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.

What Church Secretaries wish their pastors knew about church communications

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I created this video not only because I talk to, email and communicate with many church secretaries, administrative assistants, and church office professionals, but also I have done the secretarial and communications work in various amounts,  for many years for my husband who is a bi-vocational pastor. This is a job with tremendous responsibilities and needs if you are going to do it well. However, often the church office is often the last place to get the resources they need.

Please, if you are in a leadership position, take a few minutes and watch this with your church secretary. and pray about all you can do to build up and encourage each other.

One more idea for leaders—take a few minutes to share with your partners in ministry (secretaries and staff) what you wish they knew.

Then take time to pray together  about all you can do to build up and encourage each other.

This video is free, but the handouts are only available to ECC Members. Not only handouts, but many, many templates, ebooks and other resources are available to ECC MEMBERS. To find out more and to join, CLICK HERE.

The video and PDF handouts follow.

Handouts that go with the video above:

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The PDF handouts, these go with the video above, just click on the image to download them.

Church Secretary PDF HANDOUTS for Video

Be a better listener, part one: Mastering the Most Overlooked Communication Skill

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Gayle Hilligoss Picture
Article by Gayle Hilligoss

Ed. note: this week celebrates Administrative Assistants and this series of articles gives some of the best advice possible for good working relationships. Without listening, it's hard for anything constructive to take place in the church office—give yourself a gift—read all three parts as they are posted, and learn to listen well.

“I know you believe you understand what you think I said, but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I said.”

This classic statement proves the point: communication is not easy.

Listening and hearing are not the same.

Americans spend at least 80 percent of their waking hours communicating—speaking, listening, texting, emailing, reading, and writing. The form your communication takes varies, of course, depending on your lifestyle, but a common rule of thumb says that on average 9 percent of our communicating is done by writing, 16 percent by reading, 30 percent by speaking, and 45 percent by listening. Factoring in email, tweets, and instant messaging, we might adjust the percentages a bit, but taking in information (listening in one form or another) still takes the lion’s share of communication time.

Verbal skills enabling you to express yourself and get your point across are vital to your ability to do your work well. But equally important for the Christian professional— perhaps even more important—are listening skills. Every day you have an opportunity to work better, serve better, minister better by listening better.

The idea of listening as an acquired skill may be unfamiliar. Many think of listening and hearing as the same. Not so. You can hear and never really listen. Hearing is entirely passive; listening is an active process.

Often the more you hear, the less you listen. You are inundated with noise and messages every day. You are aware of the sound. Though you may not even try to comprehend what is being said, though you learn to filter out much of the noise around you, you hear it. In fact, you may become so used to filtering out sounds that even when you try to listen, you cannot. Listening, unlike hearing, is a skill that requires understanding and grasping the idea. Listening gives meaning to the sounds you hear. Because few of us have been trained how to listen, most of us are rather poor at it.

But you can master the art of listening, our most neglected communication skill.

Three levels of listening

You learn to become a good listener the same way you learn to become a good speaker: discover the system and practice. Just as some speakers are better than others, some listeners are better than others. Similarly, as a speaker your performance will vary. Your performance as a listener can vary too.

Each of us listens on at least three different levels, each requiring a higher degree of concentration and sensitivity. You may use all three levels during the course of the day.

At the first level, marginal listening, little real understanding occurs because you are preoccupied with your own thoughts. You tune in and out, following the discussion just enough to get the gist of it. A speaker generally knows when the marginal listener is not paying attention.

At the second level, evaluative listening, understanding is superficial. You stay emotionally detached, and do not actively participate in the communication. You ask no questions and give no feedback. You may even fake attention while really concentrating on what you want to say when the speaker is finished.

The third and most effective level is active listening. The active listener is sensitive to the meaning behind the speaker’s words. You are totally attentive, watching for overtones and body language. You show both verbally and non-verbally that you are there for the speaker. This active listening behavior is known as “attending.” Attending is one of the biggest compliments you can give as a listener.

Little instruction in listening
When it comes to teaching communication skills, schools traditionally concentrate on reading and writing. Some instruction is directed toward verbal skills, but virtually no instruction is given in listening, the skill we actually use most in life. As a result, the average adult listens at no better than 25 percent efficiency.

One obvious difference between written and verbal messages is that if you do not understand or remember a written message, you can go back to it later. It is permanent. But, usually, what you hear is fleeting; either you get the message right, remember or note it, or it is gone. Retention is essential.

We don’t do so well, despite the fact listening as a way of taking in information is used far more often than reading. Immediately after listening to a ten-minute presentation, the average person understands and remembers only about half of what was said. After 48 hours less than 25 percent is remembered. Perhaps this is to be expected in a society that places tremendous value on speaking and seldom recognizes the value of listening. People who speak out are generally seen as assertive, capable, and in control—even if what they say is of little value. The quiet listeners, on the other hand, may be perceived as lacking in confidence. Yet, it is often the listeners who have the best grasp of situations and a greater insight into possible solutions.

Becoming an active listener involves sharpening your ability to understand, evaluate, and respond to what you hear. The single most important element in your ability to do these things is not intellect but attitude. You must realize the importance of listening, want to improve your skills, and believe that you can.

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Series of the Three Articles on Be a Better Listener by Gayle Hilligoss

Click on any of the links to go to the article:
Be a better listener, part one: Mastering the Most Overlooked Communication Skill by Gayle Hilligoss

Be a better listener, part two: AIM, the three significant aspects of listening by Gayle Hilligoss

Be a better listener, part three: Ten techniques you can start to use now by Gayle Hilligoss

 

Recruiting Volunteers—Why and How

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Gayle Hilligoss Picture
Article by Gayle Hilligoss

Ed.note: Volunteers are often essential if you want to get done the amount of communications needed for all the ministries in a church. The primary ministry assistant usually has more than enough projects in addition to the primary communication work (bulletin, newsletter, website) of the church to keep her very busy. If the various ministries of the church including children's, men's, women's, mission's, singles', etc., are going to get all the needed communications done, the primary ministry assistant will need help. Gayle Hilligoss as usual has some wise and very practical advice on recruiting and working with volunteers.

 

Want to start a lively dialogue among ministry assistants? Bring up the subject of volunteers. After a candid discussion, those present at a seminar eventually did agree that selecting and training volunteers can:

• multiply your time and productivity
• require an investment of time and energy
• be a blessing—or not!

Applied to the church, the Pareto Principle or 80/20 Rule suggests 80 percent of work is done by 20 percent of the members. A lot of office professionals would like to locate a few people beyond that significant 20 percent and put them to work. In many churches budgets are tight, programs are expanding, and both paid and volunteer workers are overextended. People are busy. Why should they want to handle the office tasks you’d like to give away?

Research suggests people volunteer because they want to:

• share their time and resources
• provide something someone needs
• experience a sense of accomplishment
• feel more a part of the community
• gain experience at a skill
• contribute a skill or knowledge
• heal from a personal loss
• contribute to positive actions
• have influence on how things are done

Understanding motivation helps you build effective volunteer ministries which provide people opportunities to give, to share, and to grow. Everybody wins. Including you.

Those who have successfully recruited and worked with volunteers say a satisfactory experience depends on following proven basics.

Recruit selectively

We call them volunteers, but recruits is more accurate. Not to stumble over terminology, recruit your volunteers. Instead of putting out a blanket SOS, ask specific people to do specific jobs. Being a successful recruiter takes time and effort, but the results are worthwhile. Not only will you gain the help you need, the enlistees benefit from the experience as well.

Start by making a list of jobs you want to delegate. Be specific about what each job entails.

Make a list of possible helpers whose talents and personality make a good match to the tasks. Think beyond the people who already do everything. Consider those whose talents are not presently being utilized at the church. In every church there are individuals, some who are already busy individuals, who are willing and even eager to pitch in.

Write, call, or visit each prospective helper. Make your request and explain the task.

The key to recruiting these people is to let them know you have worthwhile tasks to do and their expertise is needed. People resent being asked to do simple busy work; likewise, no one enjoys being expected to perform far beyond his or her abilities.

Define expectations

Most recruiters do a good job of explaining what needs to be done. Fewer take the equally important step of identifying standards of performance. People perform better when goals are clear and specific; take time to define the quality of work you require.

For all but the most simple jobs, provide written instructions. Include in this job description the scope of the volunteer’s authority and to whom she is answerable. People need to know up front the criteria for excellence.

Ask for a short term commitment

Proceed cautiously. Start with a request for a single project. Or gain a commitment for a week or two. If the arrangement works well, you can ask for a repeat. If not, neither of you will be put in an awkward position to end it. Many longtime assistants suggest no volunteer, regardless of reputation or experience, should be recruited for more than a year at a time.

Provide guidance

Once your recruit has accepted, provide training depending on the complexity of the job. Don’t micro-manage, but do provide adequate instruction on how the job is to be done satisfactorily.

Be prepared to spend some time getting your recruit up to speed. She’s seen the written description, now show her how the job should be done. This is no time to be nonchalant. If you take training time lightly, you send the message this is not so important after all. Once any questions are answered, let the worker take over. Assure her you are available if needed.

Monitor progress

Check back in 15 minutes or so to see how things are going. Answer any questions. If there are problems, make course corrections right away.

Don’t overdo, but do check periodically as the project progresses. Observe what has been done since you last touched base. Ask the recruit to show progress made; discuss any changes to be made.

At the end of the task, spend a few minutes with your worker talking about the experience. Ask what she learned about the job, both positive and negative. Find out if there were any surprises and how she handled them.

An effective recruiter can learn a great deal about workers from this kind of feedback: how suited they are for the job, how they respond to suggestions, their ability to give and take directions, their work ethic, and more. Just as important, this is your opportunity to congratulate workers for good decisions, offer optional solutions, and ask for ideas on how the process might be improved. Good ideas often come from people looking at tasks with a fresh view.

Be pleasant, brief, and kind. You want your volunteers to succeed at their tasks.

Express appreciation

Appreciation and recognition are vital to a successful volunteer program. Churches use scores of devices to encourage esprit de corps: lunches, banquets, day trips, newsletter honor rolls, even a website devoted to volunteers and their activities.

Be as plain or as fancy as you like, have fun with it, and just be sure you use the magic words, thank you. Show volunteers they are valuable members of your church office team. Let them know the work they do is important to the success of the ministry. Set the example by your caring attitude, your positive spirit, your effectiveness.

Some churches provide attractive shirts for their volunteers; others use badges or baseball hats imprinted with a distinctive logo to identify their volunteer corps. Many honor their workers with certificates. These little extras not only show appreciation, they encourage team spirit.

An effective way to enlist more volunteers is to make heroes of the ones already serving.

Be realistic

Even though you do your best to choose the right person, equip each volunteer to do his or her best, and sincerely show your appreciation—still, this person is not a paid staff member and will likely operate with a different agenda. Be aware that some volunteers take commitment more seriously than others; don’t be dismayed if a volunteer turns out to be less than reliable.

Nevertheless, expect a good experience. Most of the time that is exactly what volunteers deliver!

 

Communications for a good continuing relationship with your volunteers

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Every church is desperate for volunteers. It's not only important to effectively recruit them, but after they are recruited, it is equally important to work hard to keep them. Unfortunately, the difference between how we treat volunteers when we are recruiting them and after they vol­unteer is sometimes similar to the difference with some couples between courtship and marriage. Before the wedding the groom is all flowers and candy; after the wedding he becomes Mr. Grumpy.

Don’t become Mr. or Mrs.Grumpy to your volunteers. Be as kind, caring and thankful to them when they have been around for 6 months as you are the first week. You can express that thankfulness to them through a variety of church communication  projects such as:

Reminders of meetings or volunteer responsibilities

You may be reluctant to do this thinking that you are unnecessarily bothering people, but we need to re­member that unlike many of us, the lives of most of our volunteers do not revolve around the church. People may volunteer with the best of intentions, but if they did not write down all the details after perhaps signing up in the church lobby to do something, it is so easy to forget all about it.

Sending out postcards or emails  a few days ahead of any volunteer meeting or can be a great way to serve your volunteers. Say something like:

“Thanks so much for vol­unteering to serve on the missions com­mittee! We will be meeting 7-9 PM Thurs­day night, December 8 at the Jones house on 5555 Any Street. We’ll be looking for­ward to seeing you.”

You don’t even have to change the card  or email month to month, just change the date and send them out again. Your vol­unteers will love you. One church secre­tary in my seminars said at the end of each month she took several hours to go over the calendar for the coming month. She made up postcards, mostly just changing the date from the previous month reminding everyone of all the vari­ous meetings going on at the church. It didn’t take long to produce them doing them all at once. After they were pro­duced (mostly just on the ink jet printer with the light weight card stock), she filed them in an index card box according to the day they needed to be sent out. For example on the 5th she might send out no­tices for the coming week for the elders meeting, the mission committee and the choir prayer team. Volunteers loved this and people were much more consistent in showing up for meetings.

You can do the same thing if you send out email reminders. Programs like Constant Contact (and all other bulk email programs today) have a feature that allows you to create emails and schedule ahead for when you want to send them out.

Find out how people want to be reminded

If we could send out only postcards or only emails, it would certainly make life easier for church communicators. But unfortunately, we are in a time of multi-channel communication with lots of ways to communicate and lots of people preferring different methods.

When people sign up for a volunteer position is a good time to find out how they prefer to be contacted: email or print. It is our job to serve them in ways that make it possible for them to serve our church.

Do more than remind people of work to do; thank them

Thank you post cards are great to mix in the mailing of reminders. People love to get a personal note from the pas­tor. One way you can help the pastor is to put a big piece of clip art and preprint something like: “We are SO THANKFUL you are part of the Missions Committee!”  on the card. Just leave a little bit of white space, just enough so the pastor has room to write something short, like “Jim, we couldn’t do it without you! Blessings, Pastor John.”

Emails can also be a great encouragement and some of the online greetings cards are a wonderful way to say thank you. I especially like the ones from www.dayspring.com, though there are quite a few companies out there.

None of these projects take lots of time, work or money, but expressing your thanks in tangible ways through church communications is a wonderful way to improve your working relationship with your volunteers.

What church leaders need to do for their church communication creators

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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:

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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.

 

Include your church communicator in strategic staff meetings

No matter what the communicators role is in the meetings—whether they can contribute to the discussion or not, whether their input is valued or not, whether they have a part in the decision making process or not, if you want your decisions clearly communicated to the congregation and your community, your church communicator needs to be in the meetings to do their job well.  All of the restrictions or inclusions mentioned above will vary depending on your church beliefs and practices, but if you want your decisions carried out, they need to be there in a listening role at a minimum. However, growing, successful churches greatly value and include their church communicators and churches can benefit greatly from the input of a skilled communicator. Your church communicator can:

  • Advise you on how well your congregation and community might respond to your message.
  • Suggest some ways other churches market or publicize ministry events.
  • Remind you of what was done in the past and the success or failure of communication methods.
  • Give you an evaluation on whether or not your church has the technology and resources needed to carry out your communication goals.
  • Help staff be realistic on the time needed to promote or communicate about events.
  • Help your message be consistent with other ministry messages in the church.
  • Suggest some communication channels that are new to the staff.
  • Provide feedback of program names, slogans, and approaches if you allow them to be honest.
  • Be a prayer partner to contribute to the success of the vision and ministries of the church.

There are so many things beyond this brief list that a well-trained and committed church communicator can do for your church. The rest of this article provides ways for you to help them be and do all they can for your church.

Give them authority

Communications people need authority to have the final say on editing decisions. They know how much space is available for articles and announcements and without authority they are constantly frustrated when someone demands every word is used and no changes made on what goes into the church bulletin or newsletter.

Practical ways to give them authority are:

  1. Make a decision on what they are in charge of and what they need to come to you for. In communications the church leadership should decide on basic themes and messages and perhaps even the overall look, but NOT on layout, or final editing of articles or announcements.
  2. Publicly announce and print your decision. You might say something like this. “Jenny Smith, our communications coordinator has final editing authority on the layout, deadlines and contents of materials that go into the bulletin and newsletter (and whatever else you want to list). She has posted her guidelines and submission deadlines on our website. Please support her decisions and deadlines so we can produce 1 Cor: 14:4 publications, ones done decently and in order.”
  3. Back up your decisions. Invariably people will test you on the rules. I am convinced as both pastor’s wife and communications trainer that inside all of our adult looking bodies is a little junior high school person who never, ever got a paper for school done ahead of its due date.

Invariably when you are instituting new guidelines various church members will come rushing in at the last minute with an article that just HAS to get into the newsletter. When your communications director tells them it is past the deadline—you know what they will do.

The little junior high person in him will bubble up and he will walk right around that person’s desk and in to your office and say something like, “She isn’t being very Christian today—she told me I missed her deadline and you need to tell her to get this article in there!”

If you answer by saying, “She is being very Christian. I have given her authority over that area and to do her job in a way that honors God and the church. I’m very sorry your article can’t go into the bulletin this month. We’ll make copies and have it in the church office, but Jenny’s deadlines are firm.”

Any other answer, or taking back authority or vacillating on this point will not only make the publication creation process a mess, but it will greatly harm your relationship with your communications director.

This approach benefits everyone

In delegating authority and holding your people to it, you are helping them grow up in their ministry responsibilities. Usually the article the tardy person wants  in at the last minute is about something he has known about and been planning for six months, but was not enough of a priority to get the information about it written up in time for the church. That sort of behavior would not be tolerated at the person’s regular job and should not be encouraged at the church either.

Exceptions of course can always be made for genuine emergencies, a family illness or something similar, but these are far less seldom the case than a lack of respect.

Give them protection

Giving your people authority gives them protection from disorganized people, but physical protection is also needed at times.

This doesn’t mean protection against robbery or whatever, but a church secretary with an arm brace because of carpel tunnel is the sign of a pastor failing to properly shepherd his or her sheep in the fields of technology.

Talk to some of your secular business leaders in the church and find out what is needed to make your church office ergonomically correct. Your communications people need proper chairs, wrist rests, and the right kind of mouse or trackball, the computer monitor at a proper height. They need to be protected from doing repetitive data entry; they need to get up and stretch if they have been working at the computer for hours without a break.

Care for their eyesight

Another area that needs to be looked at is the condition of their eyes. Because working with the computer requires the eyes to focus on a mid-range target instead of either distance or close reading, many people cannot adequately see both their screen and the text of a page they are typing from.

In practical terms this means they may need to get trifocals instead of working with bifocals (or no glasses at all). They may need special glasses for the computer work. Without proper eyewear your people will get eyestrain, headaches, neck pain and have a host of problems in creating publications.

I can speak from personal experience in this area. I recently got properly fitted with graduated, no-line trifocals. I can see better now than I have in 20 years. I had no idea that my problems with seeing the computer screen (glasses on, glasses off, focus, out of focus, headaches, etc.) could be fixed so easily.

You must be proactive in this area, because many people who work in the church office suffer in silence. In addition, the church should be financially responsible for decent chairs, wrist rests, and help in the cost of good eyewear, which can be very expensive.

Being a good shepherd means more than simply having devotions with your staff. A good shepherd also cares for the physical needs of the sheep.

Give them training

Training can take many forms. A membership to this site is a great gift if you are not reading this as a member. The books from Effective Church Communications available through this website's RESOURCE Section and the printed resources available at http://www.amazon.com (just do a search for Yvon Prehn)  will help in detail in many areas of church communication.

For training in software programs and website creation, http://www.lynda.com/ is fantastic. Best of all, free up a few hours each week where they can practice or explore new skills without interruption.

Give them adequate tools

Decent tools in terms of an up-to-date and well equipped computer are not a luxury for your church communicator—they are essential for the good stewardship of the person’s time. I’m not going to give specific recommendations here because what is adequate changes so often, but again, this is an area where a board member who has wisdom in the technology area may be able to advise you on what is necessary today to do the communications work needed by your church. For highly technical areas such as video creation and editing, a few hours of a consultant’s time would be wise to help you make adequate purchases.

Be sure that the advice you get matches the communication needs of your church. A small church that creates simple communications (that can still be incredibly effective) does not need the hardware of a larger church doing complex color work and website creation. Be sure your communication person has the equipment and software needed to get the quality of work done that you require.

Give them awards and encouragement

It seems in most churches that the only time the person who does communications is publicly acknowledged is when they make a typo that makes someone really mad. They know their name then, they make everyone aware of it

Don’t let that happen in your church. Award your communications people regularly and publicly acknowledge them. Honor and thank them in front of the church. When a ministry event has been successful, acknowledge their part in it. Know them well enough to know what kind of a monetary reward would be appropriate for them. For some it might be a gift certificate to Starbucks, to someone else a Christian book store gift certificate.

Pay them decently

Find out what the going rate is for graphic designers and webmasters in your area. People know that working in the church they will probably make far less than in the secular world, but if your communications person has become highly skilled in both print and website design they are worth paying decently. If you know your church is paying your church communicator far below what they are worth, at least acknowledge it.

Remind them that what they are doing matters for eternity. Regardless of your ability to pay, remind your church communication creators of the value of their work. It is so easy to forget that value in the midst of doing information cards for 20 small groups or while updating the brochures for all the ministries in the church. Take time to remind them (and yourself) that Heaven will be different because of the work they are doing.