Solutions for...VBS
VBS is a fun and interactive way to “train up children in the way they should go.” It’s also a great opportunity to reconnect with parents who have strayed and start relationships with unchurched community members.
No doubt you’re covered as to what to do—there are some excellent VBS packages out there. But what about the logistics side of things—the organization and communication?
The PastorsLine bulk text messaging service lets you send personalized, group messages and allows individual replies. You can also segment your audience into groups, and automate a lot of the processes. That means people are only getting relevant, non-spammy texts. You save time and stress less.
“[PastorsLine is a] great Product! It has been a great tool for communicating with my Young Adults on a weekly basis to inform them quickly of any last minute changes. The pricing is perfect for the use that I get out of this service. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is running a ministry for Youth or Young Adults! [Pros include] a lot of great customization (campaigns, groups, surveys) -Easy to use -VERY good customer service -In my short time using PastorsLine, some very useful updates have been made.”
Kevin G., Young Adults & Discipleship Pastor
“[PastorsLine is a] great Product! It has been a great tool for communicating with my Young Adults on a weekly basis to inform them quickly of any last minute changes. The pricing is perfect for the use that I get out of this service. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is running a ministry for Youth or Young Adults! [Pros include] a lot of great customization (campaigns, groups, surveys) -Easy to use -VERY good customer service -In my short time using PastorsLine, some very useful updates have been made.”
Kevin G., Young Adults & Discipleship Pastor
Rolling out a successful VBS campaign is a huge communicative undertaking.
- Before, you’re busy with advertising the event, asking for help and donations, making lots of arrangements, getting a lot of info to a lot of people.
- During, there are all types of communication needs such as: attendee (kids/teens) updates, volunteer instructions, keeping parents up-to-date, giving everyone info about changes, 1:1 alerts, etc. During VBS, you can use our keyword capture feature for feedback and fun activities (contests, polling, etc.).
- After, you’d like to keep the relationship going with your attendees and their parents; encourage first-time visitors to continue coming to church; and thank your team, volunteers, and church members for all their help and support.
Whew! But we know it’s worth it.
Thing is, nobody’s really checking their emails and who has time to call everyone individually? (They might not even pick up, either.)
The best attention-getting option is text messaging. Here’s how our group texting service for churches can help you with VBS.
Automation
PastorsLine allows you to set up things well in advance of VBS.
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Our automation feature means that you can create message campaigns now and schedule them for pre-, during and post-VBS.
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Since we integrate with many popular church management systems, we are able to automatically pull in your contacts and groups which you have already created. No double data entry!
Groups
Create as many groups as necessary. While your texts are sent out in bulk, replies are individual, for natural texting with a human feel.
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Using different opt in keywords for each group means that your respondents divide themselves into groups, so you don’t have to.
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Segment each group further with tags. For example, tag kids who have food allergies or special dietary/health requirements.
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During VBS, grouping makes it easy to send alerts and updates to parents, youth, and volunteers as needed. Track who received your messages with our critical alerts. We keep tabs on each message, letting you know who didn’t receive it, so you can follow up as needed.
Fun activities
Since kids are on their phones anyway, why not use them in the Lord’s service?
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Contests are a way to keep kids interested. Even if the prize is small, the joy of winning motivates them to pay attention.
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Polls are multitaskers. Using them like multiple choice questions gives you feedback about how well your VBS attendees are understanding the material. Polls can also give your VBSers a chance to let you know how they are feeling in general about this experience. Both uses allow you to tweak your VBS course in real time for better results.
Next year
The next time VBS rolls around, you are going to be way ahead of the game because everything you have done this year will be waiting for you to re-use.
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Need to make small changes? Our user-friendly editing makes this a simple job.
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Do tweaks to your VBS program mean that larger changes are needed? Your existing material becomes reusable templates, so you are not starting at square one.
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)
Information to get you started
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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.
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 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
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 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
“[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
““...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
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
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 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
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 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
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
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
"Baptism Worship Service Reminders - bulk texting—we were blown away by the number of people who showed up."
Cara Saliby
Dir. of Admin.
The land line is more familiar with 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
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
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