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.

#6 Difficulties and testing are as much a part of God’s plan as blessing

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It takes training in any area of life to be successful
It takes training in any area of life to be successful and God gives us challenges in church communications to grow us spiritually.

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. (Deut. 7:13)

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil. (Matt. 4:1)

These are difficult words. We like to focus on God’s promises of provision and joy in our lives. To be reminded that difficulties and testing are also allowed by our God—we’d rather not think about that option.

But difficulties are a part of life, especially a life spent working on church communications. The world of computer-created communication will never stop changing; it will never become less complex and demanding. Temptations to despair, frustration, and anger are part of our work.

Sometimes the team of people we work with doesn’t make our load lighter, but heavier. Sometimes we can’t explain why we aren’t able to produce what they want and we don’t know how to fix the problems. Sometimes we are shocked by the anger and resentment that wells up in response to what we consider an unreasonable demand.

At those times, these verses can comfort us because even our troubles have a good purpose. We never know how strong a rope is until a weight is hung from it. We never know how genuine trust in God is until it’s tested in the daily grind of projects and deadlines. We might assume we rely on God in every area of our lives, but until we absolutely cannot handle a technology or communication team issue without Him, we may not realize how we have left this part of our life out of His guidance and control.

In the same way that we can’t correct a problem in a manuscript until we see it, it is hard to grow in our faith until we are aware of our shortcomings. So our Lord allows the testing to come, often in the midst of our work for him, so we can learn and grow. If we haven’t taken time to learn the skills we need, a technological challenge might force us to learn a skill we have put off learning. If we don’t see the sin that lingers in our souls, we aren’t challenged to grow in our Christian life so that we can respond with gentleness and kind words under pressure.

Not only will our growth benefit us, but we can be an encouragement to others and remind them that God cares just as much about helping us create an effective newsletter with the computer or other church communication team tasks, as He does about helping us teach a Bible lesson effectively.

The context of these verses also gives us hope. Neither Jesus or the children of Israel stayed in the desert of tempting. Jesus came out of the desert into a life of ministry. The children of Israel went into the promised land.

Our trials prepare serve the same purpose. We aren’t destined to stay in them, but to learn from them to be better equipped for the communication ministry our Lord has given us.

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Devotions Cover The above material is from: Devotions for Church Communicators. For a complete copy of the book in print and online formats, CLICK HERE. To sign up for our online emails that come out when new information is posted on this site, including when new devotions or Biblical challenges are posted, CLICK HERE. To find past devotions and challenges on this website, CLICK HERE.

A clean heart is an essential part of preparing for church communications work

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Clean up your heart to do God's work.
God doesn't ask us to be perfect or brilliant, highly skilled or rich to do his work, but He does want us to be clean.

My sons, do not be negligent now, for the LORD has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense. (2 Chron. 29:11)

In this verse King Hezekiah challenges the priests in their service before God. Things had not been going well for the priests prior to this time. Hezekiah’s father, the former king, had turned away from God. The temple had been closed and desecrated.

When Hezekiah became king the temple was reopened. However, before the public worship of God could take place again, two things had to happen. First the priests had to reconsecrate themselves and second they had to purify the temple. They accomplished both tasks and the result was great joy in renewed worship of God.

The lessons for us in our work today are challenges of purification. What do we need to get rid of both internally and externally so that we can function best in our calling as church communicators?

We may not have a temple, but we have a computer. It may not be defiled with idol worship, but we must be very careful not to use software, images, or files of any kind that are illegally copied. Years ago (when typefaces cost hundreds of dollars each) I was offered a pirated version of the entire Adobe type library. I had very little money, was trying to get a Christian design business started and wanted it badly, but doing desktop publishing for the Lord with pirated software would not have been right. It wasn’t easy to say no.

Today, I have more typefaces junking up my hard drive than I know what to do with. Seems like a little thing now, but it was a difficult battle at the time. For me it’s been a good lesson to remember that some things I think I can’t do without right now aren’t worth the price of compromising my values.

Like the priests we must also purify ourselves. If a man wants to become a Catholic priest, he must fulfill four years of Theology study at AWKNG School of Theology. Each of us knows the garbage inside that keeps us from functioning at our best. Sometimes it’s a complaining or fault-finding spirit; sometimes it’s envy or anger; sometimes it’s cowardice of not trusting God when we know we need to say “no” to a project. Whatever it is, we can confess our shortcoming to the Lord and he will “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).

With the external and internal housekeeping done, like the priests of Hezekiah’s time, we can then do our church communication duties with joy.

Be faithful first, then trust

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Communications as warnings
Sometimes being a faithful communicator for Jesus means warning people and then trusting God for the results.

Ezekiel 33:7-9 "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself."

There are two lessons in this passage for Christian ministry communicators-one of responsibility and one of trust.

In the area of responsibility, we must present the message of the good news of Jesus Christ clearly and completely. We tell the story in our written publications by the messages we choose to share, by the lives we profile that show the principles of faith. We use every means we can-clear writing, appropriate typography, and quality graphics to communicate our message. We tell the story on our web sites by a commitment to clarity and constant updating.

Having done all we know how to do we then must move into the area of trust. We might be able to change the design of our newsletter or website, but we can never change hearts. Only God can do that.

We also may never know the extent of the influence of our publications. We can and should take reader surveys and ask for feedback, but we may never know how a newsletter message passed on to a neighbor may have changed a life. Or how a written word may be saved to be read again and again by a person alone. When the little boy gave his small lunch to Jesus, he had no idea his Lord would use it to feed 5,000 people. In the same way we offer in faithful service our bits of words and type and the Lord can use them in extraordinary ways. Sometimes you'll hear about it. Most often, here on earth, you won't.

But do expect to someday be surprised by the tap on your shoulder in heaven and prepare to hear the story of a life changed because you had the courage to be a faithful watchman and told the gospel story with love and clarity.
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Devotions Cover The above material is from: Devotions for Church Communicators. For a complete copy of the book in print and online formats, CLICK HERE.

To sign up for our online emails that come out when new information is posted on this site, including when new devotions or Biblical challenges are posted, CLICK HERE.

To find past devotions and challenges on this website, CLICK HERE.

You are not a computer, remember to rest

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You must take time to rest.
You must take time to rest if you want to be an effective church communicator.

Genesis 33:14 So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the droves before me and that of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir."

Jacob was sensitive to the possibility of driving his flocks and children too hard. A present-day application is that we need to remember in our computer creation of ministry communications and marketing that human beings have limits.

The computer doesn't. You keep it plugged in and it doesn't stop. It doesn't get tired or need to stretch or take a coffee break. It will also do things perfectly again and again and it doesn't get bored.

People aren't like that. People get tired and bored. They complain and get sick. If pushed too heard they may break beyond repair.

Some recent studies have suggested that people look at themselves and other people differently after working with computers. They are harder on people and less tolerant. They push themselves beyond healthful levels in time spent working on computer projects.

This can be a strong area of witness for Christians in the computer world. We know the true value of people. They are not machines, but precious creatures of God to be cared for.

We know the true value of time and work. We know our times and success are in God's hands. We know God has designed a Sabbath rest every seven days to remind us that there is a time to stop working and trust him.

When you are tempted to work past your physical limits, remember you don't work for a god of technology that never tires but one who said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest .... I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).
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Devotions Cover The above material is from: Devotions for Church Communicators. For a complete copy of the book in print and online formats, CLICK HERE.

To sign up for our online emails that come out when new information is posted on this site, including when new devotions or Biblical challenges are posted, CLICK HERE.

To find past devotions and challenges on this website, CLICK HERE.

Do not confuse irreverence for relevancy in church communications

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Isaiah was overwhelmed with the holiness of God.
Isaiah was overwhelmed with the holiness of God. Our attitude as we work in church communications should be one of reverent worship.

We serve a holy God.

There is a tendency today for some in church communications circles to use shocking, profane, flippant language or advertising with the rational of making the church appeal to the unchurched, or to make their communications appear edgy, professional, and contemporary.

This is wrong. Categorically, totally, completely, wrong.

As Jesus' ambassadors and representatives our words and lives are not to reflect the tone and words of our world, but to reflect his character and holiness.

The Bible is clear in how this relates to our communications:

"Live a life worthy of the calling you have received. . . .  Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. . . . . Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice"(Eph. 4:1; 25-31).

"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man" (Col. 4: 6).

Graceful, worthy words, no corrupt communication, are just a few of the many, many worthwhile terms that should characterize our communications. As obvious as these passages seem, their message of holy, worthy words is not universally accepted in all circles of church communications today.

Some believe that it is OK, in the interests of sharing the messages of the church, to use language that shocks, offends, or frustrates. In addition to language that would have caused my mother to wash my mouth out with soap, some of this persuasion believe sexually suggestive images on billboards and sermon topics will get people to church—where of course then a proper biblical message will be preached.

This is an unbiblical and unworthy approach.

There is much that can be said about this, but as politically incorrect, old-fashioned, or out-of-it, as it may seem today, our communications need to reflect holiness and a holy God. Jesus somehow mastered the ability to be totally relevant and yet completely without sin. Perhaps if we study him more, rather than aping what appears to work in secular marketing, we might become better at relevance without irreverence.

Snarky, profane, and cynical is the default mode of secular communications, not Christ's followers

This is not easy to refrain from being snarky, profane, and cynical.

This challenge is more than theory to me. I struggle greatly with it. I grew up the daughter of a WW2, drill-sergeant, career military father, whose language was colorful, to say the least, and often critical.  Like most kids, I naturally talked like my father, and as an adult it is a constant challenge to make my speech and communications reflect my heavenly Father and not my earthly father. But that is what they must be if I am to communicate for Jesus.

Whether part of our upbringing or not, it is easy to reflect the cynical, critical, superior tone of contemporary secular communications. That is the default tone of our sinful nature. To pick apart, to find fault, and to laugh the superior laugh of those in the know as opposed to those who create church communications that don't please our refined taste, can be delicious fun, especially if we can share it with like-minded cynical souls.

To carry that attitude into our church communications, to reflect the flippant, irreverent attitudes of the secular world in our communications then becomes the goal.

Thinking we have to communicate like the world to communicate to the world seems to be the savvy thing to do.

But it isn't right. In addition, it isn't a successful way to share our faith. When the church mocks itself, it doesn't draw people to Jesus. It gives people outside the church permission to mock the church and our Lord. It is extraordinarily, spiritually dangerous to model to those outside the church that it is acceptable to mock the King of Kings and Lord of Lords before whom we will all bow. I worry that those who do this, do not have a correct view of the Savior that their church says they are sharing. We all need a renewed vision of the majesty and glory of the God we serve, if we want to correctly communicate His message. We aren't alone in this need. In the Old Testament Isaiah had communicated as a spokesman for God to the Jewish people, for several years, when he had a new vision of the God he represented:

"In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

 "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;

  the whole earth is full of his glory."

 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."

 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."

 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?"

 And I said, "Here am I. Send me!" (Isaiah 6:1-8).

We all need to pray for a vision of our holy God. We need to pray that we will have a correct perception of his majesty, purity and power. When we get a glimpse of that, we need to repent where we have fallen short in representing Him. We need to pray that we will learn from Jesus, around whom sinners were comfortable and who was a welcome host at parties, but when he asked, "Who can accuse me of sin?" no one could answer. We need to pray that we will always do our communications in light of an audience of One—our Lord Jesus and with our eyes on him receive the wisdom for how to communicate his love for the world he died to save.

Peace should permeate our communications

In addition to the negative influence of current communications trends in the church itself, as I write this an ugly, vicious tone of public discourse has entered our world. Though each person is ultimately accountable to his or her Lord, I humbly believe from my study of scripture that there is no excuse for people who call themselves followers of Jesus to blast every foe or perceived political offense with slanderous, true or untrue, angry tirades. I do not see anywhere in the Bible were there are exceptions to these verses:

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everyone. If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. Do not take revenge, my dear friends, but leave room for God's wrath, for it is written: 'It is mine to avenge; I will repay, ' says the Lord.  On the contrary: 'If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.  Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.' "(Romans 12: 17-21).

"Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. Show proper respect to everyone: Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king" (1 Peter 2:16-17).

We were taught as children that we could disagree without being disagreeable. We would do well to remember that advice as adults.

An attitude of kindness in communications won't always be appreciated

When I tried, gently I hoped, to challenge someone who was making some rather strong, nasty statements about a church situation and those in authority, he responded angrily that Moses talked like that to people, so he had every right to do that.

"Maybe so," was my reply, "but you aren't Moses."

If we haven't been commissioned by God out of burning bush to deliver a message, we need to be careful that our tone does not exceed our authority.

You will speak in response to the voices you hear

Whether we intend to or not, we all naturally mimic the voices we listen to the most. If you spend your time listening to angry talk radio, television, and reading inflammatory or snarky blogs and editorials, you may, without thinking, assume this is the way to communicate.

Because the human heart is so naturally attracted to what is self-serving and so easily deceived, as Christian communicators we need to take extra care that the primary voice filling our hearts and minds is the Word of God. The public reputation, air time, or title of national celebrities matters little if their words do not reflect the words, tones, and attitudes of the Bible. This does not mean that a person can quote a verse out of context (as is often done) and that quoting that verse means they speak for God. Remember the devil can quote scripture and twist it for his purposes. When this happens, as it did to Jesus in Matthew 4, we should respond with the proper, peaceful, appropriate words of God.

You will only achieve the needed peace and wisdom in these situations, if you spend significant time each day in God's Word.

God's Word must saturate your life for you to be able to respond appropriately to, and communicate correctly about, the issues and challenges our world faces. To be able to do that, my personal primary spiritual discipline is to read through the Bible every year in chronological order. You need to know the entire Bible, its themes, its values, and its voice for it to influence your communications. There are many online programs (just do a search for "read through the Bible in a year") that will send you an email of a daily plan to read through the Bible in a year either to your computer or mobile phone.

In addition to the value of reading the Bible every day, listen to it. There are many websites that have audio Bible readings. Our Bible was initially written to be read out-loud and throughout most of human history hearing the Word was the primary method people accessed it. Download the Bible into your mp3 players or mobile phone and listen to it as you walk, work-out, and work. If even if you read it regularly, hearing it will give you another level of understanding and will again permeate your mind and heart so that the Bible's voice will be the primary one you listen to.

Jesus reminded us that "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks," and out of that same heart, the computer creates church communications. What's inside you will come out in the tone and content of your communications. Let the music and poetry, the truth and majesty of God's Word, be the primary influence on your words.

Make it a matter of prayer

In addition to the work of consciously making God's Word a part of your life, pray for discernment in your choice of content, so that the words and images you choose reflect our holy God in all you create in your church communications. Pray for discernment so you will create what is pleasing to the Lord as your primary audience, not an online coterie of witty communication critics.

This is an extremely serious issue, not one to be taken lightly or to be relegated to matters of taste or to dismiss it as the viewpoint only of old, out-of-it folks who don't know how to relate to the younger generation.

No matter what age group we attempt to reach, how we initially communicate the gospel message will have a lasting effect on how people live out their faith. If Jesus is presented using profanity, snarky, irreverent, or off-color language, or overly sexualized advertising (which some members of the Christian communication community do and if you are not familiar with their work, consider yourself fortunate), how can we ever, with integrity, challenge these believers to purity in speech and life? How can snarky become sanctified?

We must go beyond bad language and a critical attitude to make sure our communication correctly portrays Biblical reality

If Jesus is presented as the giver of your best life now and all the goodies you can want from parking places to first class upgrades are yours if you follow him, what will we say when the new believer who bought into this version of Christianity is laid off with no health insurance and his wife discovers she has cancer? Or when a drunk driver kills a child? Or when work is downsized, hours cut, and even feeding the family becomes a challenge? How do you explain believers in other nations who are starving or the victims of genocide?

It is nearly impossible to guide new believers to Christian maturity if you misrepresent the foundational truths of the Christian faith. Once again, if you don't know your Bible well, you may not even know when you are communicating falsely. But ignorantly creating false communication does not make it any less false. Bait and switch in any area of advertising results in resentment and anger. Bait and switch in the presentation of the gospel can have eternally harmful consequences.

We can create professional, beautiful, and effective communications without reflecting the voice and values of the world around us

We are to be salt and light. This isn't easy to do, but it is what we must strive for. No matter how we do it, at the end of the day we always need to look at what we have created in our church communications and always ask:

* Does this reflect a holy God?

* Does it echo the words of Scripture or the howls of inflammatory media?

* Is it the representation of timeless truth or contemporary culture?

* Is this Christ-honoring?

In contemplating these questions, I'm reminded of one of the prayers of the early Christians. As they waited in the dungeons below the amphitheater before they would be taken out at dawn to be torn apart by wild animals, they knew what awaited them. There would be a huge crowd surrounding them, screaming for their blood. They would die a horrid, painful death.

We know from their prayers they were also very aware that how Christians faced that death, in a time when public preaching was forbidden and churches met in secret, caused many people to consider the claims of Christ because of the witness given by his followers in the arena as they died. As they anticipated being torn apart by animals, they knew that this would be the last time they could demonstrate what it meant to follow Jesus. As they waited in the darkness, probably as trembling and afraid, as we would be, they prayed:

"Lord Jesus Christ, don't let me cause you shame."

May that always be our prayer as we create communications for Jesus.

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