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.

How do you communicate a budget shortfall to your church?

By 10 Comments

We live in challenging times and though our churches are about good news in Jesus, sometimes we have to communicate bad news and currently many churches have to communicate that the budget is not being met.

I recently got the email below from a church communicator asking how to do that. Below her question I’ll give some answers and I’d like to invite you to add your comments in the comment section. If you’ve never commented on an article before, please give it  a try we all value your input!

Yvon,

Our church budget is experiencing a large shortfall. Is there anything on your website about how to/how not to communicate such information?

I dislike posting the information in the Sunday bulletin as I feel it is a real turnoff to visitors. Any advice or leads would be appreciated!

Name protected

Suggestions on how to communicate budget shortfalls in the church

There are a number of communication issues in this question.

First, let’s discuss guideline suggestions for communicating about financial matters on an ongoing basis and then how to deal with a situation where members have not been informed.

Every church needs a way to keep members updated on the church finances.

Just like every family needs to be continuously aware of where they stand in relationship to the family budget, the church family needs to understand finances.

In most churches this means some sort of announcement in the bulletin. Though it is totally understandable that you do not want to present finances in a way that is a turn-off to visitors, a discrete notice, a sort of box score can be put in each week in a very subtle way, without comment. Many churches have something like this:

Last week’s offering:              $XXX.XX
Weekly budget goal:               $XXX.XX
Year-to-date total offerings:   $XXX.XX
Year-to-date budget:              $XXX.XX

With something like this, the congregation is informed and the Lord can speak to them about their response. When the congregation has no idea week-to-week if the church is slipping behind and suddenly they get a letter that the financial situation is desperate, that will cause far more problems.

What visitors dislike is a big emphasis on money, but everyone knows churches need money to operate. I’ll never forget an example (this is true) of one church bulletin I saw. Across the front it  said in HUGE LETTERS:

THE DEBT is 3.5 MILLION!

HAVE YOU MADE A PLEDGE YET?

Now that would most likely be a turn-off to visitors.  A little weekly box. . . . .I wouldn’t worry about that.

In fact, that is what our church has done for years. Members like it and we have never received any complaints about it. We are challenged right now, but as we go up and down, because the congregation knows each week what is happening, when the pastors do mention finances or present a gentle challenge, it is not a huge issue or surprise.

Suggestions for your current situation

  • If your people are not up to date, no matter what form you take to inform them, here are some questions you need to consider in the content of your communication:
  • Is there a reason for the shortfall that your congregation needs to be reminded of? Did a factory close or similar challenge in your area? Has your membership dropped significantly?
  • How big is the shortfall? Is the church in danger of having to lay-off staff or make other very drastic cuts? Do you have a proposed plan to deal with the consequences if the money does not come in? You need to decide what you will do and present clear options and consequences.
  • How long has it been since the church was updated on the financial status? If it has been a long time and the shortfall is serious, you must include reasons why the congregation is just now finding out about it.
  • Present specific steps people can take to bring the situation to what it needs to be. Remind people of the current weekly needs. Tell them how much additional money needs to come in to meet the shortfall. Challenge people to give a certain amount for a period of time to meet the shortfall.
  • Tell them exactly how the staff is handling the situation and what they will be doing.
  • All of these facts would be good to clearly put down on paper (and later on the website) prior to informing your people.

How to inform your people

If you are in the habit of quarterly or other regularly scheduled letters to the congregation, one with the above information would be good to send. You would not want to go into all that detail in the bulletin and it would not be appropriate for visitors. This is a family matter and should stay in the family.

There are times however when a shortfall is too significant to be handled in a letter. In these difficult situations, few things are more painful, but more productive than face-to-face communication. If the shortfall is significant, people will have questions. To keep peace, you must communicate in a way that they can get answers to their questions. A church meeting can do that and will prevent numerous phone calls answering the same questions.

Many churches do this with a congregational meeting after church. You can take a 10 minute break, visitors leave and then the members of the church return for an update. At that time, you would present your situation, answering all the concerns above, PLUS providing your suggestions for a solution on paper. You need to do this even though you’ll verbally communicate it because some dear folks may not hear, they will be tired, hungry and ready for lunch. Some will be upset. But to not meet with folks can cause many problems with gossip and misinformation.

Suggestions on what to do at an after-church meeting

  1. Begin with prayer.
  2. Hand-out the printed information.
  3. Apologize—for not keeping more current in your updates if you need to do that and so defuse that issue.
  4. Present the situation and solutions.
  5. Ask for questions in a calm and Christ-honoring, peaceful way.
  6. Tell the congregation what you will do next, what you want them to do, and how you will update them.
  7. Provide email, phone, contact person for further questions.
  8. Ask for prayer; end in prayer.

Our church has done a similar thing at times where challenging information needed to be shared and it has always been much more peaceful and productive than first feared. We press ahead by God’s grace.

Those are my suggestions.

PLEASE add your comments, suggestions, or experiences below and thank you for participating!

 

 

 

 

Webinar: Why your church needs to create Multi-channel Communications, or why you can’t just put your church bulletin on the web and be done with it

By 2 Comments

What is the best communication channel for your church to reach people  today? Do you put everything, including your church bulletin, on your website and quit? Or is social media the answer to all your needs? Is print outdated or is it essential? Given that churches have limited time, money, and resources, how can we know we are using all of them in the best ways possible?

This webinar may surprise you with some of the proposed answers, especially with what it has to say about the continuing importance of a printed church bulletin. The webinar would be an excellent one to show during a staff meeting and to discuss following the viewing.

Below the video is a PDF of handouts for the webinar and these are for Effective Church Communication Members only. For ECC Members there is also a link to the ebook: Are Written Bulletins Still Needed in the Church?

Here are the handouts that go with the video.   Print them up ahead of time, so people can take notes.Church Handouts Mulit channel

Just click on the image and the PDF will open on your screen for you to print.

 

 

 

 

 

The ebook, Are written bulletins still needed in the church?, is also free for Effective Church Communication Members. CLICK HERE to go to it.

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

By Leave a Comment

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?

[Read more...]

GREAT Church Bulletin Sample: order of service, newsletter, evangelism tract, refridgerator reminder and more–all on ONE sheet of paper

By 2 Comments

This church bulletin sample is truly an example of genius in layout and design. I'm not using that description because of its use of fancy graphics, but because it packed in essential communication components, including an order of service, place for sermon notes, announcements, a gospel presentation, and a weekly schedule that is ready-to-post on the refrigerator, all the parts that a church needs for its various audiences all into ONE piece of 11 x 17 paper.

It is a few years old and you will want to modify for your church, but the idea, the layout and the essential communications it packs into one piece of paper are timeless.

This was sent in as part of our Great Idea Swap, where church communicators share with church communicators.

Below  are two images of the bulletin for everyone to view.


How it works and how it was created

[Read more...]

Is video the best way to market your church?

By 2 Comments

The title of this article is a trick question. There is no BEST way to market anything to everyone. However, video is obviously an extremely powerful medium as the current advertising campaign by the Mormon Church illustrates. Some comments about that project, some suggestions for creating your own videos, plus some suggestions on how you can combine video with other communication resources follow for an effective multi-channel outreach.

{+}

An extraordinary example of video sharing

Most likely you’ve seen some of the “I am a Mormon” videos on television or on the web. If you haven’t, I encourage you to look at them at www.mormon.org. I must admit to a bit of trepidation in referring you to the site because it is very powerful in advancing the Mormon religion.

My trepidation comes from the fact that I am not a Mormon and that I do not believe it is a Christian faith that correctly represents my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (for excellent apologetic resources about the Mormon Church, go to www.equip.org).

That being said, you cannot help but greatly admire the overall campaign and the extraordinary production quality of the videos and the site. They have taken a large cross-section of people and through video and text have them tell their story. The stories are from women, single fathers, people of various races. The cynic in me notes the somewhat excessive attempt to break from the stereotype of Mormons as primarily white males, but cynical or not, the message comes across that all sorts of people, people like you and me, are Mormon.

The videos are short and though they focus on people telling their story, each story is a very carefully edited view of life that emphasizes Mormon values without much detailed information about theology. In short, they have perfectly captured the spirit of the age where relationships are primary and asking deep questions is pushed aside for warm feelings and the appeal of being part of a caring, loving group such as this.

This is not the time or place to critique in depth their theology, but as an example of extraordinarily well-done videos to advertise a church, they are brilliant.

A great resource for how to create your own videos

Few churches have the resources to create videos of this quality—though some do and of course this magazine has a sister publication that is filled with great information all about video ministry. Be sure to sign up for it if you don’t get it at: http://www.christianvideomag.com.

A resource that I personally cannot recommend enough is www.webvideouniverity.com. There are lots of video training programs out there that, in my opinion, were too over the top to be really useful to the average person (not video ministry unit in a large church), who simply wanted to do some videos for teaching and ministry.

The person who runs the site, Dave Kaminski is an excellent, teacher who knows his topic extremely well and can explain it effortlessly. I personally highly recommend that you sign up for his video tip of the week and you can do that on his site, www.webvideouniversity.com. He offers an excellent, professional training course, plus training on specific topic including How to do Screencasts and How to use your flip-style camera to create videos. Please remember my ministry does not participate in affiliate programs or take advertising—I recommend what I genuinely like. To read a more detailed article on how his training helped me, go to this link:

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2011/01/powerpoint-to-screencasting-how-to-improve-your-church-communication-on-the-big-screen/

How to combine video with other communication resources

Once you have created videos, you need to let people know they are available. You can do this in a variety of ways.

Social networking is an obvious one. You can upload videos to the numerous video sharing sites available, but if, like the Mormon videos, you may want to drive people back to your primary site, don’t upload all of them to YouTube or Vimeo or whatever else you use. Upload only a few teaser ones with links to your primary site.

Putting up links to short teaser videos, announcements of them, and links to a complete video site are obvious content choices for your church’s Facebook, Twitter and similar sites. We have recently assigned a person in our adult education class at church to be our “internet evangelist.” Her job is to continuously update our Facebook and Twitter accounts, plus interact and link with the main church site and the various members Facebook pages.

Don’t forget the power of paper

If you’ve done some things online that you and your people love, follow the lead of many national advertising companies and use print to inform people that the online material exists and to link them to it. Check out your snail mail this week and note how many advertisements, especially in the form of postcards, are created to get you to a website.

You can either do a postcard mailing from your church or you can create postcards in church office, and make up enough of them for every person in the congregation to have 3 of them. Put them in the church bulletin and then on Sunday morning, have the Pastor ask everyone to give or mail them out to friends or neighbors who might like to look at your videos.

We’ve found business cards with a condensed message are a great way to get people to our church and ministry websites. Make up a large number of them for the members of your congregation, give them out and encourage people to pass them on to friends. In the midst of life, we have lots of conversations and if your people are excited about some videos you have produced online, maybe even if they are part of it, they will want to tell their friends about it. Always having a business card with you that has the URL is a great way to share and connect with friends.

The pastoral uses of paper

Creating print items for your people to give out accomplishes lots more than simply adding another communication channel. You are also involving your people in outreach in an active, hands-on way.

Outreach is the task of everyone in the church—not just of those whose job it is to create professional communications while the people in the pew sit quietly and wait for new people to come. When you have invitation cards or postcards and everyone is involved in handing them out, they will most likely talk to the person to whom they are giving the card and nothing beats a personal recommendation for great marketing, whether it is for coffee or churches.

When the church is growing because people are involved in inviting, it also helps them be more welcoming when newcomers arrive—they are expected and prayed for.

Yes, it is more work to create the print communications and involve your people in using them, but remember when Jesus gave the Great Commission, he didn't pull aside a select group of marketers or pastors to go and share the gospel message. He gave the challenge to everyone listening. Sharing, marketing your church is everyone's job.

Bottom line

Video may not be the most powerful way to advertise your church, but if you create them yourself with honest, true content and use combine your use of video with other channels of communication; you will have a tool in the never-ending challenge of ministry to powerfully communicate your message.