EPISODE 02

[INTRODUCTION]

[00:00:00] NH: Welcome to the Tech In Church podcast, brought to you by Text In Church. I’m Nina Hampton and I'm here with my cohost, Jeanette Yates. If you are ready to make huge, long term impact in your ministry using technology the right way, then you are in the right place. 

In each episode, you'll hear from church and ministry leaders who will share their real life experiences of how they use technology, so that they can spend more time building relationships and doing the things that got them into ministry in the first place.

[00:00:26] JY: Today we're talking about small church communications with Pastor Carley Moore. He uses Text In Church to help him with pastoral care. After hearing from Pastor Carley, we'll break down how you can incorporate his strategy into your church communications. Let's get started.

[EPISODE]

[00:00:44] NH: So Jeanette, you actually recently interviewed pastor Carley, and he had some pretty great ideas for how small church pastors can use technology for their communication.

[00:00:53] JY: Yeah, Carley has been a Text In Church member for a little while, and so we sat down recently, and I had pastor Carley share a little bit about what it's like being a pastor of a small rural church. He's the only staff member. I wanted him to share a little bit about how Tech In Church has been particularly helpful for him, and he shared some great insights that I am excited to share with you all today.

[00:01:20] NH: Yeah, so let's take a listen to a clip from that interview. Here's pastor Carley. 

[CLIP START]

[00:01:25] CM: I suck that follow up. I was failing miserably. I was forgetting prayer request. I was forgetting to follow up with people who had given her heart to the Lord. I was trying my hardest, but I’m the only staff member at my church. Me and my wife really kind of hit all the ministries here. Thankfully, we’ve been leaders and get some new people deployed in, and God’s doing a great thing. But I was awful at following up. 

Thanks to Engage, I hired a virtual assistant for like $47 a month. You can't hire anybody for that. Yeah, there's a lot of perks with it. But really, truly, when I talk to people about Text In Church, I tell them that it's basically my virtual assistant, and she doesn't forget anything.

[CLIP END]

[00:02:12] NH: Virtual assistant who doesn't forget anything. I love that.

[00:02:15] JY: Yeah. Pastor Carley is a great storyteller. He's really fun to listen to. I love the way that he shared something that we don't often hear from pastors in public. But we know that they often feel it. He felt like a failure at shepherding his flock.

[00:02:29] NH: Yeah, more and more we're hearing from pastors who are feeling burned out or like there is too much to do and not enough time to do it, and something that Pastor Carley said that really stuck with me was the burden of not doing enough. I know, I felt that burden before and it's a heavy one.

[00:02:43] JY: That's why Carley, the strategy that he uses of using Text In Church and the automated workflows inside Text In Church as his “virtual assistant”, as he calls it, really can make a difference. Even when you are the only staff member like Pastor Carley, reminder messages can keep you from getting distracted, so you can truly pastor your members throughout the week. I really loved how he shared that example.

[00:03:07] NH: You can use these reminder messages for anything, right? So you can use them to follow up with prayer requests, with salvations, with different things. That's the power of using this technology, because it kind of does that work for you, so you don't have to try to keep all of that information in your brain.

[00:03:25] JY: Right. Because you know, you need to do it, and it's not that you don't want to. But when you have multiple people in your church, multiple ministries that need your assistance, sometimes things can fall through the cracks. So, just like Pastor Carley relies on automated reminder messages to help him remember who needs prayer, who needs a hospital visit, who needs to be helped along their faith journey. He also relies on Text In Church to help mobilize his small church to help his community, so listen to this story he told.

[CLIP START]

[00:03:52] CM: My outreach director, Christie, she sends me a text. She's like, we needed all these cans and all to fill out our food pantry at the church, it was something new, we were kicking off, just trying to really help the community. We're getting ready to put up a bunch of blessing boxes, and she just put out one day that we needed some cans, some canned foods and things, and there was a food pantry not far from us that had to move some items really fast. They just had an influx during COVID with some additional government assistance. They weren't moving product like they had been. They had, I want to say, it's probably about two truckloads.

So, Christie sends me a message early, early that morning. She's like, “Hey, I really need to see if you can get people to let come to the church and unload all these canned goods.” So, I was like, “Hey, Text In Church, the new outreach number. I can send the message like I'm Christie.” So, she’s got her hands full bringing the trucks back. So, I hop on Text In Church, and I send the message to about 12 people. I just was like, “Hey, this is Christie. This is our outreach number. If you didn't already have it saved, can you meet us at our outreach house and help us unload a bunch of canned goods.” I was texting that as I'm walking out the house, pouring down rain, kind of cold to – I live about five minutes from the church.

As I'm pulling up at our outreach house, there are like 10 cars and there's probably about 15 people and half the canned goods are already out, and it was simply because I was able to send out that message, a personal message to all those people, and we've had unloaded – not only do we have unloaded, but several have stuck around and organized following that. So, man, Text In Church was a lifesaver. We had people out in the pouring rain, unload canned goods at the last minute, because Text In Church came through in the clutch and helped me get the word out.

[00:05:55] JY: Like you said, I've heard that story before. I saw it on Facebook. We've talked about it. I never get tired of hearing that story. Because it's an example, of course, of how the Text In Church platform work for you, but more importantly, your church community, your church family, work for you.

[CLIP END]

[00:06:10] NH: It's really great to see even small churches like Pastor Carley's, using technology to mobilize their communities and make a difference on the fly when the opportunity really presents itself.

[00:06:20] JY: I totally agree. One of my favorite things about working with churches is hearing stories just like that, from pastors, like Carley, in our Text In Church community Facebook group. We really make it a community where people are sharing their wins, big or small. I think that's where I first heard of Pastor Carley's story of his food pantry. He shared it. And I was like, “Hey, I want to hear more about that.” So I really highly encourage everybody, whether you're a Text In Church member or not, you can still be part of the Text In Church Community Facebook group. I highly recommend that you come join our Facebook community, and we'll put the link in the show notes.

[00:06:56] NH: So that's it for this week's episode of Tech In Church podcast. Be sure to follow us on your favorite podcast app to know when episodes are available.

[00:07:04] JY: I'm Jeanette.

[00:07:05] NH: And I'm Nina, and we'll talk more tech next time.

[OUTRO]

[00:07:08] JY: The Tech In Church Podcast is a production of the Tech In Church team. To get the show notes for this week's episode and to download the resources mentioned, go to textinchurch.com/podcast. For information on Text In Church, visit textinchuch.com.

[END]