Effective Church Communications

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and a Biblical Perspective to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. Our tools constantly change; our task doesn’t; we can help.

Don’t be mean on Mother’s Day

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Sad faceA woman walks into the church. It is Mother’s Day and the church is handing out flowers. But before a woman gets a flower, she is asked, “Are you a Mother?” if the answer is “No” the woman is informed that the flowers are for Mothers ONLY. She turns around and walks away.

What the church forgot

Many women who attend your church on Mother’s Day are not moms. The reasons for that pain are many: they may have lost a child; they may be unmarried and with little prospects of a future marriage. They may be infertile and may not have had enough money for adoption or fertility treatments. They may have prayed for children for years, but for some reason the answer received was “no.” The reasons are many, but the pain felt daily by many of these women is deepened significantly on Mother’s Day. Often this pain is intensified by unintentionally unthinking and unkind actions of churches on Mother’s Day.

Not meaning to be mean doesn’t make it less unkind

Of course you don’t mean to be mean, but consider: in some churches only Moms are clapped for, receive a free brunch, are acknowledged as significant or given other public affirmations. It is obvious and on display if a woman is not a mother. If a woman has spent many private hours crying over her inability to have children, imagine her feelings at that time.

These reminders are not meant as a suggestion not to honor mothers, but honor can be done sensitively and with the feelings of the childless women in mind. One way to do this might be to focus briefly on the joy of physical children but then to shift into a challenge for spiritual parenting that all can be part of. You cannot take away the pain of childlessness, but that pain can be transformed into a vision for ministry. [Read more...]

6 ways to make the most of Mother’s Day as a Great Outreach Opportunity

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Mothers Day Invitatio#1: Understand the real reason why Mother’s Day has the 3rd highest church attendance of the year

The reason that churches are so full on Mother’s Day is not because it is the only time of year mothers come to church. Most of the Moms are always there. It’s the husbands and kids who rarely come who show up with Mom that one day to make her happy. The reason so many people come to church on Mother’s Day is the unchurched people in the lives of many mothers rarely, if ever, come to church, but they will come on this day to make mom happy. This is a great evangelistic opportunity for your church!

#2: Focus your planning on reaching the unchurched spouses and kids

Flowers are nice, but far better than a rose for Mom would be a Sunday designed to speak to those she loves, but who do not know Jesus. Prepare your people by encouraging them to pray specifically for the unsaved, unchurched, and straying family members who will come to church with mom on this Sunday. Pray for sensitivity to their needs. Create attractive invitations for your members to give family members.

#3 On Mother’s Day acknowledge the visitors who come on Mother’s Day to please their Mother and affirm it is a kind thing to do, and do honestly and without guilt

It isn’t funny or spiritually helpful for someone from the pulpit or a church member to say something like “Great to see some of you here who haven’t darkened the door of the church since last Mother’s Day.”  Or, “You don’t need to be such a stranger around here.”

A bit of coaching the week before Mother’s Day to your staff, ushers, and congregation to be genuinely welcoming—and to leave it at that—is helpful.

#4 At the same time, use your sermon to say to the visiting family members what Mom can’t say

Be honest with your audience on Mothers Day that one of the greatest pains in a mother’s heart is that her child does not know Jesus. To be apart in life is hard, even as a child grows up, but to contemplate an eternity without those you love, is a pain impossible to express.

Acknowledge this is not easy to say (which is why you are saying it for Mom) and it is not at all comfortable to talk about on this happy day, but to not say things that can make an eternal difference is not expressing love. Love is honest about the consequences of a life lived apart from God.

#5 Have available information about the Christian faith they can look at later

Whatever system works best for you, either a bulletin insert, URL, QR code, have a place where visitors can check out websites that explain the Christian faith. An invitation to latte with the pastor next week at the local coffee shop for open-ended Q&A about the Christian faith is another option.

Let them know they are welcome to come back anytime—but again, do it with a light touch.

#6 Do more than preach— additional events can provide great impact and encourage visitors to return

Consider a very upbeat, outreach oriented mini-Ministry Fair for that day so visitors can experience and explore what your church does on a regular basis. For example, many single adults (the unchurched adult children who come to church only on Mother’s Day) often don’t have any idea that many churches have fantastic single adult ministry programs. A table with literature, food, and fun people, welcoming visiting guests and inviting them to return might be just the thing to get them to attend on a regular basis.

For the unchurched husbands to see the men of your church around a literature table that talks about upcoming construction projects, help-the-poor work days, golf outings or sports events and that is staffed by men who reach out, welcome, and engage visiting spouses in conversation is an incredible gift to give to the mom who comes every Sunday on her own. Some men who don’t regularly attend church have never talked to a man who goes to church and does construction work or have any idea that men at church do more than pray or read their Bibles.

Whatever you do, honor Mothers in the best way possible—by helping those they love come to know Jesus.

Need more inspiration?

Check out this video:

 

If you want more information on and to download the communications illustrated in the video, go to: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com on the home page are links to a variety of Mother's Day Communications.

Sugar water or sand, how to really change the world

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person thinking about life"Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.” (Matt. 7:24-27)

The story is told of how Steve Jobs, the president of the new and struggling Apple computer company, enticed John Scully, then president of Pepsi, to come to work for him.

“Do you want to spend the rest of your life peddling sugar-water?” Jobs asked Scully. “Or would you like to come and help change the world?”

Scully came to Apple and though they built a computer empire, it ultimately betrayed both of them and they were ousted from the corporation, though Jobs eventually returned. They gave their lives to a cause that may not have been built on sugar-water, was literally built on sand. [Read more...]

The media isn’t our message— our message is Jesus

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Jesus contemporary imageMartha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” "Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:40-42)

When Marshall McLuhan early pioneer of electronic media, pronounced in the early sixties, that “the media is the message,” he was predicting that the means of communication would be more important than the message it carried. For his time, the primary media was television; more and more in our world it is computers, and in the resulting forms of digital communication: desktop publishing, the internet, small screen, and social media communications.

Though it is easy to get caught up in the complexity and power of digital communications, as Christians we must constantly remind ourselves that these incredible innovations, and any that are to come, are only tools. The power doesn’t come from the tool or media—the power comes from the message. [Read more...]

Manage your church communication team well

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women_calculator_deskEd. intro: This article is for church leaders and those who oversee church communicators. You are responsible for the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the people who create your communications. Their job is vital to the growth and success of the church, but often they do their job under very difficult circumstances. Please consider the following suggestions to help you effectively pastor and shepherd these vital members of your church team. They do so much for the church, following is what you can do for them:

Realize the important place communications and church communicators play in the overall strategic success of your church

"What people haven't heard about they can't take action about. Uncommunicated issues DON'T EXIST." Stuart Brand

"Why is communication so vitally important to the health and vitality of the local church? Communication is the means by which we reach our ministry goals. You cannot find a healthy, growing church that is plagued by ineffective communications. Such an animal simply does not exist. If your church is going to maximize its potential, it is imperative that you understand the communication process and constantly strive to upgrade how well you and others in your church communicate."
George Barna, Marketing the Church

No matter how Bible-based, prayed over and passionate you are about your vision for the church, if it is not sequentially, clearly, consistently, and repeatedly communicated to your church, it will not happen. Today, the role of your church communicator in making your vision real has grown in importance because of two primary reasons:

  1. In our post-Christian world people don't have the unthinking understanding of churches that they did in the past. Church is not a part of people's lives today in the same way it was in the past and because of that, your church needs to be much more intentional about its communicators than ever before. This often requires that either a person be hired with the specific role of Church Communicator or Director of Church Communications, or in a church where the administrative assistant or church secretary has to juggle many responsibilities, where the title of Church Communicator is at least a professional part of that person's job description.
  2. The demands of technology and multi-channel communications make it necessary. In the past when the church had one communication tool: the church bulletin and one way to produce it: the typewriter, communication was still extremely important, but it was much easier to manage that task for the church secretary in the midst of the many other demanding tasks in the church office. Today when many kinds of communications produced through many channels: print, PowerPoint, web, social media are needed by churches, the role of the church communicator is more important than ever.

Because the role of church communicator is vital to the success of your church today, you need to support, involve, train, and encourage that person so they can serve the church most effectively. Following are some suggestions on how to do that. [Read more...]