Your first update

Once you’ve texted START, you’re ready. An update is a text saying who is doing what, or what’s happening, and when. Write it the way you’d tell a person.

Sending it

1. Text your organization’s Scriblet number, the one you texted START to.
2. Say what’s happening, for example: “Karen is greeter this Sabbath.”
3. Scriblet texts back to say what it recorded.

Use your organization’s own names for duties, service items and the service day. The examples here are from one church, so yours may differ.

What you can send

• Who’s on a duty: “Karen is greeter this Sabbath.” “Jackson on platform instead of Peterson.”
• What’s in the service: “Opening hymn this week is 526.” “Cary will sing Amazing Grace for special music.”
• An event: “Please add to the calendar: church potluck on Saturday after the service.” To put it in the bulletin too, add “please announce it”.
• A bulletin announcement: “Remind everyone for the next two weeks that the youth car wash is Saturday, 9 to 1, in the back lot.”

You can put several things in one text: “Opening hymn is 526, and Cary will sing Amazing Grace for special music.”

Dates

• No date means the coming service day. So do “this week” and “this Sabbath”.
• “Next week” can mean two different days, so Scriblet asks which you mean. The exception is when you send it on the service day itself: then it means a week from today.
• Dates like “October 17”, “the 17th” or “tomorrow” work too.

What comes back

Scriblet replies with what it recorded and the date it recorded it for:

Recorded sermon title for Sat 3 Oct: Walking in the Light.

The wording varies a little from reply to reply. Check the date. If it’s wrong, just text the correction. See Changing or correcting things.

If Scriblet asks a question

If something is missing, or could mean two things, Scriblet asks you one short question first. It records nothing until you answer.

Do you mean Sat 10 Oct or Sat 17 Oct?

Reply with just the answer, for example “the 17th”, and Scriblet records it.

• A question waits 24 hours. After that, Scriblet lets it go and nothing is recorded. Send the update again.
• If you send something else instead of answering, Scriblet drops the question and deals with your new message.

Good to know

• A thank-you text gets no reply. That’s normal.
• You can ask questions too, like “Who has the sermon this week?” See Asking questions.
• Scriblet reads the words in a text, not pictures. To send a flyer or a schedule, email it.
• Keep suggestions separate. If a message is a suggestion for your administrators, Scriblet passes the whole message on and records nothing from it. Send updates on their own.
• “Sorry, we couldn’t process your message just now.” Something went wrong on Scriblet’s side. Send your message again.