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.

One purpose of your church website: to explain Sunday services, at least as well as a document does for an oven

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Answer church questions
People shouldn't leave your church with more questions than when they came in

Gerry McGovern, one of my favorite web gurus, had the following observations on how documentation for products is shifting. I think his thoughts present a challenge to the disconnect between what the picture of Christianity presented on Sunday morning and the reality of what it means to live out the Christian faith.

We need to evaluate our Sunday morning service, website content and everything else we produce to see if it is clear about the content of our gospel--in other words, does the product of our lives and worship back up the documentation of it in God's Word?

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Open Letter in response to a church secretary whose job was cut

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I received the email below from a church secretary whose church terminated her job because of the challenging financial times we are in. In the time spent praying over how to answer wisely, I realized that an answer to her questions and some comments on her situation might be useful to other church communicators, so I am answering in the form of an Open Letter.  Below is her email and then my response, her name and church are confidential.

In this tough economy many churches have had to make the tough decision to no longer have a secretary.  I am trying to communicate to the congregation that I love the Church and support the decision that was made.  On the other hand when I am in service I want to cry because for me this drastic a change is very scary.  So I may need a break not from God but from the Church so I can refocus and not be the cause of any problems (many do not agree with the decision).  Do you have any suggestions on how to communicate this in a positive way to the congregation.  (PS - I have not been able to have a Sunday to just worship since I started 3 years ago.  People always assume I am working if I am here, despite reminder that I will take care of that when I am working on Monday)

My response, an open letter

First of all, let me say that I honestly feel the pain that underlies your question. It is more than theory—my husband was on staff of a large church and we had a huge and successful Single Adult ministry that was our life—and his position was terminated because of budget cuts. While serving as a bi-vocational pastor since then, we have had some interesting experiences with churches promising to pay and “budgets just not working out.” Whatever the reason, when money, one’s income, and all those sorts of financial things get tied up in our church life, it not only becomes challenging financially, but messy and potentially very destructive to our own spiritual health and that of others in the church.

Ultimately, what you decide to do is between you and the Lord Jesus and I know you will be spending much time in prayer and in His Word to decide your actions, but since you asked, let me share some thoughts that I trust are guided by Biblical principles. I will try to summarize your concerns and then offer some thoughts and Biblical advice on them. [Read more...]

Ministry opportunities your website may be missing

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Every church knows they need a website and most churches have them today. Sadly, however, many churches buy a website creation program and do little more than fill in the blanks needed to make sure that something is on all the template pages.

Sadly that something is often no more than a paragraph, that once entered is often forgotten.

The church can say it has a website, but a website like this misses many ministry opportunities, including:

The staff misses the opportunity to become real people to their community.

Is the pastor a real person? What does he or she really think about God or problems or people? Are they in touch with the real world? If the pastor writes a blog or articles, people checking out the church can get a real sense of what that person is like. Not only the pastor, but Bible class teachers, the staff, ministry leaders, small group leaders, all would benefit from an online presence. People in your community are looking for real people with the answers to spiritual questions. The web provides a priceless opportunity to allow people to get to know you.

One caution: NEVER have your blog written by someone else—blogs or online articles do not have to be perfect literary masterpieces to touch people, but they do have to be honest. [Read more...]

Why it is incorrect to think that graphic images mean the same thing to everyone who sees them

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Images should be used only if they add to the message expressed primarily in words. They are not enough in and of themselves to communicate much of anything. They may look nice, they may create an emotion, designers may congratulate each other on their brilliance when they share their creations, but if you want to communicate a significant Christian message, images alone won’t do it.

Some of you may object: “But, a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Whenever I hear that statement, I always respond with the question, “What thousand?”

People often make the first statement as some sort of understood truth that images say more than words do. That is simply not true. Reality is that the same picture can mean as many different things to as many people who look at it. Not convinced? [Read more...]

Having fun and not sinning is not the point of the Christian life or of Christian communications

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Is having fun what defines a Christian? Is FUN what makes a church even worthwhile? Is fun why we do what we do (whatever it is) in the Christian life?

When you look at many current church communications, you'd assume the answer was "yes." A recent scanning of material on the web as I was researching alternative Halloween events overwhelmingly advertised events or promoted activities where the FUN promised is promoted as the primary reason people should attend. Though the focus of this blog is on the combination of Halloween communications and the emphasis of FUN (intentional shouting with the all capital letters), the same concerns and cautions apply to our communication of many church outreach events.

How fun becomes the primary motivation for Halloween alternative events

Much of the thinking process behind many of these "Christian" alternatives to Halloween on the web seems to go something like this:

  1. Halloween is evil.
  2. To take part in a traditional secular celebration of Halloween is evil and sinful.
  3. Christians shouldn't do evil and sin.
  4. Instead Christians should have good, clean fun.
  5. Therefore our church will do a fun event for Halloween.
  6. People will see we are Christians by our fun.

I don't have a problem with the list up to #3—much of traditional Halloween celebrations are evil. Maybe not as evil as some timid folks fear, but probably not activities that would fall into the class of edifying Christian activities. Dressing up as demons and witches and glorifying magic is not what Christians ought to be doing. Sending your kids out alone to beg for candy in most areas today isn't safe.  But the alternative to fighting evil or working to fulfill the Great Commission is not to simply have safe fun. [Read more...]