2-way Texting (SMS / MMS)
Give a more human feel to your church engagement and guest follow-up with the most effective form of communication: 2-way SMS. Using personalized 2-way SMS, you can send and receive texts, picture messages (MMS) and even attach files—knowing 90% of those messages will be read within 3 minutes.
“At first we were barely using PastorsLine for only automated text info. Now we are using it for so much more. We use it to communicate, send out information, sign people up for things, send polls, and make people feel special with automated birthday text. They [the PastorsLine features] do so much to help us reach our people and make them feel special and loved by us.
We have used this software for almost a year now, and recently we were thinking about changing, but comparing them to another company... PastorsLine is a no-brainer for us to stay with. They are the best at what they do, and they have so many more options than other companies. We also love how quickly they respond and help us with our tedious questions; they are so great with us.”
Jenn T.
Administrative Assistant
Are you looking to get information to your ministry in a way that people pay attention to?
Sending texts is one of PastorsLine’s core features and should be one of the main tools in your digital communication strategy. Here’s why:
High engagement and fast response rate with both SMS and MMS
As we know, people read 90% of text messages within 3 min. of receipt, and there is a 90-second response rate on avg.
67% of all cell phone owners find
themselves checking their phones
for messages even though they don’t
notice the phone ringing or vibrating.
Once, using mobile phones and texting for church communications was seen as sort of irreverent, even disrespectful. Today, it is so ‘second nature’ to most of our audiences that if you’re not tapping into that potential, your church is losing out on an important way for your members to become more connected to their families and Jesus.
Communicate 1:1 or in bulk
Mobile texting, comprising Short Message Service (SMS) and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), is the #1 form of mobile digital communication in use today. With the human feel of personalized bulk texting, you can reach 1, 100s or 1000s of people in a non-intrusive way. Added features make bulk texting not only economical but reliable. PastorsLine offers 2-way texting--from you to them and from them to only you.
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SMS (Short Message Service) --- SINGLE 1:1 MESSAGES: Just like you do on a personal level, from you to them and from them to only you. Each single text can be up to 160 characters, and you can send up to 10 texts as one message (up to 1600 characters). Perfect for sending emergency updates, news and newsletters, inviting them to your next event, or receiving responses about what your ministry has to say via surveys and polls.
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MMS (Multimedia Message Service) --- Include pictures for that “1000 word” effect: Originally, “One look is worth a thousand words,” pictures are a dynamic way to communicate. Besides the aesthetic element, pictures engage, moving people on to next steps. You can attach up to 5 MB of inline pictures (images in the body of your text message) such as event flyers, invite cards, a fun picture from your pastor’s trip abroad.
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GROUP MESSAGES: The real powerhouse of PastorsLine—sending the same personalized message to many individuals, so it looks like a single, 1:1 message + each reply comes only to you. So, although you are sending a ‘general’ message, it is relevant with a ‘human’ feel.
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BUILD A TEXTING TEAM: Our multiuser feature means that it’s not all on one person. The load is shared for more timely and effective communication. Go even further and add different numbers to help you send texts effectively while ending inbox madness.
Link other files for more communicative power
Go even further, and enrich your communication by attaching a variety of files. PastorsLine automatically stores these files and creates links as needed. Easily and quickly attach your weekend sermon notes, welcome videos to your guests or PDFs such as an application to summer camp without always needing to store it on Dropbox or iCloud. If you are attaching links, your limit is 1600 characters (roughly 10 messages worth of characters). Via the PastorsLine file picker, almost any file type can be attached and sent as links.
Examples:
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Larger images & photos
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Videos and other media files
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Various documents and files (.doc .ppt .pdf, etc.)
Automation capabilities save you time
Including PastorsLine’s automation module with your texting allows your ministry to “check-in” and avoid your people from falling through the cracks. You can use our template campaigns or create new ones. Set up your messages, include a trigger via keyword or external action via our integrations, and almost “forget it”. Once your people reply with questions or comments, you can “jump in” and answer those as well.
Create “once and done” repetitive texting of all all sorts such as:
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Automated conversations that capture needed data, e.g. first-time guest follow-up and campaigns.
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Personalized birthday wishes on their special day for “human touch” communication.
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Scheduled feedback polls let you know whether you are meeting your ministry’s needs...or not.
Use templates to conserve more resources.
Schedule your texts according to your needs: evergreen campaigns, date-based, or even link several campaigns together via keywords. More about automation here.
Smart, budget-friendly messaging
PastorsLine automatically standardizes NON-GSM FORMATTING to keep your texting costs down. Some punctuation / special characters in your text messages (known as Unicode or non-gsm characters) could be raising your costs. So, your 160-character text could actually be charged at 2 or 3 times the price. PastorsLine automatically scans every text message, changing the non-gsm formatting into gsm formatting to save you money.
Logs: for communication that arrives at its destination
PastorsLine reports and analytics keep track of your communication, so messages do not fall through the cracks.
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FAILED MESSAGE REPORTING because your texts should be reaching their destinations, and if not, you need to know. PastorsLine’s failed message reporting is now more transparent via our failed message badge. We alert you in your Inbox, your Logs, and take out the ‘wondering why’ by showing you the reason, so you can follow up.
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PastorsLine FAILSAFE MESSAGING REPROCESSING keeps delivery percentage as high as possible. Mobile carrier filtering to reduce spam means that some safe messages are flagged and not sent. Most of the time, PastorsLine receives the error code and automatically reprocesses via another number. Your audience should not get confused by the new number because we include your original sender's number in the message.
You get this feature and so much more...
(All features are included.)
direct, automated data capture via phone from those interested
mobile keywords to opt in to different church campaigns
automatically create and manage groups
gather information via online forms
polls and surveys
personalized, bulk text messaging
personalized birthday wishes
contests
create and schedule a series of automated messages
2-way integrations with CCB and Planning Center (MailChimp is next)
Information to get you started
With PastorsLine, you can send text messages to many people at one time. You can’t do this with your normal phone service. Group texts are possible, but if you want to tell 500 people that your weekend service has been canceled due to weather, this is not going to be practical with just a group message. You need a complete system to keep track of your contact list and to send out your messages. With our system, your contacts can also opt out of receiving messages if they change church membership, due to school enrollment or just loss of interest in that specific communication.
Dozens of churches are already using
PastorsLine and seeing success.
The PastorsLine platform is a church-driven, bulk texting platform developed and managed by church ‘insiders’. We know churches intimately. We’ve attended them, been part of their management teams and worked with them for many years. Our goal is to serve you by helping you spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. We’ve positioned ourselves to be your in-house, IT team for solutions to your communication issues. In addition to everything our platform can do, our partners love our responsiveness to their needs and fast tech support.
By using the same phone number for texting and calling you get people to remember your phone number. When it comes the time that are ready to reach out to us they know the phone number.
Abraham Schwartz
Thus far it’s worked perfectly!! When we wanna send out a text message we use the church office #.
When somebody calls this #, it just takes them to our office phone where a front desk agent can answer. This is perfect! Far better than our individual cell phones ringing when somebody calls our PastorsLine number. It’s only been a week but it’s working great!
Josiah Elias
Young Adults Pastor, Faith Chapel
We hired [PastorsLine] to assist us in a new “Small Group” initiative we were launching at our church. The tools they provided us with helped us monitor and take action on hundreds of responses. Our workflow was cut in half and our ability to track, monitor and follow through with the data gathered more than doubled.
Chris Elliott
Associate Pastor, New Believers
I honestly never realized how many people must have been trying to text our landline all along! We never advertised our landline as a number you could text, but we have gotten multiple members of our congregation and even guests from some of our events to send us texts saying, ‘Thank you for this and that’, and it has been really great to see!
Heather Bredeman
Joy Christian, Center,
St. Cloud, MN
“Our land line [SMS-enabled by PastorsLine] is more familiar to our congregation. When we texted from the other number, some would inquire about who was sending the text as the number was unfamiliar, and we did not use it frequently, so by the time we sent another text, some had forgotten the number.”
Myrna and Peter Rohdin
New Life Fellowship Church, Elmhurst, NY
Baptism Worship Service Reminders - bulk texting—we were blown away by the number of people who showed up.
Cara Saliby
Director of Admin
Sending and receiving texts from our landline number is the #1 feature that ensures visitors and members can engage with us on the most relevant means of communication there is right now. Having one number to advertise, simplifies all graphics, ads, announcements, etc. for us, as well as for those we're trying to reach. I use PastorsLine EVERY DAY. It's changing the way we engage with our members - it's both easier and more effective.
Tara Freeman
I belong to a Church Communications group on Facebook, and you were highly recommended. We signed up with you over others because we are a multi-generational church and you have an ability to reach people on landlines.
Daniel Chambers
At first, the landline feature seemed like it would overload the church secretary since everyone would have the church phone number saved in their phones. This has not happened! People are simply interacting with our events better than ever before! We love the landline feature.
Sterling Willborn
Associate Pastor, Journey Church
It’s honestly the best feature that we have utilized. Being able to give one phone number for voice and text simplified our process.
J.W. Dunbar
Pastor Gateway Church, Ashland, KY
PastorsLine has been a fantastic tool which has enhanced communication with out church family. As with any tool, the secret is in learning how to use it effectively. I have been most excited when I see my church members telling their very own unchurched friends to text “PRAY” to our pastorsline number and have them join our prayer sessions.
Paolo Esposito
Pastors, RGF Church
[PastorsLine is] a huge answer to something we’ve been looking for. I was able to send a template with a field merge by scheduling it...
Dr. Matthew Robinson
Pastor
When we finished our evangelistic event in Houston, 70% of those who were baptized, communicated with me through PastorsLine...it had a big influence.
Wyatt Allen
Evangelist, End Time Hope
The personal and almost immediate assistance at [PastorsLine] is so great! We feel valued and important! We love that it is church-based!!! … Jason and the team at [PastorsLine] are always ready to help, make things better, and they also welcome feedback.
Richie Halversen
Pastor @ College Drive Church
The text message bible study invites are working great. We saw a huge increase from 5-6 to 10-12 and the numbers stayed consistent.
Zeke Vas
Pastor
...the guest connection card...We had a great response -- people whose names and contact info we might not have captured otherwise. Our autoresponder directs them to our Welcome Center...where we have a gift...with their name on it.
Kristen Waddle
Church Communications
PastorsLine has totally changed not only my workflow, but it's taken our "personal" factor up 10x! Just with our welcome process, we have gone from a 40% READ rate to a 40% CONVERSATION rate. That's just crazy!
So thanks 🙂
Tommy Carreras
Group Director
For us [a PastorsLine text-enabled church landline] has been huge for people to be able to text the number they already knew for our church. It means they don’t have to remember two different numbers when they are looking to try and get in touch with us. Most people don’t even realize its mostly an automated process.