A common characteristic of growing churches is that they exhibit a laser like focus on communicating a consistent vision for their ministry in many different creative ways.  Everything a church creates says something about its culture, purpose and vision.  Thoughtful planning can make everything work together to reinforce a church’s message over and over again from its graphics to its advertising on the radio or in the newspaper.  Even the design of the building and the programs a church offers can present a unified, clear picture of its ministry rather than a disjointed or incoherent message.

One often overlooked communication tool that many growing churches use to their advantage is a custom message on hold for their telephone system along with well thought out auto attendant messages and prompts. This month we’ll take a look how our church has created an engaging message on hold while next month we’ll consider how to write effective messages for an auto attendant.

At the church I attend the pastors wanted to create a message on hold that was entertaining while conveying a tailored message to our callers. Our message on hold let’s people know we:

are  informal. (from having coffee in the service to pastors who wear t-shirts, shorts and maybe nothing on their feet while speaking to starting at 9:30ish)

design our service for young adults. (by welcoming and normalizing those who have tattoos or piercings and featuring several different bands that reflect a broad array of musical taste catering to young adults)

accept people who have problems. (after all, we are recovering hypocrites ourselves and still goof up at times)

have a sense of humor. (we don’t take ourselves too seriously and can poke fun at ourselves)

If you’d like to listen to some excerpts of our message on hold program to see how the program supports the aforementioned messages, just send an email to me at eddiec@proaudiopro.com and I’ll send some snippets from our message on hold to spark your creative juices.

No church would buy a phone system without a hold button. If that is the case, why not make your hold time fun and informative. Trust me, your callers will appreciate it and you can reinforce all the other ways your church presents its vision, purpose and culture to any person who calls your church.