Text Your Way Into Being a Better Ministry Leader

Being a pastor or ministry leader involves a lot of communication! Communication is so important that without it, we don’t have a chance of building relationships, discipleship, or the teamwork necessary to extend the love of God to our communities practically through service.

New technology can be a huge helper when it comes to making communication easier. I recently started using a tool that has become a huge help! Not only can I communicate easier with people who I am leading, such as a small group or bible study… But I’m also now able to communicate much easier with my leadership team, youth group leaders, and parents. I once heard someone say, “Work smarter not harder”, and this tool has allowed me to do just that!

Many years ago, when smart phones weren’t quite smart yet, I remember needing to contact our church board and deacons ASAP. This was going to result in me spending hours on the phone, and back then all 3 of my kiddos were very small. I was picking my oldest up from kindergarten and trying to get groceries. I decided to call the ones who don’t text, and text the rest of them. I ended up using voice to text to send the messages to one deacon in particular.

Within minutes, my phone was ringing! It was the one deacon I used voice to text to type and send the text. She was quite concerned about the message!

One glance at my phone showed me why! Voice to text had completely distorted what I said. The message that sent was unintelligible, AND… here’s the part that made me mortified… for some reason voice to text added profanity all throughout the text. It made no sense!

I felt ridiculous trying to explain to her what had happened. In the end we both laughed about the whole thing, but man oh man were my words really lost in translation or what?!

We can all learn from my mistake! However, I would also love to share with you something that is working quite well! I have been using an app called Porterhouse in order to create and send batches of texts all at the same time with just one click. The texts are sent individually, NOT as a group text, so only you see each person’s responses too. I am currently in the middle of a 7-day challenge called “programming a positive mindset”, where each participant receives one text a day that uses biblical principles to challenge paranoia and negative intrusive thoughts.

This app would be perfect for:
Announcements
Reminders
Check-ins
Coordinating your youth group leaders
Holiday greetings to the whole congregations
…or any other type of communication where you need to get the same message to multiple people!

Another cool feature is that you can include tags like {firstname} to personalize your texts, add images, videos, and other file types, and even track who opened them!

GROUP TEXTS ARE OUT! Most people get very annoyed by them, they get messy, and important info is easily missed. Emails have their place, but texting has slowly started replacing the old method of sending email newsletters, etc. Most people don’t see emails immediately, but they do see texts.

Being a pastor or ministry leader comes with enough challenges! I hope & pray that this leadership hack helps you out and makes your life a little easier. Check out Porterhouse, and you’re welcome in advance! Sign up through this link & use the code amber458 at checkout to save 50%!

I hope & pray this blesses you and makes life a little easier! 
Amber Picota