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Communicating with your congregation could easily turn into a 24-hour-a-day job. There are simply not enough hours in the day to return every phone call, answer every e-mail, notify every leader of meeting times, and recruit volunteers. The good news is that in order to keep up, you don't have to work harder—you just have to work smarter.

Fortunately, today's communication and messaging products perform much of the work for you, freeing you up to spend more time on the ever-growing list of ministry tasks.

One of the most popular line of messaging products, with over 45,000 customers, comes from PhoneTree®. The PhoneTree® messaging system automatically calls or e-mails people based on lists you create ahead of time. PhoneTree® works with all major church management software programs to further automate the task of sending personalized messages to selected groups. Tasks such as recruiting volunteers, communicating with shut-ins, announcing meeting times, sending messages to small groups, and updating prayer chains take only a minute or two, instead of hours.

Michael Euliss, director of corporate communications at PhoneTree®, says the models most popular with churches are the 2100 and 2500. The 2100 (manufacturer's suggested retail price $1100) includes the exclusive AVR-4 Advanced Voice Recognition technology that detects answering machines and waits for the beep before leaving your message. If the line is busy or no one is home, the 2100 remembers to call again later. It will also prioritize busy lines, calling them a second time before lines that were not answered.

The 2500 (manufacturer's suggested retail price $1600) can contact up to 256 different groups simultaneously. It can be operated from any pc on your network, or operated remotely from any touch-tone phone. The system can also answer incoming calls using the built-in InfoLine™ mode which acts like a web site on the phone providing callers with directions, meeting updates, ministry information, and more. Up to 999 different messages can be included.

Every PhoneTree® system consists of PhoneTree® hardware, a headset microphone for recording messages, and usb cables and software for connecting the hardware to a pc. Because the system is located within and operated by the church using the church's phone lines, there are no additional per-call charges (regular phone rates apply according to the church's telephone service plan with it's provider).

When you need to make a large number of calls right away, PhoneTree's new OnDemand™ service makes it happen. The OnDemand™ call option is selected from the PhoneTree desktop system. The message and call lists are sent to PhoneTree's Internet-based calling service, which uses many phone lines simultaneously to get the message out fast. There are no monthly fees or upfront costs, just a low per-call rate, making OnDemand™ an excellent option for quickly reaching many people. OnDemand™ is easily added to existing PhoneTree™ USB systems.

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