Announcing HuddleUp Chat: Why We Built a Safe Chat Tool When So Many Chat Tools Already Exist

tl;dr We built a safe chat tool for ministry leaders to communicate with anyone of any age or gender. It’s called HuddleUp Chat.

I don’t know about you, but I chat with a lot of people every day. I text with my family, use Facebook Messenger to connect with friends, work with my staff using Slack, and send fun stuff to other people on Snapchat.

When it comes to chatting with folks from church, things are a little different. Not everyone in my church uses Facebook or Snapchat. Most people don’t have a Slack account, so asking them to download and use Slack just for me is overkill. And texting gets out of control quickly, especially with different people using Android or iPhones.

Plus, none of these tools make me feel very safe. I’ve seen too many relationships harmed and leaders damaged because of inappropriate interactions on social media and private messaging.

Ministry Communication is Hard

I’m not alone in that feeling, either. We serve thousands of ministry leaders and one thing we’ve heard time and time again is that communicating with volunteers, parents, and students is hard.

For most ministry leaders, conversations are spread over several different messaging tools and often the same volunteer or parent is pulled into 2-3 conversations in completely separate places.

The result is disorganized conversations, dropped balls, and people feeling out of the loop. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a parent tell me they didn’t know about an event because they didn’t see the message I sent them. Maddening!

Ministry Communication Is Filled with Risk

On top of that, many leaders go to extra lengths to protect themselves and the people they care about. They want to stay “above reproach”, so they copy their spouse on church emails or include their pastor on text message threads. That creates a lot of headaches for everyone.

What’s more, almost every youth pastor we talked to said they don’t allow their adult youth leaders to communicate with their students directly outside of church. The risk is just too great. Can you imagine how much MORE MINISTRY could happen if adult youth leaders could connect with students throughout the week?!

We decided two things were true:

1. It’s time for ministry leaders to have a tool they can use to chat safely with anyone in their church, regardless of age or gender.
2. We’re better equipped than anyone to build it for them.

HuddleUp Chat is a safe chat tool that lets church people connect in 1-on-1 or group conversations. It’s just chat, like Slack or GroupMe or Facebook Messenger, except there are a few key differences.

HuddleUp Chat Is Different

HuddleUp Chat is different from your typical chat tool in 5 primary ways.

1. HuddleUp Chat keeps a record of all messages sent through the system. Nothing can be deleted, only archived or hidden.
2. HuddleUp Chat allows account admins to monitor, view, and search all chats and messages that have been sent…even in 1-on-1 chats they are not included in.
3. HuddleUp Chat doesn’t require a social media account to use it like Facebook or Snapchat.
4. HuddleUp Chat doesn’t require users to create or remember usernames or passwords, so people can always get access to conversations.
5. HuddleUp Chat doesn’t require an app to participate in conversations, which means there’s a lower barrier to get people to use it. (We do have apps for iPhone and Android if you like push notifications for chats.)

What’s more, HuddleUp Chat shares space with HuddleUp Posts, which is a simple way to send announcements that feel like social media posts via email and text message. That means all of your ministry communication can happen in one tool instead of splitting your people between an email tool, texting tool, chat tool, and a social media page.

In other words, HuddleUp Posts and Chat replaces four separate tools (email, texting, chat, and social media) and brings it all together in one space.

A Limited-time Christmas Offer

Finally, we know that ministries are always working with a shoestring budget, so we’ve priced HuddleUp to fit any budget. And since the holidays are an especially tight time, we’re offering to extend our standard 14-free trial to a whole month so the first bill doesn’t hit your credit card until 2020. This extended free trial offer can only be redeemed before January 1, 2019, so get on it quickly!

Just use the coupon code HUDDLEUPCHRISTMAS before the deadline to get the extended free trial. Start your free trial now.

More Information You Might Want to Know

1. HuddleUp Chat works on desktop, mobile web, and with our mobile apps, so you can stay connected from anywhere on any device.
2. You can restrict who is allowed to create new chats, which means only the right people will be able to start conversations with other people.
3. You can restrict those who are allowed to create new chats so they can only start conversations with people in their own Groups.
4. With our Groups feature, you can start chats with groups of people quickly without having to individually select each person.
5. You can Archive chats when they’re no longer relevant or active.
6. You can add and remove people from chats without starting a new thread.
7. You can share videos, images, and other files in a chat.
8. You can choose any GIF from our massive GIF library just by searching for a key phrase. It’s powered by GIPHY, so you know the best GIFs are available.
9. For admins, the list of chats is split between your chats and all chats, which means you don’t have to see every existing chat in your account at all times. This is great for reducing noise in your chat list.
10. Admins can join any chat at any time, even existing 1-on-1 chats.
11. Our mobile apps for iPhone and Android offer realtime push notifications for new chat messages.
12. For those in a chat that don’t have a mobile app installed, we send email notifications for unread chat messages after 2 hours so no one is left in the dark.

Have more questions? Chat with us on our website using the widget at the bottom of the page. Or try it out with a free trial.

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