Church connection cards: paper, digital, and text-to-connect

Church connection cards work best when they ask for five things or fewer and someone follows up within 24 hours. The most reliable setup today is a text-to-connect keyword on the screen, backed by a short follow-up drip campaign and a consent record you keep yourself.

The rest of this guide covers what to put on the card, how paper, QR-code forms and text-to-connect compare, how to write a four-text follow-up for first-time guests, and what it costs to run that follow-up in Ready. That includes 10DLC registration and the per-segment math.

What church connection cards should actually ask

Every extra field costs you completions. A guest balancing a toddler and a coffee will fill in a name and a phone number. They will often skip a mailing address, birthday and spouse's name. Ask only for what your follow-up process will actually use.

The short list

1. First and last name. You need it to greet them by name.
2. Mobile phone number. This is your primary follow-up channel.
3. Is this your first visit? First-time, second-time or regular. This sorts people into the right follow-up.
4. One next step. Checkboxes such as "I'd like to know about kids' ministry", "small groups" or "talk to a pastor".
5. Text permission, in plain words. For example: "Yes, text me about next steps at [Church Name]. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP anytime."

Email is optional. Prayer requests are worth a separate free-text field, but treat them as pastoral care. They should not feed an automated message.

What to drop

Most churches can drop mailing address, age bracket and "how did you hear about us". You can collect those later, in a newcomers lunch or a membership class, from people who have already decided to stay.

Paper vs digital vs text-to-connect

Each format has a place. The right answer depends on your congregation's age mix and on who does data entry on Monday.

Paper still has a job

Paper cards are not obsolete. Some guests will not text a number they have never seen. Others are not comfortable with a phone during a service. Keep a paper card available and add the same text-permission line to it. Then a guest who writes a number and ticks the box is in the same follow-up path as one who texted.

The weak point is transcription. A misread 7 or 1 sends your welcome text to a stranger. Have whoever enters the cards read numbers back against the card before importing them.

Text-to-connect, step by step

The pastor or host says, "If this is your first time, text HELLO to [number] and we'll send you a welcome." The number and keyword stay on screen for a full minute. The guest sends one text, and you have their mobile number with no typing errors.

On the screen, show three things:

• The keyword and the number, large.
• One line of permission language, such as: "By texting HELLO you agree to receive follow-up texts from [Church Name]. Up to 4 msgs. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out."
• What they get in return. For example, a welcome note and a link to sign their kids up.

Screenshot that slide every time you use it and save it with the date. That screenshot, plus the inbound text, is your evidence of how the guest opted in.

Getting consent to text, and keeping proof of it

This is where churches get casual and should not. The TCPA applies to texts from churches and nonprofits as well as businesses. A clear opt-in protects your guests' trust as much as it reduces legal exposure.

Who keeps which record

Ready records the sender's attestation on each campaign you send and on each API send that attests consent: who sent, to how many, and when. That gives you an audit trail of your own sending. It is not a per-contact consent record. Ready does not store each guest's opt-in time, the wording they agreed to or the page they used, and a keyword reply does not create that record. The one exception is a sign-up on a Ready-hosted opt-in page: Ready stores its time, IP address and exact wording.

Your church keeps that record:

• Signed paper cards, filed by service date.
• Web form submissions that store the wording and a timestamp.
• Slide screenshots, saved with the service date, for text-to-connect.

Compliance is ultimately the sender's responsibility. Good records are risk reduction. They are not immunity.

What Ready handles on the sending side

• STOP handling. If a guest replies STOP or UNSUBSCRIBE, Ready honors it. The opt-out carries across every campaign, so that person cannot be texted again by accident.
• Quiet hours. Sends outside permitted local hours are held based on the recipient's area. A drip campaign step that would land late at night goes out the next permitted morning instead. Campaigns, drip campaigns and automations wait up to 24 hours for the window; a one-to-one or API text is held only if the window opens within 6 hours, otherwise it is not sent, and you send it again once the window opens; a one-to-one reply to someone who texted you in the last 24 hours goes out at any hour.
• Refused sends. Texts to opted-out numbers, numbers on your Ban list and known landlines are refused up front and not charged.

Writing the first-time guest follow-up drip campaign

Four texts over about two weeks is enough. More than that starts to feel like a sales funnel, which is the opposite of the welcome you are going for.

Keep every message under 160 plain characters, with no emoji. That keeps each text to one segment. A single emoji switches the whole message to unicode, which drops the limit to 70 characters. A 140-character welcome with one heart emoji becomes 3 segments instead of 1, and every segment is billed.

A four-text template

Text 1, within an hour of service: "Hi {first_name}, thanks for joining us at [Church Name] today! Questions about kids, groups or anything else? Just reply here. Reply STOP to opt out."

Text 2, day 2: "Hi {first_name}, Pastor [Name] here. It was good to have you Sunday. Is there anything we can pray about for you this week?"

Text 3, day 5: "Newcomers lunch is after the 11 AM service on [date], right after worship. Want us to save you a seat? Reply YES and we'll set a place."

Text 4, day 12: "Hi {first_name}, small groups start [date]. Here's the list by neighborhood and night: [your-domain link]. Reply if you'd like a hand picking one."

Text 2 is a question for a reason. A reply turns an automated welcome into a real conversation, and someone on staff should answer it personally. Ready's inbound replies land in the Inbox. Ready no longer offers AI agents that answer texts on their own, so plan for a person to write that reply.

Use your own domain for links. Shared public shorteners like bit.ly are a common filtering trigger, and this post on carrier filtering of shortened links explains why. For more wording ideas for the immediate reply, see auto reply text message examples.

Setting it up in Ready

Register first, then build the drip campaign

Texts from a 10DLC number need brand and campaign registration, or carriers filter them. Ready handles registration in the app:

• At submit: $25, which is the first month.
• Monthly after that: $25/mo for registration, plus $2 per number.
• Approval: most approvals take 2 to 7 days.

Pick a campaign use case that matches what you actually send. A guest follow-up and event invitations are not the same as fundraising appeals. Matching use case to content covers the details, and 10DLC cost breaks down every fee.

Before you register, you can test. The first 20 texts are free, and they are one-to-one sends. A campaign is paid from the first text. Use those free texts to try your welcome wording on staff phones before you register, because they end the moment a registration is paid for. An account can send up to 500 texts a month before it registers, at its normal per-text rate. To send, you add a card and get a number, which is $2 a month with the first month charged when you get it.

Build the flow

1. Buy a local number and complete registration.
2. Import paper-card contacts who ticked the text box. Text-to-connect contacts arrive as inbound messages in the Inbox.
3. Create the four messages as reusable templates. The AI message writer and spam-filter check can help tighten wording.
4. Enroll new guests in the drip campaign, and assign one staff member to own the inbox on Sunday afternoons.

If your church runs its own app or website tooling, the same sends are available through the messaging API. The quickstart walks through it.

What it costs: worked example

The assumptions for this example:

• Volume: 40 first-time guests a month.
• Messages: each guest gets the four texts above, all one segment, with no emoji.
• Replies: guests send about 30 single-segment replies across the month.
• Rate: Ready's Standard rate is $0.0075/segment plus a $0.0045 carrier fee per segment, sent or received.

The math:

• Outbound: 40 × 4 = 160 segments.
• Inbound: 30 segments.
• Total: 190 segments.
• Messaging: 190 × $0.0075 = $1.43, plus 190 × $0.0045 in carrier fees.
• Registration: $27/mo with one number ($25 for registration + $2).

Registration is the larger cost at this volume, not messaging. Optional TCPA/DNC scrubbing and landline validation each add $0.003 per segment if you switch them on. They are off by default. Enterprise pricing is custom; talk to us if you are a network or denomination sending at scale.

FAQ

What should church connection cards ask for?

Ask for name, mobile number, first visit or not, one next-step checkbox, and an explicit line giving permission to text. Leave everything else for later conversations.

Do churches need 10DLC registration to text guests?

Yes, for ongoing texting from a standard 10-digit number. Unregistered traffic gets carrier-filtered. Registration costs $25 at submit, then $25/mo for registration and $2 per number. Most approvals take 2 to 7 days.

Is texting a keyword enough consent?

The guest's text shows intent, but your proof is the wording they saw. Save a dated screenshot of the slide, including the message count and STOP language. Ready logs your send attestation, not each guest's opt-in.

How much does a first-time guest drip campaign cost?

At 40 guests a month, four one-segment texts each, plus about 30 replies, you send 190 segments. That is $1.43 at $0.0075/segment, plus the $0.0045 carrier fee per segment and $27/mo registration with one number.

Can we text giving reminders or donation appeals?

Fundraising texts need Ready's written OK first under our acceptable use policy. Email support@tryready.com before the first appeal and wait for our reply. Signing up and registering is not enough on its own.

The practical takeaway: shorten the card, put a keyword on the screen, save proof of the wording, and send four plain-text messages that invite a reply. If you want to try the welcome text first, use your free one-to-one texts at tryready.com/signup before you register.

Before your first donation appeal: our acceptable use policy needs Ready's written OK for fundraising texts. Email support@tryready.com with your organization's name and its charity registration, or for a candidate, committee or PAC its FEC or state filing ID, and wait for our reply before you send an appeal.