Churches spread the word by text and Bluetooth

Link: Text message service helps churches stay in touch with their members :: Inspire Magazine

Faced with falling attendance figures, churches are the latest organisations to jump on the SMS marketing bandwagon – thanks to a little help from Txttouch.

According to Leicester City Vineyard church leader Steve Barber, “Txttouch has been incredibly useful in keeping members of the church informed, whether it’s to remind them of a barbecue, or if we have to change a venue at short notice.

“I send on average two or three messages a month, especially if we are doing a one off event such as a party or a specific outreach, we have found that when reminded by text, people are more likely to attend.”

He added: ‘Text messaging is a quick and easy way to contact our entire church and it saves hours either on the phone or texting each individual separately leaving me with more time to focus on moving the church forward.”

And if that wasn’t exciting enough, Txttouch have also introduced something called the “Gabriel Communicator”, which sends out notices, song sheets, sermon notes, rotas, Bible readings and all sorts of other communication – via Bluetooth.

Txttouch MD, Nicholas Maguire, who has been involved in church leadership for nearly 15 years, said: ‘This is a culturally relevant way to contact people regardless of their age. The Communicator can be updated as often as churches need, so on a Saturday it can beam service times to people in the city centre and the next day it can be back in the church beaming notices to the congregation as they arrive.”