Discover how to leverage technology in your church

What happens after someone visits your congregation?

At my church, the visitors sign a guest book and a day or two later, they receive a letter in the mail from the pastor—which is an excellent practice. It’s personal, especially in this detached, electronic world. In fact, it has repeatedly led to visitors wanting to meet with him and eventually join the congregation. Several people have mentioned how important that letter has been. People like to be acknowledged and the personal touch makes a huge difference.

But more can be done to help someone get to know the congregation.

Even in the age of social media, email still proves to be more effective than social media when reaching people. In the last five to ten years, email providers, email clients, and government regulations have combined to provide better management, more personalization, and less spam for an overall better email experience. Unfortunately, many organizations (even churches) don’t use email to its fullest and can end up abusing it.

The best way to leverage email is to properly manage your lists so you can provide the most relevant content to the right audiences. Here are some principles of list management to help you make the most of email communications.

Think all of the ways a person, group, or ministry can communicate information at your church. More than likely your church has a website, a bulletin, church announcements (both verbal and slides), a monthly newsletter, and possibly social media and emails.

My mom writes about two emails a month, while my sister writes about a hundred a day. (Their days look very different!) Wherever you fall within this spectrum, it’s important to make sure you and the people representing your church utilize proper email etiquette to imbue your communications with professionalism.