Guest Consent to Texts and Emails
Before Passport sends a guest an automated text, it needs a record that they agreed to hear from your church. There are only two ways that record is made: the guest submits one of your forms, or someone on your team records that the guest agreed in person. There is no tick box for guests to find and no setting for you to switch on.
Submitting a form is the agreement
Every Passport form a guest fills in shows one sentence right next to the submit button:
By submitting this form, you agree that your church may text and email you about your visit and church life. Msg & data rates may apply. Msg frequency varies. Reply STOP to opt out.
Your church's name appears in place of your church. The guest reads it where they cannot miss it, at the moment they decide to send, and submitting the form is their agreement. There is no checkbox to tick.
The sentence appears on:
- Your Visit Page
- Community event registration
- The digital connection card, and Guest Intake in kiosk mode, where guests type their own details
- Custom forms that ask for a phone number or email
- The visitor form on QR check-in at a service
- Self-registration in the Member Portal
- Family registration at children's check-in
- Prospect cards
When the guest submits, Passport keeps a receipt: when they agreed, which form they used, and which version of the wording they saw. You cannot edit the sentence. A fixed wording with a dated receipt is what protects your church if anyone ever asks how a person came to be on your texting list.
When your team adds someone
A guest your team types in (People → Intake, a walk-up added on community event day, or adding a person in the Passport app) never saw the sentence, so their record does not count as agreement on its own.
When you enter a phone number, a They agreed to receive texts switch appears beside it. It starts off. Turn it on only when the person has told you, in person, that they are happy to get texts from the church. Passport records that a member of your team confirmed it.
If you are not sure, leave it off. The guest can still be followed up personally, and they will be able to agree themselves the next time they fill in one of your forms.
STOP and START
A guest who replies STOP to any text from your church number gets no more texts from that number, starting immediately. This includes texts your team sends by hand.
STOP stays in force until the guest replies START. Filling in another of your forms later does not undo it. Only the guest can turn texts back on, by replying START.
Guests who have not agreed
Nothing about a guest's follow-up stops because they have not agreed to texts. Only automated texts do.
| Without consent | |
|---|---|
| Automated texts from Guest Journeys and workflows | Skipped. The guest's timeline shows They haven't agreed to receive texts at the step that would have sent. |
| Automated emails | Still sent. Every email carries an unsubscribe link. |
| Care tasks and personal follow-up | Carry on as normal. |
| Replying to a guest who texts you first | Works as normal in the Inbox. |
| Sign-in codes, children's pickup pages, giving receipts | Not affected. These are sent because the person asked for them. |
Guests added before this change
- Guests who agreed to texts on the old connection card keep getting texts. Their earlier agreement carried over.
- Everyone else added before this change gets no automated texts until they submit one of your forms or your team records their agreement with the switch above.
Next steps
- Register guests at the door — Staff Guest Intake covers the intake form, including the consent switch.
- See what gets sent — Guest Journeys covers the automated texts and emails a guest receives.