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Texting for your Youth Ministry

It's impossible to keep track of every app your students and parents engage with. But everyone sends texts. And no one does texting better than Clearstream. Bet.

Sunday Cool Tees, smoke signals, and Clearstream
New plants to many of the largest and most influential churches in the U.S. rely on Clearstream for their text communications.

We're a product-focused team that's dedicated to building and perfecting reliable, intuitive communication software for the church.

And we've been doing it for over 12 years.

Schedule weekly youth service reminders

Church happens every week and people still forget. We feel your pain. Schedule a recurring reminder that goes out weekly. Include this emoji 🔥 in your message and everyone will show up. With friends.

Screenshot of a mass text and the "Recurring" option is selected

Host live text polls during service

Use polls to quiz your youth group on Bible trivia or play a few icebreaker games. It's fun and students love it!

Watch this video to see how Gateway Church did it with thousands of students.

Poll results for what you consider to be a hotdog
Gateway Church using Live Polls

Use a dedicated subaccount for youth ministry

A lot of texting happens in student ministry. Give your team and your students their own space with a subaccount. They'll have a separate inbox, a separate number, separate users, and separate integrations.

Platform view of subaccount drop-down menu

Customer Review

"Clearstream allows our church to connect with our students. It's difficult to know who sees our content when we post on social media, but with Clearstream, we can be sure each student and parent gets a notification on a commonly used platform that they will most likely interact with."

Woodland Church

Follow-up with new students

You can use text-to-join keywords and automated workflows for students visiting for the first time.

Here's an example of how it could work: A student texts in your keyword (i.e. "new" to xxx-xxx-xxxx) and receives an auto-response with a welcome text. They're added to your communication list and start receiving student ministry updates and announcements.

Someone texts "new" and Clearstream auto-replies and sends to "New Students" list

Answer parent questions

Communication often gets lost between students and parents. For last-minute questions, you can quickly respond from your inbox. Your personal phone thanks you. And so does Billy's mom.

Text Interaction Artwork

Send event registrations

Youth leaders are also part-time event planners. Make it easier by sending registration forms through text. Use our link shortener to make your texts — wait for it — shorter.

Screenshot of a mass text sent with a link and two people responding with emojis

Customer Review

"As a Student Pastor, I send out a lot of texts communicating to our parents and students alike. We've used other services that weren't reliable or didn't work for some of our subscribers. Clearstream is an absolute home run for us. We have consistent, reliable communication every time. It's easy to setup, easy to use keywords, and the price literally can't be beat."

Gospel City Church

Have parents join separate lists to stay connected

Create a separate keyword or signup form for parents and let them join a specific list. Message parents separately and keep them in-the-loop about their kids.

Screenshot of digital connect card filled out and an auto-response sent

Send texts on-the-go

Running a youth ministry keeps you busy. For announcements, event changes, student follow-up, or parent conversations — use our native mobile app.

Platform view of inbox in dark mode on phone

Start texting your students

Texting hits different. 97% of texts are opened within the first three minutes. And Clearstream can fit within a single youth ministry or just as easily integrate into an entire church communications plan.