Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

Last Tuesday I invited readers to join me in testing out a new online tool from the American Bible Society. Called DayPack, this free tool makes it easy for churches to schedule a week’s worth of daily Biblical passages to be sent by text message. Congregational leaders can select which Bible translation they wish to use, choose the Bible passages they want to send, name the “pack”, and register. Those who wish to participate will then receive the scheduled Bible passage for the day of the week for seven days.

As a trial run, I went ahead and scheduled seven Biblical passages that focused on the theme of gratitude. In keeping with the instructions, I then texted the word “thanks” to 347-462-0258 and waited to receive my first text. And then I waited, waited again, and waited some more...

Two days later I contacted the developers of DayPack at the American Bible Society to find out what was going on. I learned the following:

• First, that they’ve got a great team there. I was able to reach the product developer in person, explained that I hadn’t received a text yet, and was told they’d get right on it. I received a follow-up email explaining that they’d identified the problem and had fixed it. I received my first text message that night.
• Second, I learned a few things about creating your DayPack. For instance, that you need to make sure your biblical citations are exact. Be sure to cite the book “Psalms 86:1” instead of citing the singular “Psalm 86:1”. This helps the system pull the correct text.
• Finally, as a receiver of these texts, I learned that they do not necessarily come in the morning (as I’d assumed), and that the unique webpage that’s created for each DayPack is permanent unless you choose to delete it. This means that I could continue to invite participants in the future.

My final insight from this grand experiment has to do with how to skillfully launch a new website, application, or resource (something which all congregations will have to face now and then). What really impressed me about this experience was that the developers explicitly asked me to give honest feedback about my experience using this new tool. They asked me in-person but they also have a great feedback form on the DayPack website itself.

The developers wanted to learn what I saw as the resource’s strengths and weaknesses, and I was happy to oblige. Ultimately, I think all of our congregation’s websites, tools and resources would be much improved if we could take a page from this team and model this sort of openness to feedback.

If you participated in this experiment, please share your own experience. If you’d still like to participate, text the word “thanks” to 347-462-0258 or visit the Giving Thanks webpage.