Playbook
Church Text Messaging
Text messaging is the next tool your church needs to increase donations, boost member engagement, reach volunteers, and more.
Here’s how churches leverage texting to draw bigger congregations, coordinate events, increase inbound prayer requests, and more. This playbook can apply to churches of all sizes, but we do have mid-sized to large ones in mind.
4 Essentials Before Your Church Starts Texting
1. A contact list of church members.
Collecting members’ phone numbers needs to be an ongoing part of your church’s outreach efforts, if it’s not already. All it takes is adding a section for phone numbers on your website or sign-in forms. You can also advertise a Keyword like “PRAISE” to encourage members to text you to receive updates.
Even though you're running a non-profit, and you'll be texting for "non-commercial" reasons, mobile carriers are still going to treat you like any other business sending SMS campaigns. They want your church to only text contacts who’ve expressed an interest in receiving text messages from your organization. In other words, they don’t want you spamming members who aren't opt-ins.
Opt-ins are contacts who have expressed a clear desire to be text messaged by your church. They’ve checked a box to say “yes, you can text me,” for instance, or they’ve texted you first.
As for your members who have already opted-in, put them into a spreadsheet to upload into Text Request. Organize this spreadsheet of contacts by:
Cell phone numbers in column A
Member names in column B
Any desired custom fields in the preceding columns (member since, age, Sunday school group, etc.)
If you don’t know which of your existing church members’ numbers are cell phone vs. landline numbers, our Text Request support team can clean landline numbers from your list, so you’ll know the numbers you’re texting will receive your message.
2. A registered 10DLC phone number.
10DLC is an abbreviation for a 10-digit long code phone number. It refers to a standard phone number, like 423-218-0111.
10DLC regulations state that you must:
Register your church for texting
Prove that contacts opted-in to receive texts from you
Show how they opted into those messages
We’re happy to help you through this process. Just ask, or review our 10DLC registration guide.
3. Tech stack for managing members.
It’s always helpful if the new thing you start using fits in with everything else you use. We have integrations that will import existing contacts from your other software into Text Request. That way you’re ready to roll from the start—and you make the most out of the contacts you’ve already collected.
These integrations can also help you create SMS automations to make staying in contact with church members even easier.
4. Enable your staff to see who said what to whom and when.
Transparency and safety are increasingly important in churches. You need a system that keeps constant records to prevent oversights.
Text Request’s shared dashboards and permanently recorded texts ensure that your church’s pastors, leaders, and elders are protected against any false allegation. It also protects your members, and helps you detect and stop any problems that might pop-up early, before they become real issues.
If you require all church-related text communications between leaders and members to go through Text Request, you’ll give yourself an added safety net. This is especially important when leaders are dealing with youth in the church.
7 SMS Tactics to Increase Church Member Engagement
1. Organize your members with groups.
Your church hosts several different types of events. Some are for younger kids, teens, young adults, 50+ members, women's ministries, etc. The beauty of Text Request is that you can give each category its own group.
Groups are a saved collection, or list, of contacts you can use to send targeted messages to. You can create as many groups as you want, each group can hold as many contacts as you’d like, and you can update them ongoing.
Church members will fit into different categories over time, and new people will be in and out. It's very easy to keep your lists up to date.
This helps you only send messages that are relevant to a specific member. You'll save staff a lot of time while increasing engagement.
2. Coordinate volunteers with mass texts.
One of the biggest ways to get your congregation engaged is by encouraging them to volunteer.
Texting is a fast and efficient way to ask members to help.
For example, if you have a food drive coming up and still need volunteers, you can easily send a mass text to church members. You can also share details like time, date, and where to show up.
Mass texts, like BCC email, give you the power to reach all of your members and volunteers at once. Any replies become one-on-one conversations that can be used to further answer questions.
Volunteers are going to have questions—they'll either reply or reach out beforehand. This gives your staff an easy way to handle and coordinate, all through text. It’s the ultimate tool for making sure volunteers and potential volunteers see your messages ASAP.
3. Utilize keywords for donations and tithing.
Text-to-give is a fundraising option where members can text a keyword—like "GIVE”—to your church phone number to make a donation. It's that simple.
When the member texts the keyword, they’ll get an autoreply with a link to your donation portal, which they can then click to enter:
Their donation amount
Whether the donation is recurring or one-time
Their payment information
It’s quick and efficient for both you and your church members! The most impactful part is texting the keyword automatically opts the member into your SMS donor list, so you can text them again for future giving and tithing efforts.
4. Share event reminders and updates.
Your church probably puts on several different events each week. Some of these are for your congregation and some are just for committee members. The key to keeping attendance up for both is to send out weekly reminders for all your upcoming events, including:
Prayer groups
Committee meetings
Event and outreach planning
Youth activities
You can also send links to a more detailed event page on your website or an RSVP page. Text Request's Link Sharing feature makes it possible to track link click rates across mass texts, so you can track engagement.
5. Receive prayer requests.
With a two-way texting platform, people can send you prayer requests throughout the week. These prayer requests can then be reviewed by pastors or elders in the church, and responded to accordingly. This can be particularly helpful for people who may be too nervous to call or show up in person.
People can text prayer requests directly to you from your church’s website, if you have SMS Chat. SMS Chat is a widget that prompts website visitors to start text message conversations with you. Your replies become texts to the person’s phone, and their contact info is saved for future follow-ups.
Normally, people would have to fill out a card at church or talk to the pastor to share a prayer request. Text messaging makes you more accessible, which helps encourage members to communicate and engage with you. It’s all about serving your community better.
6. Follow up with new visitors.
Texting new members gets them involved, and shows that you do actually care about them. Every time you get a new member’s phone number, have a preacher or someone on staff thank them for coming.
You can then ask if they're interested in coming to more services, joining a group, membership, or if they have questions about their faith, etc.
The sooner you text new members, the sooner you can get them ingrained in your messages. From there you can send them daily quotes, inspirational messages, and devotions, all of which works to keep congregation engagement up—which leads to our next point.
7. Send daily quotes and inspirational texts.
Staying top-of-mind with your members is simple with mass texting. Daily quotes, inspirational messages, and devotions can make an extra statement when you include a picture, GIF, or link to drive home your point.
Plan all your daily quotes and inspirational texts ahead of time with scheduled messages. This way your staff can write them all in one go, then get back to the other tasks at hand.
The more intentional you are about regularly reaching out to church members, the more involvement you’re going to see.
Ready to Bring Your Church Members Closer through the Power of Text Messaging?
Congregation engagement is about what happens beyond the pews—small groups, volunteering, and building relationships in between services. Text messaging is the perfect way to get your members involved in these events.
Reach out to our team of experts today to learn how we can boost your church member engagement together!
