# Text message policy for [Church name] Adopted by [elder board / deacons / council] on [YYYY-MM-DD]. Reviewed every [quarter / year]. Next review [YYYY-MM-DD]. Print this page and keep it beside the platform login. Everything in square brackets is a decision your church has to make before this document is worth anything. --- ## 1. Who may press send | Message | Person allowed to send it | | --- | --- | | Ice, gas, a lockdown, a death in the church | [Name], and [Name] as the deputy | | A cancelled service with nobody in danger | [Name], and [Name] as the deputy | | A change inside the next 24 hours | [Name] | | Reminders for something people signed up for | The ministry lead running that thing | | Prayer chain requests | [Name], the chain moderator | | Meals, rides, a hospital run | [Name], the deacon on rotation | | A giving appeal, or a seat at something we charge for | [Name] with the treasurer | | A devotional to the devotional list | [Name] | Nobody else sends to a church list. A volunteer who wants a message sent asks the person named in this table. Platform logins are held by [names]. A login is removed the week a person rotates off a role, and the list of logins is checked at every review. ## 2. What we never send by text - Anything that names, describes, or pictures a minor. Speak to the parent. - One person's giving. Not the amount, not the fact, not a reminder. - One person's sin, diagnosis, or marriage. That conversation happens in a room. - A pastoral crisis. Phone the person, or go and see them. - A fundraising appeal to a list that opted in for closures. - A devotional to a list that opted in for closures. - Doctrinal argument or political comment. ## 3. Hours Default sending window: 8:00am to 9:00pm, in the reader's local time. Outside that window, send only when the message affects somebody's health or safety. Ice on the roads at 6:40am qualifies. A change of potluck venue at 10:00pm does not, and the potluck message is the one that teaches the congregation to stop reading. ## 4. Volume One message per situation. If nothing has changed since the last message, no message goes out. A list that receives five updates about one cancelled service is a list that ignores the sixth, and the sixth is the one about the funeral. Ceiling: [number] messages per person per month across every list this church runs. Whoever presses send is responsible for knowing what the reader already received this week from another ministry. ## 5. Consent A number goes on a list only when the person asked to be on that list. Consent is to a purpose, not to the church in general. Somebody who filled out a card asking about the nursery has not joined the closures list. The sentence that appears on every card, form, and signup page: > I agree to receive text messages from [Church name] about [purpose]. Message > frequency varies. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out, > HELP for help. Every consent is written into the church's own consent log on the day it is given. The log lives at [location], is owned by [name], and is exported and backed up on [schedule]. It is not the vendor's copy. The vendor's copy leaves when the vendor does. ## 6. Opt-outs Any of these words in a reply ends it, in any capitalization: stop, quit, end, revoke, opt out, cancel, unsubscribe. Anything else a reasonable person would read as asking us to stop also ends it. "Take me off this." "No more of these." "Please stop." Treat all of them as an opt-out and do not argue. One confirmation text goes back, inside five minutes, with nothing promotional in it. Then nothing. The number comes off every list the same day. Federal rules allow up to ten business days. We do not use the ten days. The opt-out is written into the consent log with the date, the method, and the words the person used. ## 7. Registration Our texting platform is [vendor]. Our brand is registered with the carriers under the legal name [name] and EIN [number]. Our campaign use case is [use case], which permits [what it permits]. Registered on [YYYY-MM-DD]. Our throughput is [messages per minute], so a send to the whole list takes about [minutes] minutes to finish. Whoever presses send at 6:40am on a snow day needs to know that number. ## 8. The test On the first [Tuesday] of [month], [name] sends one test message to the whole list at [time] and confirms it arrives on [carrier] and [carrier] handsets. A channel that has not been tested since the last emergency is not a channel. ## 9. Review At every review, [name] does four things. 1. Removes numbers that have bounced twice. 2. Marks members who have moved away or died. 3. Confirms every list still matches the purpose people consented to. 4. Confirms the login list in section 1 matches who actually holds a login. --- Written to accompany the church texting rules published at churchposting.com/resources/communications/church-texting-rules/. Adapt every bracket. A policy copied without the brackets filled in is a piece of paper.