The message of the gospel has not changed, but the ways that we can communicate it has radically been overhauled by technology. As churches learn to communicate with their members and evaluate various forms of outreach it is easy to get lost in the overwhelming amount of online tools that may, or may not, be useful.
Because of our passion and focus for modernizing evangelistic communication, I have spent many hours trolling the web for sites that offer something unique, and often free, to local churches. Here is a list of the three online tools I have recently found that will benefit your church’s community outreach efforts.
www.neighborlinkup.com: NeighborLinkUp offers a church the ability to create a helping hand ministry, both quickly and efficiently. You can use the site as a way to manage helping projects, ask the community to report on people who need help, and organize teams to engage with the requests. It is pretty easy to manage and can have a great impact on your church’s ability to reach out to the community.
Creative tip: You could generate cards or door hangers that will invite members of the community to list potential projects for their neighbors or themselves. Then your volunteers will have lots of people they can help.
www.eventbrite.com: Eventbrite isn’t specifically a church tool, but it can be a real blessing. Your church can develop a registration page for any event. You can control and manage everything about the registration process including continued emails about the event and event night check in.
Creative tip: We use this tool at my church to organize our homeless outreach ministry. We limit sign ups and people can list the food and supplies they’ll be bringing, so that we have just the right amount of help and all the food we need to feed people.
www.myfreebiblestudy.org: This is a site we developed here at SermonView to reduce the time it takes between when someone responds to a Bible study card mailing, and when you receive that visitation request.
People use the site to respond from a mailing or personal invitation. They place in an offer code specific to your church and are greeted with an introduction from your church coordinator. They then can request an in-home visit from a member of your church. You receive the invitation to visit this person within minutes of their request. This tool allows churches to respond faster than traditional Bible card mailings and reach people while they still feel interest.
Creative tip: Send out a regular Bible card mailing to different areas around your church, at a quantity your church can afford. This will give your Bible worker or volunteers a consistent stream of interests they can visit and develop real, meaningful relationships.
Investigate each of these simple online solutions to find out how your church can start using technology to promote interaction with your local community.
To learn more about how to use MyFreeBibleStudy.org with your next Bible study card mailing, contact us.