church? If you tend to have a younger congregation (under 35), then texting might be a good thing to try out. If you tend to be a bit older, you may want to reconsider.
What do you want to do with texting? Do you want to use it to send out alerts? Do you want to use it in your services? Have a plan in how you want to implement texting.
What is your lead pastor’s relationship with texting? If it’s something they get, it will be an easier sell if you want to introduce it into your weekly services.
What’s your magic number? Based on the total number of weekly attendees at your church, before you launch into it, I’d set a goal [ maybe 25-35% of your total weekend attendance ] and say that if you hit that number that you will keep going.
Is your youth group texting yet? If not, I’d honestly put more priority in making sure you are connected to your youth group via texting. In any church,they will be the ones who will respond and engage with texting the most.
Final Thoughts…
Texting is just one of many new opportunities we have through mobile technology to advance the message of the Gospel and literally put it right in people’s hands. It’s changed the way we communicate and can potentially change the way you communicate and interact with your church.
This video has been making rounds on the interweb the past few days…
And if you ask me, I think in under 4 minutes it presents a rather compelling reason why you, as a church leader, and your church MUST engage with social media.
