How would you follow up on 529 salvation decisions this Easter? That is the problem that our church partner Seacoast Community in South Carolina, experienced on a recent Easter. Thirty-five thousand people worshiped at one of Seacoast’s fourteen campuses that Easter. At the end of the service, Lead Pastor Jason Surratt invited all in attendance and watching online to give their lives to Christ. He then asked them to text in if they had accepted Christ. Five hundred twenty-nine texted that they had accepted Christ that morning during one of the services!
In the weeks leading up to Easter, the Seacoast staff wrestled with the challenge of following up on new believers. The follow-up, to be effective, needed to be immediate and connected with whichever campus best matched the person responding. They wondered if they use the one device no one leaves home without, the smartphone, to begin discipling new believers?
Who do you turn to when you need this kind of advice? Seacoast contacted us, their digital giving provider, to see if we could provide an answer. Could Seacoast use our technology to help advance a 2,000-year-old story of grace and redemption? Yes!
Ideas like this are exactly why we created our interactive chatbot feature. For those unfamiliar with chatbots, Wikipedia defines them this way, “A chatbot or chatterbot is a software application used to conduct an online chat conversation via text or text-to-speech. Chatbots are used in dialog systems for various purposes, including customer service, request routing, or information gathering.”1.
Our chatbot feature integrates with a church’s ChMS. Through this integration, we were able to easily match each of the 529 responses directly to a campus pastor for immediate follow-up. Not only did this make contact with those who responded a quick and smooth process, but it also saved the Seacoast staff hours inputting the information into their ChMS.
Chatbots are a key feature of Online Giving. Our chatbot and text marketing features provide you with the tools to keep in touch quickly and easily with your members. It operates on various channels, including websites, text messaging, Facebook Messenger, Google Voice, and Alexa. Our chatbot allows for powerful text marketing and interactive conversation features. This allows you to connect with your members quickly and seamlessly for various purposes, such as baptism sign-ups, contact cards, volunteer sign-ups, salvation responses, care requests, and much more. Or you could use our chatbot this Easter to record salvation responses. The uses for chatbots are limitless.
Brad Files, Online Campus Pastor at Northridge Church in Rochester, NY, commented on their use of chatbots by saying, “We find there are two specific kinds of people that chatbots help us communicate with. The first are church members who are uncomfortable attending in person for whatever reason. The second group is those that have questions about spiritual matters and are looking for answers. Again, for whatever reason, they have not felt comfortable attending in person. OnlineGiving.org’s chatbot feature is perfect for helping us engage with these people.”
Often, smaller churches tend to read testimonials like this and assume that only large church staff can utilize features like a chatbot. We asked Brad about this. “Well, first, let me say that I am the only online campus pastor, so like a smaller church pastor, it’s just me! This feature is something that a church of 150 could use. It gives the smaller church the same ability to engage people as large churches. OG’s system is easy to use, and we have found that they are super responsive to our needs if we have a problem or question. We have always been able to pick up the phone and get the help we need.”
Stephen Ballard, the co-founder of OG, commented, “We love to hear the stories of how our clients are using our tools. It illustrates the power of our community of partners. Often a partner will come to us with an idea, and we collaborate the idea into something awesome. Now others in our online family can do the same thing.”
Two thousand years ago, the Good News of Easter was spread on foot through roads and systems built by the Roman Empire. Encyclopedia.com states, “the same roads that led from Rome also led to Rome, and information was carried in both directions. In most cases, this simply facilitated receiving news and taxes from distant parts of the empire. However, Christianity spread along these roads, too, traveling easily to Rome and throughout the empire. There is, of course, no way to know how far, or how fast Christianity would have spread in the absence of these roads, but there can be little doubt that much of the new religion's early success was owed to the speed with which its adherents could spread their message through the empire.”2. The early Christians used the day’s technology to help them more quickly reach their world with the Good News.
Today’s Roman Road is the Internet. Today, we can connect with people in seconds anywhere in the world using the Internet Road. This new road gives us limitless possibilities for communicating the timeless message of Christ’s Resurrection. At OnlineGiving.org, we are committed to giving our church partners the best tools available to communicate and spread the Gospel. Contact us today at support@onlinegiving.org or (615) 206-4000, and we will show you how our tools can help you navigate the Internet Road.
The Stewardship Coach
On a recent Easter, one of our church partners faced a great challenge - honoring 529 salvation decisions. Our tools funneled 529 text salvation responses to campus pastors for next steps. Learn how our tech can help advance a 2,000-year-old story! https://t.co/lTtk8xI5cZ pic.twitter.com/XiMYEhI8oz
— Online Giving (@onlinegivingorg) March 23, 2023