SMS

You feel the familiar vibration of your cell phone ringing in your pocket.  You pull it out to read the newly received SMS/Text message saying that your fellow church member’s biopsy results show that she is clear of cancer.  You breath a sigh of relief as you have been praying for the results to come in quickly.  You regularly receive updates via SMS from people in your church as it uses an SMS broadcast system that allows members to send out prayer requests, praises, and other announcements.

According to MobileMag.com, Brits send one billion SMS messages per week.  Text messaging is a huge communication tool being used world wide.  Even in areas where Internet connectivity is scarce, cell phones are a regular part of people’s attire and in many areas, text messaging is cheaper than making the actual phone call to communicate the same information.

eDOT has been learning to use the free software for non-profits called FrontlineSMS (www.FrontlineSMS.com) to be able to harness the power of text messaging as a communication tool.  With this tool, we are looking at all the different ways to use SMS like:

• Broadcast SMS sending for prayer groups, team communications, etc.
• Auto-reply messages to distribute videos (made especially for a cell phone), retrieve crop reports/marketing pricing in areas where there’s no Internet, messages of hope for those in crisis, etc.
• SMS interaction with websites including polls, to log information from those distributed in the field, etc.

SMS/Text messaging is one of those technologies that most ministries don’t think about until we talk with them about how it can be used to enhance what it is they’re called to do.  We believe that there will be a greater need for the use of this technology as we move forward and are preparing ourselves to help ministries harness these capabilities.  Want to help?  Contact us and let’s talk!