Use Poll Templates in Online Church Meetings (+ Sample Poll Questions)

What takes your online service from an experience into a real community are the ways you use your platform to engage with your attendees.

Real time polling for meetings is a great way to keep your worship services and small groups interactive and lively. With Altar Live’s newest Poll Templates tool, online engagement with your congregation can be fun and seamless. 

For those searching for how to create services that are interactive and personal, we’ve found that a few new features in Altar Live have really come in handy. One of our favorites is the Poll Templates feature. 

But why should you use Poll Templates? And how should you make the most of this feature? Just like in-person church services can be lively and interactive, we believe that it should be easy for online churches to do the same. 

If you're currently looking for creative ways to engage your audience, look no further. Altar Live’s Templates features have set out to make this process seamless. But first, make you’ve set up Poll Templates in Altar Live. 

What are Poll Templates?

Polls are a great way to interact and engage your audience, gauge where they’re at, and receive quick feedback. With Altar Live’s newest Poll Templates tool, we’ve found a few key ways you’ll want to consider utilizing polls with your congregation to make your services, events, and small groups fun and seamless.

Why Use Templates For Polls?

Using temples allows you to save your favorite or most frequently used polls, making them readily available for each meeting. No more re-typing or copying and pasting the same questions over again. Take out the few extra steps to you need to engage with your community and take some of the pressure off of being a host or moderator.

How to Use Poll Templates

If you’re wondering how to use poll templates, you can find a quick how-to on using poll templates in Altar Live here. In short, if you have certain poll questions that your church uses every week, or you need a set of good poll questions ready to go for service next week, have great poll ideas you’re hoping to use at the next church event, then Poll Templates allows you to save those questions and their multiple choice answers as ready to use polls during your next altar live event or meeting! 

If you’re looking for good poll questions for church, poll questions to engage your congregation at your next online meeting, we have you covered. Use this as a launching point to build off of as you continue to consider how your church might best utilize polling for online meetings.

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Here are five great uses of how you might use poll questions to engage:

1. Connection Card Questions for Polls

From first timers to regular members, when it comes to connecting with your congregation, church leaders need ways to gauge how to meet each person where they are at. Whether it’s getting a sense of where each person is in their faith journey and how to pray or them, or getting a better picture of where people are in their relationship and involvement with the church, understanding this information is crucial. Often connection cards are a great way to do this! 

But these connection card questions are likely ones that your team is asking every week. Especially if you have two services, your team is probably tired of copying and pasting the same polls over and over again. However, now with Poll Templates, instead of asking attendees to follow a link to fill out a separate survey, with poll templates, simply have it ready to go! No more copying-and-pasting or typing it out all over again! Here are some examples of what that might look like:

Connections Card

Text:

Whether this is your first time or you’ve been here for years, we want to get to know you!

Options:

[Select all that apply]

• This is my first visit
• I’d like to become a member
• I need help understanding this platform
• I’d like to learn more about serving
• I’d like to receive prayer

Next Steps Card

Text:

What do you plant to do after today’s sermon?

Options:

• I want to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Savior.
• I’d like to be baptized
• I want to commit to prayer this week.
• I’d like to join a small group to discuss the sermon further
• I want to share what I’ve learned with a friend/family member

2. Icebreaker Question for Polls

Whether it's in virtual small groups, service, or during events, icebreakers are essential in helping to change the atmosphere of your meeting and make everyone feel at ease and a part of the group. Every church or community group has its go-to questions, but here are a few of our favorites: 

Ice Cream

Text:

If you could only have one flavor of ice cream for the rest of your life, would it be…

Options:

• Chocolate
• Vanilla
• Strawberry
• Cookie Dough
• Mint Chocolate Chip

Sports

Text:

Which baseball team were you rooting for?

Options:

• Astros
• Phillies

Cats or Dogs

Text:

Pick a side, cats or dogs?

Options:

• Cats
• Dogs
• I prefer fish

Icebreaker

Text:

If you were tasked with breaking through the ice on a large lake, what would you choose?

Options:

• Icepick
• Heat
• Pressure

Desert Island

Text:

If you were on a deserted island what would you bring?

Options:

• Bible
• Water
• Phone

Holiday

Text:

Your favorite holiday is…

Options:

• Christmas
• Easter
• Thanksgiving
• Fall Worship Night

3. Promote or Gauge Event Attendance with Polls

Whether it’s the upcoming retreat or last weekend’s webinar, you want to be able to get a pulse of the church and more clear understanding of how everyone is feeling. Are church members excited? Do they even know it’s happening? Can they make it? 

 Or if the event already happened, what did they think? Both for your past events as well as upcoming ones, polls are an effortless way to drop in a few pre-prepared questions to help your events team and hosts gauge the overall sentiment. Here’s what that looks like: 

Upcoming Church Event

Text:

Which date/ time will you be available to attend?

Options:

• 12/17 @ 7pm
• 12/24 @ 9am
• 12/24 @ 7pm

Spring Retreat

Text:

Have you RSVPed?

Options:

• Yes!
• Not yet…
• I will after today’s service!

All-Church Picnic

Text:

What are you looking forward to?

Options:

• Fellowship
• Lawn Games
• BBQ
• Pastor’s Famous Chilli

Winter Events

Text:

Which are you most looking forward to?

Options:

• Winter Retreat
• Annual Coat Drive
• Virtual 5k
• Christmas Party
• New Year’s Alpha Launch

4. Make Sermons Interactive through Polls

Just like in-person events, interactive services are key to really engaging your community. Asking for a show of hands, asking questions during the sermon, discussing and reflecting together all help to let the message really sink in. Perhaps you have a few more ideas on how to make your messages more interactive, but first here’s a few of our own to get your ideas flowing:

Prayer and Response

Text:

What has God put on your heart? How can we be praying for you?

Options:

• I want to learn to trust and obey in hardship.
• I want to surrender all areas of life to God.
• I want to remember God is present with me.

Interaction with the Preacher

Text:

Guess when Pastor Dave met his wife…

Options:

• Last year
• In college
• In elementary school
• In strollers

Sermon Reflection

Text:

Which from the sermon have you resonated with?

Options:

• Path
• Rocky soil
• Thorny soil
• Good soil

Sermon Response

Text:

From today's message, which point was most challenging for you?

Options:

• Sermon Point A
• Sermon Point B
• Sermon Point C

Dive Deeper

Text:

What would you like to learn more about?

Options:

• Topic/ Passage 1
• Topic/ Passage 2
• Topic/ Passage 3

5. Feedback through Polls

Receiving feedback is crucial in knowing how to review and assess what worked, what didn’t, and how best to move forward. And hearing from your attendees is an important part of that. Here’s a few quick example feedback questions that you might want to ask your congregation:

Event Planning Feedback

Text:

What would you like to see more of?

Options:

• Church fellowship events
• Children’s programs
• Youth programs
• Community outreach

Retreat Feedback

Text:

Best part of retreat was…

Options:

• Small groups time!
• Virtual Skits
• Messages
• Live stream worship!

Small Group Feedback

Text:

What is your favorite part of your small group?

Options:

• Bible Study
• Discussion
• Fellowship Time
• Praise & Worship

Online Events

Text:

What is your favorite part of online events?

Options:

• The message
• The worship
• Meeting new people from across the country
• The community atmosphere
• Seeing long-distance friends

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Feel free to draw from these examples as you brainstorm ideas and build up your inventory of polls! Polls Templates make it easy for your host team to pull up these interactive, fun, reflective, challenging, and essential questions out of their pocket whenever they need to. No hassle, just set them up, then hit send when the time comes!

Polls can make it fun and easy for your attendees to interact with your church events, with your message, and even to simply just express themselves. Polling for meetings can also be an important tool for allowing the congregation take part in church decision making. 

Not only is it great for your attendees to engage with, but it’s also a huge help on your end, receiving feedback, gauging attendance, breaking the ice, or knowing who to reach out to with prayer. With poll templates, a truly engaging service has never been easier.

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Another essential tool for hosts in making events, services, and small groups interactive is the Announcements Templates! If you’re looking for more ideas on ways to make the most of the Announcement Templates in Altar Live, we’ve got you covered too. 

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