Effective Church Communications
Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission
Wouldn't it be great to have graphic images you could resize and use both on the web and in print? Wouldn't it be great to use something like that for a unified graphics look for holidays or ministry campaigns? Wouldn't it be great to be able to create something like that inexpensively without using an expensive program like Photoshop?
YOU CAN! With MS Publisher! This video and PDF tutorial will show you how.
Use either one or both to see how to do it--they cover the same process.
With all due respect to Marshall McLuhan, referred to by many as the "high priest of pop culture" I believe his dictum, "THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE" has led many communicators, including some in the church, astray in a tendency to focus foremost on the tools they are using to create their messages, rather than the content and results of the message.
I believe he meant the statement as an observation, not a recommendation as to what is most important in communication. Let me explain. In stating the "medium is the message" McLuhan helped us to see that the media used to present a message becomes part of the message itself. For example, a visual image of a rock concert affects the viewer in a vastly different way than a newspaper report of the concert. Stated more correctly, one could say, "the medium influences our perception of the message."
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Not quite as catchy, but I think more accurate. Where things went slightly off track is that somehow this statement in practice turned into "the medium forms the message and gives power to the message."
His statement was popular at the same time many new media in the church appeared: desktop publishing, multimedia projections, the internet. For many churches, it was so hard to learn the new media, (computers, the new software and hardware was not easy), that an unspoken conclusion came about that if we somehow got the message out using these tools, we were communicating.
"We did it with desktop publishing!" "We did it with Adobe Creative Suite!" "We have a new projection system in the church!" "We now have a web site!" And similar affirmations were heard. The subtle, and often unspoken and unanalyzed, shift assumed that if we created the church communication with a high-end desktop publishing program or we created a multimedia project to teach or market a ministry or put it on the web that it would be successful just because we were using these great, cutting-edge tools. The medium made the message. The implication continued, often unevaluated, that the better we got at the medium, the more color, action, white space, flash animations, or whatever the latest and greatest technology we mastered, the more powerful our message would be.
It didn't turn out that way. Over the last almost 20 years, huge numbers of desktop-published pages, multimedia projections, and web pages have been produced. During this time when our tools to communicate are more powerful technologically than they have ever been in the history of the church, church attendance is declining; biblical literacy is at an all time low; and North America is considered "post-Christian."
Obviously the tools and our expertise in them is not the answer. It's the content of the message itself that is important, not the medium used to present it. It's the story itself, not only the grand theme of salvation, but the details of our individual stories: the times, places, and tangible locations where the salvation story is lived out every day in churches that are important.
For example, today, a church can project an awesome youth-themed, PowerPoint background during announcement times before the service, but if parents don't have a bulletin insert or get a postcard during the week giving them the time, location, and how much money is needed for a church event the following weekend that they can post on the refrigerator, the teenagers in the family most likely won't attend.
If a church newsletter has the awesome graphics, an abundance of white space and typography choices that could win awards, but the writing is boring or judgmental, if the topics would interest only the writer's seminary professors and not address the needs of people in the pew this week, it's almost useless, no matter how much it cost to produce.
If a church proclaims on the outside of the building, with professionally produced banners, that PEOPLE MATTER TO US! but once inside, if the church doesn't provide directions on how to find the nursery or the bathrooms and there is no handicapped access to the adult classes, or visitor information center, the unspoken message that they really don't care comes across loud and clear.
The message is the message. Everything else: the medium used to share the message, the tools used to create it, the money spent, how it looks-all these things have a place, but they are not primary. If people aren't coming to your church and staying; if they are not trusting Jesus as Savior and growing in their faith, no matter what your technology media methods, your communication is not successful.
Realizing the message is the message, that the gospel story and details of how to connect your people with how your church is living it out is the core concept to communicate. You do not need to take complex surveys, do up elaborate marketing charts and graphs or spend hundreds of thousands on computers and software to do this. You simply need to get to know the people in your audience (walk the neighborhood, get to know them face-to-face) an d then share with them the gospel story and the stories of your church clearly, completely and frequently with whatever tools you have and in whatever channels they frequently access.
If most churches in America would simply send out a postcard (half of an 8 ½ x 11 sheet) to their members (and the homes surrounding the church ) every week simply listing the seeker friendly events going on in the church with the date, time, (starting and ending), location, if child care is provided, and the cost, along with a paragraph of encouraging words from the pastor in a space on the front, there would most likely be revival in America-or at least increased attendance for events at your church. People are lonely and spiritually searching but I know most homes surrounding churches have no idea what is going on inside the church walls on a weekly basis.
This is not to say that doing our best with the latest and greatest in technology isn't useful. If the postcard above could also direct people to a well-done website with visitor friendly sections, streaming audio and video for those who have the bandwidth for it and interest in it, and perhaps even online chat for those with questions about the Christian faith, it would greatly expand the possibilities for the outreach of the gospel message.
Every additional media channel is useful, but every channel is only that, a channel. If we are tempted to think too highly of ourselves or our tools as we craft the communications of our churches, we need to look outside and remember that Jesus could at any time raise up a stone from the parking lot to communicate his message more eloquently than we can imagine. Being able to serve as his channels, to communicate his message, is not a necessity for him; it is his gift of grace to us.
We have extraordinary tools available to create church communications and to wow people with our multi-media technology creations. Churches of every size can create can challenge members with video, media-rich websites and colorful print graphics. Dedicated church communication teams work hard to turn church leadership vision into reality. So what happens when we create these great communication pieces, but few people show up or volunteer for our ministry event?
Often the reason we don’t get the results we want is because we rushed to PR communication creation without doing the planning needed to assure that the PR communication we were able to create would result in concrete ministry results. This article shares two true stories of situation like this and follows them with suggested solutions to make certain your ministry goals are accomplished. [Read more...]
Many problems in church communications planning and management can be solved if the church uses forms because forms take opinions about communications and helps you effectively evaluate the validity of your opinions.
For example, if someone says: "The web is the best way to advertise!" and another person on staff responds, "No, nothing beats bulletin inserts and postcards!" the use of forms puts this discussion into an objective evaluation of what works best.
Below the video are links to the PDFs of the notes for the video presentation and for a PDF of the forms used in the video presentation. Though the video is free for everyone, the notes and forms are only for Effective Church Communication Members. CLICK HERE for ECC Membership information.
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Click on the image of each form below to go to the PDF file.
A few little changes to how you use type can make a big difference in the readability of your communication as this PDF shows.
Some of the tips below are not what people intially expect. For example, most people think that to put type in a color emphasizes it, but unless the type in color is quite large, colored type is usually harder to read than simple black on white because there is less contrast.
Even though it is very popular today for some blogs to be done all in reversed type (white on a black background), that is always much harder to read. You have to decide—do you want people to read what you have to say or think your site looks really edgy?
What the poster illustrates is how you can use a fancy typeface to catch attention as we did when we did up a flyer to remind kids to donate to a shoe drive, but the actual instructions to the parents are in a plain, clear typeface. This is a good example to follow on the kinds of communications you design for people to put up on the refrigerator to remind them of church events or ministries.
To download the PDF, click here or on the image.
