About Us
For those pastors and church leaders looking for an effective way to reach their community for Christ, but have no experience using telephones to do so, we share the following true story:
A pastor in California really disliked receiving unsolicited phone calls. He had heard about Tellstart but felt because he didn’t like getting called himself, it wouldn’t be effective. Sometime later he was driving home from work and a stone flew up and cracked the windshield of his car. He was frustrated. He knew it was going to be a hassle to get it repaired and still keep his busy schedule. That evening at dinner he and his wife were discussing the incident, trying to figure out how to fit the repair into their busy schedules. As they were speaking, the phone rang. He glanced at the caller ID, saw the 800 number and answered. Immediately, he could hear the chatter of the call center in the background, so he knew it was a telemarketing call. “What do you want,” he snarled. The calm voice on the other end said, “Well, I was just calling to see if you have a cracked windshield in your car?” The (surprised) pastor said, “Yes, I do.” The man on the phone said, “We’ll come to your house and fix it right in your driveway in two hours,” and gave him a firm price quote. They agreed and a repairman was immediately dispatched to fix his windshield. When he sat back down for dinner he said to his wife, “I just figured out Tellstart. If you’re looking for a church, it’s the best call you get all day. If you’re not, you just hang up.”
It's probably true that the average person in your community does not know that your church exists! Our organization was formed to solve that problem.
TellStart can telephone thousands of homes per day on your behalf, seeking interested people for your church. The phone numbers are obtained from public database sources. We do not call cell phones, unlisted, or business numbers - only residential phones.
Essentially, we take about eight seconds and ask if the person answering the phone if they are looking for a church to attend. They are asked to press the number 1 key on their keypad if they'd like to hear more. (Go to sample script). Or if they prefer to be put on our do-not-call list they can press number 9 at any time. So, an opening script might look like this, “Hello, if you like to hear about an exciting new church in our area, press number 1 on your phone now, or you can press number 9 at any time to be removed from our system.” Only nine percent of the people we call press number 9. For an existing church we might say, “Hello, if you’re new to our community and looking for a church home, press #one on your phone now.
If the person presses number 1 they are given an additional one-minute message containing details about your church. At the close of this section they are invited to leave their name for follow-up and more detailed information.
Those who leave their names after the tone are prospects for your church. Remember, these are people who have requested that YOU contact THEM! At this point you would initiate personal follow-up and incorporate as many as possible into your ministry.
How Tellstart might work for you…
We perform several valuable functions for church planters and existing churches depending on your current stage of development.
If you are a church planter who has already arrived in a new community, we can poll the area to help you establish your core group. This is especially valuable if you are a pioneer couple that has moved to a new community alone.
Tellstart began in the Raleigh, NC area in 1997. We used the system to contact our community for our own new church. The phone responses produced most of the worship team and instrumentalists. We called just 17,000 homes. 138 people came to our launch. Most of them stayed with us. Because of the size of the start-up group the church quickly achieved critical mass, and was financially self-sufficient very rapidly.
After establishing your core (if you already have one), our phone calling will give you the names of the people in the community who might be interested in visiting your newly established, or newly refocused church.
It’s probably true that most of the people in your community do not know that you even exist. Tellstart can communicate with as many as 100,000 families in a single week to tell them you are there, and ready for their visit.
Older established congregations have used Tellstart to alert their communities to a number of different things... the arrival of a new pastor, the startup of some new ministry like a second worship service, VBS or other youth ministry special, or a move into a new facility. Remember, they can’t come if they don’t know.
At any given moment there are large numbers of people who would visit your church if they were just invited! Tellstart is a fast, cost effective way of inviting your entire community to your church – right now.
You might want to promote a onetime special activity like a marriage seminar, special speaker, or other event. Each year at Easter time, we send out lots of messages like this, “Hello... this Sunday is Easter. If you haven’t decided where you’ll be attending church yet, press number one on your phone now.
That’s right. There are a lot of people who have no real preference where they will worship for Easter... Wouldn’t you rather have them with you? What a perfect prospect; someone who has enough of a conscience to attend Easter services but no affiliation. Right now, in your community there are people who feel that way about this coming Sunday! Tellstart can locate them, and by God’s grace they could be part of your ministry before very long.
