Introduction to Communication


Communicating with your congregation is one of GoDoChurch’s strengths. This article is designed to give you an overview of how GoDoChurch approaches communication, and also to help you understand where GoDoChurch fits in your church's communication strategy. Once you have a birds-eye view you can explore each feature in turn.

Your communication strategy

Having an effective communication strategy for your church is crucial if things are to run smoothly. The key to an effective strategy is to know which tools to use for which job. GoDoChurch can go a long way in solving your church's communication needs, but it is not the solution for every need. There are some things that products like WhatsApp and Slack are far better suited to than GoDoChurch. In this article we want to help you a) outline your church’s communication needs, and b) understand which tools can meet those needs. 


Here are some of the most common communication needs of churches along with our recommendation for which tools meet these needs. We begin by outlining things we think you should use WhatsApp or Slack for, and then we move on to things we think GoDoChurch does better than anything else.


Things Whatsapp and Slack do well.

Small team back-and-forth type communication


Churches are often made up of many small teams: church music teams, small groups, service teams, leadership teams - to name just a few. These teams need a way to communicate with each other, and often the kind of communication is back and forth type communication - the kind you would send in an SMS: “Hey, where is the small group meeting today?”, or “Hey guys, I just had a great idea for worship on Sunday”. We recommend you use WhatsApp or Slack for this kind of communication (We use Slack extensively at GoDoChurch for all our in-house communication).


Things GoDoChurch does well.

  1. Sending a branded church newsletter.

  2. Inviting large segments of your church to an event. e.g. - all the woman/men in the church. 

  3. Communicating with people who have signed up for events.

  4. Communicating with first-time visitors in your church.

  5. Communicating with all your cell leaders via SMS or email.

  6. Sending last-minute updates via SMS to the whole church.

  7. Inviting all married couples to a marriage seminar.

  8. Inviting all youth to a youth event.

  9. Communicating with everyone who has registered for an event but not paid.


Why is GoDoChurch better at these things than WhatsApp? Because with GoDoChurch you don’t have to create a specific group just to send a message (like you do in WhatsApp); instead, you can search your database for the group you want to message. GoDoChurch is also much better for messaging very large groups of people - like your whole church, or all the woman in the church. 


So if you are trying to decide whether to use GoDoChurch to communicate with your church ask these questions:

  1. Is the communication for small teams that communicate often? If yes, then use Slack or WhatsApp.
  2. Is the communication for anything not in (1)? If yes, then use GoDoChurch.


Four ways to send messages

GoDoChurch provides four different ways to keep in contact with your church. Each method is best suited to specific tasks. The four communication options are:

  1. SMS

  2. Email

  3. Push Notifications to the App

  4. News Channels


SMS

You can send individual or group SMSes to anyone in your database. Zero set-up is required (we have done all that for you), and every database comes pre-loaded with 50 free SMSes. You can read all about how to send SMSes here: Sending SMSes and Push Notifications.

Note: SMS is currently only available to churches in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Namibia. We are adding other nations soon, so if you are not from South Africa please contact us at support@godochurch.com and we will fast track SMS for your location.


Email

You can send beautiful, custom-designed emails using our MailChimp integration to anyone in your database who has a valid email address. Whether you want to send a branded welcome message to first-time visitors, or just send some info to your leaders, GoDoChurch has you covered. Read this to get started: Sending Emails

Push Notifications

Push notifications are like SMSes in that they are limited to 160 characters, but unlike SMSes they are free. The only catch is they can only be sent to people who have downloaded the GoDoChurch Mobile app. If the person has downloaded the app they will receive a little notification on their phone with your message on it. If the person does not have the app, we send the same message to them via email just to make sure your valuable communication reaches them. Use push notifications once your church is using the mobile app as part of its culture.


News Channels

News channels are created by the administrator using the News Channel module in GoDoChurch. They are essentially communication lists to which people can subscribe. For e.g. you might create a channel for all things relating to prayer, or evangelism, or monthly news updates from the senior pastor. Once people subscribe to that channel, they will receive all news send out through that channel. If a person has the mobile app these news items will be posted into the news feed on the app; otherwise, they will be emailed to the person.


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