A MORDEN DIGITAL CHURCH
ICGC — A DIGITAL CHURCH WITH A *773# USSD CODE
For a very long time, the Church and the body of Christ has been viewed as an outmoded, digitally naive and uneducated organization that has been set up to make money of poor unintelligent people. This false and inaccurate perspective has been pushed by many influential people on different media platforms. However, the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) has demonstrated otherwise and shown many how relevant, versatile and ingenious the church (Body of Christ) is. They did this in the most interesting way using a mobile technology called (Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) for short. This technology is primarily used by telecommunications conglomerates to activate, collect data, subscribe, communicate and educate customers. It has been adopted by ICGC to spread the gospel and sustain its activities in an effective way.
Let me walk you through some of the amazing things it does, starting with Membership Registration within the context of Greater Works (GW). GW is an annual event that happens at the independence square in Accra, Ghana. It host over thirty thousand plus people in attendance annually and with speakers from different African countries.
Membership Registration
Membership registration is a critical part of this event. Due to the large number of people attendance, it has to be done quickly, accurately and conveniently in order not to stress any GW attendee. To collect contact details, attendees simply dial *773# on their mobile ( smart or feature) phones. It is free to dial this code hence users incur no charge. After dialing, members are able to do a variety of things including, entering their contact details like, name, residential location and phone number. This process makes it possible for the church to know them as individuals with unique names and needs. From this data, a member can be easily reached and followed up on by a pastor. Incase a member needs to be visited at his residence, the pastor can easily do so by accessing the information in a highly encrypted Church Management Software powered by Asoriba. Juxtaposing this method with what was done in past, where members could not be ministered to beyond the church premises, simply because, there were no records of their addresses. In ICGC, no church member or attendee will be left behind any longer. This is worth emulating by other churches.
Alter Call (Announcing Your Believe In Jesus Christ) Registration
During the service at GW, salvation through Christ is preached and attendees are given the opportunity to believe and accept Jesus Christ as lord and personal saviour. After a prayer is said, attendee are asked to pick their phones and dial the code *773# and select the Alter Call option. This automatically categories the data in a database so that, new converts can easily be followed up on. They are later on taught the foundations of what it means to believe in Christ and how one must live a new life in the power of the Holy Spirit. In the past, new converts had to write their names and phone numbers on specially designed cards with a pen. The average cost of a card and a pen was about GHS 1 ( $ 0.20). Using technology, it will just cost GHS 0.30 ( $ 0.6), saving the church GHS 0.7 . This doesn’t look much until you multiple it by an estimated 50,000 attendees, giving us a GHS 35,000 saving.
This savings does not take into account the data transcription errors that is avoided, when data entry staff capture data.
Giving
The church spreads the word of God to all parts of the world through missionaries. These missionaries are paid and cared for by the church using money it collects from members. These monies are also used in taking care of the needy, helpless and sick in the society by the church. ICGC in particular, has been one of the largest donors to Korlebu, which is the largest specialized health care provider in Ghana. The church continues to build, a University, Central University , and other unnamed social interventions that runs into millions of GHS using donations from members. For missionaries who fulfill the core mandate of the church, which is soul winning and shepherding, their daily upkeep and needs are met through monthly stipends/salary that are paid and vehicles they use to travel. The events and crusades organized by the church such as GW are expensive, every single thing, like chairs, speakers, screens, electricity etc are paid for with money or given by some members to support. There is therefor a need to consistently give so that the church can meet some of these obligations. With digital donation now available via the USSD option, member can easily give to the church using their mobile money wallets. To put it in perspective, there are more mobile money wallets than bank accounts, and there are more transactions done on mobile money than accounts. The church can now raise more money and send more people out to minister the gospel effectively. It is a fact that, churches that have gone digital with their payments have been able to raise 30% more funds than those who are not digitized. Now many people can conveniently give from their phones without going to the ATM or asking for change after giving. The most amazing thing about digital giving is that, you are no more restricted by location in helping your church do amazing things.
Altar Call
Over 50,000 plus people (in person and online) participate in greater works online. This means the word of God is reaching more people beyond the physical reach of the speaker and the audience. Whenever the word of God is spoken and people give their lives to Christ, they are added to the church fold. It is the responsibility of the pastor/evangelist not to loose any of them. He must know each and every single one and take good care of them just as Jesus said. In a parable he said, if any of owned a 100 sheep and 1 got missing, will you not leave the 99 in search of the missing sheep. To make it more contemporary. If you owned a 100 Cars, and one of the cars went missing, will you not go look for that single car that went missing. In the case of ICGC, Dr. Mensah Otabil, has tapped into the power technology to register and collect names, phones and address of all the souls his team wins for christ. This way, they can effectively minister and take care of the people. By so doing, they can give a good account of every person they are responsible for, making them good stewards.
Enquiries
How many times had you wanted to make an enquiry but had no one to talk to? This leaves you frustrated and annoyed. In order to prevent this, Dr. Otabil and his team have made it possible for anyone who is attending Greater Works to be able to ask questions and seek for solutions to whatever problem they may encounter. How nice and cool is this. With this technology, it will not matter what network you are on or whether you have airtime or data. You can still make enquires and ask for help whenever you need to.
This technology adaptation has made it possible for any individual who is interested in attending Greater Works to have a seamless and amazing experience. This is how a modern church is adopting technology.
