Media Outreach

We are going to throw out a series of post in the coming weeks titled “Have You Considered.” These articles are intended to spur some ideas and help you be more effective in your ministry.

So today, the question is, have you considered Bulk Text Messaging? As you know, trying to communicate effectively to every person in the church can be challenging. You print a bulletin. You send out bulk emails. You make announcements. And still, some people just don’t get the information. Bulk text messaging might be a solution.

So let’s think of an example. Assume for a moment you have everyone in your church loaded up the bulk emailer. Then, let’s say you have a huge food drive for the local food bank. You could send a text message out on Saturday through the bulk emailer reminding everyone to bring canned food on Sunday. So you have a piece of communication headed out at a very opportune moment. And because almost all people routinely check their cell phone, that communication will have a higher chance of making an impact than an email that may or may not be read until later on.

The uses are endless. You could have a list for all the children’s ministry workers. You could have a list for the men’s or women’s ministry. You could basically communicate to the entire congregation or drill down all the way to a small group of people. And being able to communicate in this way, with the ability to schedule out those communications, makes bulk text messaging pretty appealing.

There are a ton of bulk text messaging programs out there. Google the term “bulk text messaging” and you will see lots of them. I would, however, suggest that whatever you use, make sure you can schedule text messages, set up multiple groups, and is all done online rather than being hosted on your computer. I can tell you what our church uses, but honestly, you just need to research that a bit and find the best fit for your church. Hope this post spurs on some ideas for you.

Photo By: Cyrillicus