How often have you wanted to know what your congregation really thought about: the importance of daily devotions, the effectiveness of your teaching, how well you passed on important church information, and their thoughts on dozens of other topics? Christians are usually far too kind to share what they really think and that doesn't help any of us improve either our church communications or Biblical teaching. To solve this challenge, I found a great tool online, Poll Everywhere. Let me tell you more about it, show you a video of how it works, plus add a few comments at the end.
My search started with a question
I recently got this question sent to me via email (BTW I love your questions, send them anytime, and I will be including more in upcoming articles, email them to yvon@effectivechurchcom.com):
I wonder if you would have any suggestion for who to use as a text messaging service.
Here’s what we are looking for:
1.The ability to have people text after a service (text YES to 12345 if you prayed to receive Christ). We want to collect the phone number of that person so we can contact them. Also, automatically send them a text back.
2.The ability to do a live poll during a service (text A, B, or C to 12345. The results would automatically show up online).
3.The ability to have people opt in to our lists so we could text them in the future.
After some research and discarding a number of options that took too much work, I found this great service: http://www.polleverywhere.com/
It allows people in your group, congregation, in any setting, to use their cell phones (they don't have to be a smart phone) to respond to questions. One of the most important things about it is that their replies can be totally anonymous. Having said that, the anonymous features is great for larger interviews, but people can also add more comments and I am assuming (though I don't know and you need to check with the software company for details), that the comments could only go to the organizer, not be on the screen if they wanted to share a phone number.
Rather than try to explain it more, on their website, is the video below starting with their description:
Pastor Wayne Cordeiro of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Oahu, Hawaii tells a story in a way that is so inspirational and fun, we wanted to share it with you. Pastor Wayne demonstrates perfectly how to engage an entire congregation with Poll Everywhere, and injects humor and levity to the traditional Sunday service. You can hear and feel the joy his congregation has at seeing their anonymous responses up on the live screen.
CLICK HERE to go to the page with the video for more about how to use it in a church setting. Their main site has other videos, a useful and informative blog, plus easy-to-find pricing info, all on an easy-to-navigate site. You can try the program for free.
Additional comments about this program and the question that prompted it
As a speaker and teacher, I do think the program would be tremendous fun and very useful to use. But beyond the fun aspects, for years I've encouraged churches to take surveys about how people were responding to communications, what channels they were using. In addition in our own ministry work my husband and I have often taken surveys to find out how often people were reading their Bible, what questions they had about the faith and many other areas. These surveys have always been tremendously useful in helping us plan teaching and communications.
But they were so much work to do, to duplicate, to get people to fill them out, and the worst thing of course, to tally the results. I've always advised that churches take any survey during the service, but this can be a challenge also (which the video shows in real-time how it can be done and how many questions can be asked). This software seems to solve many of the previous problems.
"Know your audience" is one of the prime requirements of any successful communication venture in business or ministry and this tool can help you gain immediate and useful knowledge of them. Please send me some feedback if your churches uses it or any similar system--if you put your comments below that would be a great to help others.
Texting without the program for spiritual interactions
When I was having trouble finding something useful, I realized that a simple answer to the question asked initially would be to simply have a number that people could text to during the service (or really anytime). It could be staffed by a real person or a team ideally 24/7 so that when people might have questions or have made a decision to follow Jesus, they would have someone to text. Their number would automatically come up in a system like this so you could call them if you wanted to.
The important thing about this system is that a real person would be there who cared and who would respond. Technology is exciting and a tool like Poll Everywhere could be a great benefit to ministries, but in our use of technology, we need to remember to also offer opportunities for immediate, caring, human, one-on-one interaction.
