Ever since I learned about the concept of efficiency in my college sociology class, I’ve been intrigued. While it can definitely be overdone at times, there is also a positive side of pursuing efficiency. For instance, in ministry, the more efficient we can become at certain aspects of ministry, the more we can spend time on different priorities.
One example comes in the form of emails. How many emails of the same type do you send out every day or week? Here are some examples from my own ministry:
- Initial contact email to new students who attend our program
- Follow-up email to students who fill out our “new student” card online
- Initial email to students who want to get baptized
- Follow-up email to students who get baptized
- Email to a new family to our church to invite them to student ministry
While there are ways to automate some of these emails, I still feel like they should be personalized so they are more meaningful. But they don’t necessarily have to be written from scratch each time.
Initially, I had a document where I kept all my email and text templates. I’d go to that note each time, copy, paste, and update/personalize where needed.
Recently, though, I discovered a feature that, while it has probably existed for a while, has changed my life. Feel free to insert one of those “I was today years old when I found out…” memes right here, because I just learned that most email services/apps have templates built in! Instead of copying and pasting, I just click a couple times to pull up my template, add in the proper email address, personalize it, and send it off!
Here is a great article from The Verge on how to use email templates within Gmail –> https://www.theverge.com/21318890/gmail-template-compose-write-messages-automatic-reply-email-google
While all this contact work is certainly a priority, it can also be a time-suck. Writing them from scratch, or even copying and pasting, can add up over time. So by utilizing templates, I’m able to still spend time on this meaningful part of my ministry, but not too much time. And it will provide me with more time to spend on other meaningful parts of my ministry.
Do you enjoy tips like this? If so, please let me know, and I can begin to do a series of blogs with little ways I’ve found to be more efficient and effective in ministry!
Steve Cullum 