I can't tell you how many times I've talked to pastors about this, but they rarely seem to get it. As churches, we're in the people business. When someone calls a church, they expect to find a caring polite voice on the other end. But what do most churches do? For economic reasons, they go to automatic voice mail. Bad choice. In fact, let me prove it to you. This morning I received another thank you e-mail from someone who attended the church I used to pastor. In this person's e-mail, they made the following statement.
After going to a drama called "Hells Fire, Heavens Gates" in February 1995, my husband and I went to the "Alter" and made a commitment to follow Jesus and we said the Sinners Prayer. We were told to find a church. The criteria we set was that the church be "Bible based", within 10 miles of our home, a comfortable atmosphere, and have a pastor we respected who could teach us God's will and build our knowledge of Biblical truths. Armed with telephone numbers of six area churches of various denominations, I proceeded to call each number. Five numbers resulted in a voice mail. Only SC CC was answered with a "live" person (you) and you answered all my questions and were warm, friendly and enthusiastic.
In other words, just because we answered the phones (how simple is that?), we had the privilege of ministering to a new couple of believers for years. Trust me, I've heard that same kind of story over and over again over the years I led Seneca Creek. As the saying goes, "In the world of high tech, people long for high touch." So, are you answering your phones? If not, have you ever thought about how many people you may have lost simply because you didn't answer your phones with a person, instead of an answering machine or voice mail?
I remember talking to a pastor of a church of three thousand one time about this. I said, "Back when you were a church of a thousand, you used to answer your phones. Now, you're a church of three thousand but you can't answer your phones any more. What gives?" He said, "It costs too much to have someone sit and answer the phones all day." To which I replied, "Let me see if I understand this It wasn't too expensive when you were a church of a thousand. But now that you have three times as much money, you can't afford to have a receptionist?" Actually, it was more important for that large church to have a receptionist than for a small church because large churches are usually perceived by those outside of them to be impersonal and uncaring. A simple customer service idea like answering the phones, just might make the difference. And when the potential loss is a person/couple/family, all of a sudden it doesn't seem so expensive to answer the phones does it?
In fact, if I was in the office and the phone didn't picked up by the fourth ring, I would often pick up the phone (which, of course, shocked people, "I didn't think I'd get you. What are you doing answering the phones?" As if answering the phones is too difficult a task for a senior pastor of a large church to do). Why? Because it's a simple customer service item and because I never knew if it was a new person on the line who might be checking out our church—who might not yet know Christ—but who might come to our church and then come to know Christ simply because we answered the phone and let them know somebody cares. So, are you convinced yet? I hope so! This might seem like a little thing, but for the sake of the people in your community (both believers and non-believers), will you please answer your phones?
