Bulletin or newsletter announcements often end with the phone number or email address of the person to contact for more details or to sign up. But how often do you indicate if a person may be contacted by text message, or Twitter for that matter? Some people in your congregation (youth in particular) likely prefer text messages over emails or phone calls, while others can't imagine why anyone would want to type on their phone.

The solution is to begin to develop your own database that lists both acceptable and preferred contact methods, or to add this information to your church database. Start by giving your team leaders a form with blanks for email, home and cell numbers, Facebook/MySpace/Twitter usernames, and so on. Then, provide checkboxes where they can indicate preferred contact methods and any methods that should not be used. Later, you can expand your database to include the acceptable and preferred contact methods for everyone in the congregation.