“We’ve never done it that way before.” You probably heard that saying if you have been in church for some time. Those words can be thought of as the seven last words of a church if that church, like many, is postured to resist all change. It often takes a church years to welcome the new, especially new technology.
Fairhaven Church in Centerville, Ohio doesn’t adhere to those seven deadly words. They look to use today’s technology to share the eternal Gospel message. This Easter, they used 21st century technology to communicate the Gospel live. They allowed everyone to respond to that message in a 21st century way, by texting where they were in their relationship with Jesus. Over 2,500 people attending one of Fairhaven’s campuses texted in a response.
Fairhaven Church’s Director of Operations, Ryan Adams, commented on the event, “Over the past several years, we have been making intentional efforts to develop and leverage technology to support our ministry initiatives. We are finding that more and more people are connecting with us in person, and digitally. Technology allows us to bridge the gap to interact and engage with people, regardless of how they are connecting with us. This mindset shaped our approach to how we wanted to give people, the opportunity to respond to Jesus during our Easter services.”
Fairhaven’s answer for giving people immediate opportunity to respond to the Gospel came through OnlineGiving.org’s robust Church Chatbot feature. Chatbots are used for online conversations (chats) via text. Our church partners can use our Church Chatbot to record everything from salvations to sign-ups for baptism.
Ryan commented on the process by saying, “Easter is certainly an opportunity for people to hear about Jesus that have never decided to follow him, or maybe have drifted away and want to recommit, but most people that join us Easter weekend are celebrating their faith. We wanted to give everyone an opportunity to respond to the Easter message, regardless of where they were on their faith journey.”
At the end of his Easter message, Lead Pastor David Smith, spoke directly to those listening saying, “I am going to give you an opportunity to respond. I am going to ask everyone to do this so no one will feel awkward. Take out your smartphone. A card is in front of you if you don’t have a smartphone. I want to suggest four possible responses to today’s message.”
Pastor Smith then listed the four possible responses.
I'm celebrating my relationship with Jesus.
I'm deciding to follow Jesus.
I'm recommitting my life to Jesus.
I'm not ready to respond right now.
Pastor Smith then encouraged those listening to take their smartphone out and text the word Easter to the designated number choosing one of the four options. Fairhope had customized responses based on the person's choice of 1-4, and if the person decided to follow Jesus (option #2,) they had a response based on the person's campus. Each person was added to a Phone Number list based on the choice.
The results were amazing. Here is the current breakdown of answers.
1,226 people responded saying I'm celebrating my relationship with Jesus.
106 responses said I'm deciding to follow Jesus.
207 responses said I'm recommitting my life to Jesus.
989 responses said I'm not ready to respond right now.
Following their response, they were given the opportunity to text live with a staff member for prayer or any other questions. To accommodate that, the chatbot prompted them to reply with another keyword, and then a text conversation was initiated from the church’s contact management system. 65 people chose to talk to a pastor.
How the responses came in speaks to how members have embraced 21st-century technology. Ryan stated, “Interestingly enough, we were concerned about people that might not have a cell phone or the aptitude to text, so we printed response cards and made them available in the seat backs and other locations at our campuses as an alternative to texting in their response to Jesus. Through the course of the weekend, we only received less than 20 responses on the printed cards.”
Handling this type of outreach doesn’t just happen; it takes planning. We asked Ryan about the pre-Easter planning that made the response time successful. He gave this reply, “As we approach a sacred moment, such as responding to Jesus at Easter, as much as possible, we didn’t want technology to be a barrier or distraction for people as they were making decisions about what Jesus means in their life. As we connected with OnlineGiving’s support team, they helped us to expand the processing capacity of the chatbot feature to be able to process a large number of responses in a short amount of time.”
Speaking of time, Fairhaven was able to capture all those decisions and input them into their database, so they could follow up on each response. Ryan stated, “We created a workflow in our database that recorded the decisions and organized them in such a way that is allowing our pastoral staff to follow up with them. With OnlineGiving’s chatbot functionality, we could automatically generate the workflow when someone texted in a response. This radically reduced the time it takes to process decisions that people make and allows us to follow up with them much quicker.”
Fairhaven Church leveraged the tools of our platform to reach people for Jesus. They can now communicate with these individuals based on where they are in their walk. This is a great example of how our tools can be leveraged and how OnlineGiving is so much more than a donation processor. To learn how our tools can help your church utilize 21st century technology to reach your community for Jesus, contact us at support@onlinegiving.org or (615) 206-4000.
The Stewardship Coach
On Easter, Fairhaven Church in Centerville, Ohio shared the Gospel message and invited everyone to respond to that message in a 21st century way, by texting where they were in their relationships with Jesus. See the results and how they made it happen!https://t.co/gml31StbCC pic.twitter.com/2liO70VumQ
— Online Giving (@onlinegivingorg) April 20, 2023
