Once upon a time, electronic communication meant phoning a friend. Now we don’t use phones to make phone calls—we text! Considering this, should your church use text messaging?
While the pastor in my cartoon may have the right idea, he probably needs a different phone number! It may sway some parishioners to text some less-than-positive feedback. Still, isn’t it amazing we can use technology to such a degree today?
Depending on the culture, many churches and ministries over the years have embraced technology. They figure if it makes ministry more effective, why not use it to its greatest advantage? One such example is in this article: 7 Reasons You Should Consider Text Messaging For Church. It has several stats that amazed me.
- 97% of Americans text at least once a day
- As of 2018, five billion people across the world have the ability to text
- 82% of people read text messages within five minutes
Let’s face it. texting is the primary way we communicate with anyone these days. It’s convenient, fast, and we believe it isn’t as intrusive as a phone call. I have observed that it is also more popular than email. We may have inboxes with dozens of unread emails, but rarely do we have unread text messages waiting for us.
So should your church use text messaging? I would say yes. However, using text messaging in a church or business also requires a strategy. If you ask for a response, you will probably get scores of text messages. How would you answer if you receive a critical message? You never know if someone wants to simply get your goat!
I drew this cartoon for the November 2022 CHOGNews.
