Churches: Integrating Your VoIP Phone System with Your ChMS Software Can Help Over the Holiday Season

In my experience as a pastor, I have found that the Christmas season can be a painful one rather than one filled with joy for many people. We have two back-to-back holidays that have strong feelings of “family connection” (in the United States) found in Thanksgiving and Christmas. Some individuals or families are dealing with loss or may be struggling financially and one of the most important roles that the church can play in the lives of our congregations is simply keeping people connected or staying in touch with our congregations.

For some, this will be the first year with an empty chair. For others, it may mean not being able to put much under the tree. While we recognize that the material is less important, giving gifts is absolutely one of the ways that people of faith have learned to express their faith over the years.

As a “church” – think big “C” church – we have skin in this game. We can fill some of that void, but how?

1. Keep In Touch with Your Congregations & Church Communities

The word “fellowship” is very “church-y”, but it’s also one of the best words we can use to describe one of the things we are called to do. We are called to remain in community with one another, and staying in touch is one of the best ways to combat the feelings of hopelessness or loneliness that people can encounter.

You might ask, “what does this have to do with a VoIP phone system for my church?”

Communication is crucial for a faith community and often times something as simple as a phone call, an email, or even a text message. Additionally, especially for medium to larger churches, keeping track of conversations and what is going on in the lives of our people.

Something that many churches lack is a solid way to track communications, take notes, even speak with our communities in a way that they may prefer (SMS text, email, or phone).

So, what if you had a solution that enables this level of both connection and record keeping?

2. VoIP Phone Service For Churches

The features of Intulse’s VoIP phone systems for churches can help pastors, church administrators, staff, and volunteers all stay in touch with each other in congregations of any size. One of my challenges has always been people calling the church and nobody being there to answer the phone. I pastor a smaller church now, so it might be 2-3 days before I am able to get that message. With Intulse I don’t have that worry anymore as I can have the phone call routed automatically in a variety of ways, not the least of which is receiving that voicemail as text.

If the past few years of closures and limitations on gatherings have taught us anything, it should be that the church cannot rely on being in the building to function? Why? The church isn’t the building, and if it’s not, our systems should all facilitate that idea. Here’s how Intulse makes that work.

Many churches experience some serious benefits when their phones are integrated with their ChMS:

• Expand Your Outreach – A VoIP phone system can help church organizations widen their reach to new circles and congregations through powerful VoIP tools.
• Simplifying Information Delivery – Enterprise-grade VoIP features, including call conferencing, instant messaging, and voicemail to email can help ministry and church leaders quickly address issues and easily send and receive information in real-time even when you’re not in the building.
• Building Stronger Relations – Church organizations have hundreds or thousands of members, often worldwide, that need support and aid in many different ways. With VoIP phone service, churches and ministries can lend support to their members and engage with the people in the community effectively and efficiently.
• Streamlining for Better Task Management – Use a VoIP system to manage and track data and tasks for schedules, donations, volunteers, account records, and more. VoIP also helps church leaders and workers streamline their operations by prioritizing tasks and handling events and other faith-based activities.

Basically, these benefits can be combined with powerful tools in systems we integrate with like Planning Center, ChurchStaq, and RockRMS to automate a lot of workflows. This cuts down the response time significantly when someone has a serious need in our communities.

3. Get Started Today

I mean this. A lot of times in ministries we delay and we discuss and we fail to take action, sometimes when we really should. I’m going to encourage you as both a pastor and a marketing professional to not wait. And seriously, why risk missing that desperate, late-night call?

I’ve pastored both large and small churches. At the time I’m writing this it’s late October, and I know you large churches out there are probably done with Advent and Christmas planning. Now is the time to get this done. It’s actually one of the fastest and easiest things that you can do, and it will have a surprisingly positive impact on how easy it is to stay in touch with your people and help them feel connected to you and each other.

Partner With Intulse’s Reliable Experts 

Intulse will work with your church to create the communication system you need. Nothing more, nothing less. It will reflect your unique circumstances and needs, but perhaps best of all is that you get as much of the pricing up front as we can provide. Many providers will list services, fees, and other items as add-ons to the base quote, which can easily be 20%-40% over the base price. Contact our team today or call us at 844-446-8857 with any questions.