Using texting to support Faith Over Fear
In times of national or international crises, our faith is tested. When the normal options to drive to church and fellowship are removed by said crisis, how can your church ensure you are shining the light of Hope to those who may find themselves deeper in the cave of despair?
I was researching different texting services because we wanted to start using key words to connect with our church members, connect with new guests, and receive prayer requests through text. I came across your services, and I wanted to give it a try because it was the best price that I had found. I also really appreciated that there was a 45 day free trial with no credit card information. I loved that you're church-based and understand what churches need or want through your services. The sign up process was easy, and we could opt out at any time without losing money by trying out your services. Thank you for providing us with a great service, allowing us to try it out, and connecting with us to make sure that we are using it to the fullest extent possible!
Donald Andreasen
Lead Pastor
Hi Everyone... Giulia here.
In times of national or international crises, our faith is tested. At the same time, though, an opportunity presents itself where those who are attending church but wavering or those who are not regular attendees, all find themselves in a desperate need and search for God.
We know many of us would be at different spiritual “levels”, but as a connected family, we support each of our brothers and sisters through prayer and words of encouragement.
The question is, when those opportunities present themselves and the normal options to drive to church and fellowship are removed by said crisis, how can your church quickly adapt and implement an applicable strategy to ensure you are shining the light of Hope to those who may find themselves deeper in the cave of despair?
We could talk in general, about “what if”, but we don’t need to. The “what if” is here.
As many churches act or react to the advice to flatten the curve and self-isolate during the now named COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, we have seen and recognize that communicating quickly to your members while continuing to connect with people outside your walls is important. With 97% of texts read within the first 3 minutes, PastorsLine wants to help you with a free texting tool.
PastorsLine is offering churches and ministries an extended free trial account, no Credit Card required, for up to 60 days (instead of 30) that comes with 2500 text messages (instead of 500). There is no obligation to buy, and you can cancel at any time. You will be given 45 days to use our system and if you need more time, you can extend for 15 more days and pay only $1. We just want to do our part to help your ministry.
Create a free trial and enter the invite code FaithOverFear in Step 2 to unlock this free offer.
Core Features
All these features are available and included in our free trial and all paid plans.
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)
Related article
Download this free eguide
Overall, texts are the most opened, fastest read and most responded to type of communication. When you think about your audience’s needs like Jesus did, texting becomes the preferred way for Pastors to do more in less time, staying connected to their audience’s needs while creating some insulation between their own spaces and those of their audience.
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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
[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
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
Baptism Worship Service Reminders - bulk texting—we were blown away by the number of people who showed up.
Cara Saliby
Director of Admin
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
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
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
...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
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 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
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
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.
Tyler Boles
Connections Pastor, The Exchange
Our full feature, free trial
PastorsLine is offering churches and ministries an extended free trial account, no Credit Card required, for up to 60 days (instead of 30) that comes with 2500 text messages (instead of 500). There is no obligation to buy, and you can cancel at any time.
You will be given 45 days to use our system and if you need more time, you can extend for 15 more days and pay only $1. We just want to do our part to help your ministry.
So, create a free trial and enter the invite code FaithOverFear in Step 2 to unlock this free offer.