Google Voice for Churches #5

Can I pass this ministry on to you?

#1 – Yes, it is FREE!
#2 – How did you know my name?
#3 – Mobile Ministry Command Center
#4 – Free Text Messages for Churches

I am not going to be able to make it today. is always a good thing to hear from your volunteers. It is even better to hear it after the day they were talking about. After it is too late to get a replacement. After you were really mad at them accusing them of not contacting you.

Actually, you just missed the message because they called the church voice mail over the weekend.

Google Voice helps your church and ministry solve that problem by giving you a Google Voice number with your free account. When you create the account it will walk you through a process that lets you choose a phone number.

Hopefully you get a number in your area code. That can be a challenge depending on the demand for phone numbers in your area. You can also try to get a lettered phone number with the initials of your church or something easy to remember.

Forward the number to multiple phones.

The great part about Google Voice for churches is that you can have that number forward to multiple phones. Whoever picks up first is the winner! So, you could have the number forward to the ministry leader’s cell phone and the main church number. If the church is open they could handle the call. If not it would go directly to the ministry leader. Or you could forward to just one number.

One of the main benefits is that you can give out that number to the volunteers in the ministry so that you do not have to give out personal phone numbers.

This is also a great option if a ministry is led by more than one person. The call is forwarded to both phones and can be answered by either person.

Finally and unfortunately, volunteers and leaders come and go from time to time. If you have passed their personal phone number and email around to those in that ministry, it is going to be annoying to retrain everyone with a new number. With Google Voice you can just forward the phone number to the new person and everyone can still use the same number.

This seems like it would work best in a ministry with a lot of volunteers like nursery. If you have a tech team of 4, this is probably not a needed feature. But it could be very helpful in a nursery ministry with 100 volunteers.