How Lakeside Church Uses Text In Church to Engage New Guests and Keep Everyone Connected
A new family visits your church. The service is great. They fill out a connect card. And then they wait.
If all you have is email, you probably know what happens next. The message sits unopened. The response rate is low. And by the time someone follows up, the moment has passed.
That was the reality for Lakeside Church, a church dedicated to helping people connect with their faith and with each other. They had the heart for it. What they needed was a faster, more reliable way to reach people right where they were.
The Challenge: Email Wasn't Cutting It for New Guest Engagement
Before Text In Church, Lakeside Church was searching for a way to have quick, meaningful conversations with their church community, especially with new guests who were just starting to find their footing.
They knew the problem. Traditional communication methods like email often fell short when it came to response rates and immediacy. A new guest who doesn't hear back quickly can easily feel overlooked, and once that feeling sets in, it's hard to recover.
"We were looking for a way to have quick, meaningful conversations with people in our church community and engage easily with newcomers. Text messages get far more responses than emails, so it was a no-brainer for us." — Kathleen Elliott
They weren't alone in that realization. Research consistently shows that texts get opened at dramatically higher rates than email. For churches trying to reach people in a timely, personal way, that difference matters.
The Solution: Three Numbers, One Platform, Every Ministry Covered
When Lakeside Church discovered Text In Church, they didn't just use it for one thing. They thought strategically about how to deploy it across their entire church community.
They decided to have three phone numbers with Text In Church for specific areas: their main church, their kids and youth ministry, and their grief ministry.
That separation was intentional. It meant every message felt targeted and relevant to the person receiving it. A parent with kids in the youth program wasn't getting grief ministry updates mixed into the same thread. A person navigating loss was receiving care from a number specifically set aside for that purpose.
Segmenting communication by audience isn't just an organizational preference. It's how you make people feel seen. When a message feels like it was written for them specifically, they're far more likely to engage with it.
The Results: No One Falls Through the Cracks
The impact at Lakeside Church has been significant, and Kathleen's description of it gets right to the heart of what good church communication is supposed to do.
"It's been easy to keep track of newcomers without them falling through the cracks like they can with email. Texting is so intuitive for people that it just feels like part of everyday life... and we want people to feel that way about a relationship with Jesus and being part of a church community. That's just part of their everyday routine." — Kathleen Elliott
That last line is worth sitting with. The goal isn't just better communication logistics. It's a church community that feels natural and woven into people's lives, not something they have to make an effort to stay connected to.
What Lakeside Church Got Right
Looking at how Kathleen and her team implemented Text In Church, a few things stand out that any church can apply.
They matched the communication channel to their audience. Their congregation was already texting every day. Meeting them there, instead of hoping they'd check their email, made all the difference in response rates.
They thought beyond guest follow-up. Most churches start with following up with guests, and that's a great place to begin. But Lakeside Church extended the same approach to kids ministry and grief care, which meant more of their congregation felt the benefit.
They stayed consistent. Good follow-up isn't a one-time thing. It's a rhythm. Text In Church gave them a platform to maintain that rhythm without it depending on anyone's memory or bandwidth on any given week.
As Kathleen put it, "Text in Church has hit all the marks, giving us three numbers that we've used for our main church, kids/youth ministry, and our grief ministry. It's an incredible tool and one I don't think we'll ever give up. Text in Church is just part of who we are now."
Your Church Can Build This Too
You don't need a large staff or a complex system to communicate well with your congregation. You need a tool that works the way people actually communicate today, and a simple plan for using it consistently.
Text In Church gives you dedicated numbers, automated follow-up, and two-way messaging that makes newcomers feel noticed from the moment they walk through your doors.
Start your free 14-day trial today. See how it feels to know that no one is slipping through the cracks.
