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.

Strategy, the essential, but often missing foundation for effective church communications

Strategy is how you get to where you want to go; it’s how you achieve your objective. It is the commanding general in your head that chooses and uses whatever resources necessary for victory.

Instead of a communication ministry that is driven by deadlines, trends, tech tools, and whatever the promise that THIS item or way to do things will get thousands pouring into your church, when you learn to think and implement strategically about your church communications you’ll accomplish far more of lasting value.

This is the approach we want to teach you in Effective Church Communications and the articles that follow will show you how to implement effective church communications strategy in a variety of communication situations.

 

 

Want to get to know the audience for your church? Just ask.

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Ask questions to learn how to reach people for Jesus
If you want to know the audience the Lord gave you to reach for Him, ask questions!

In one of the presentations on marketing at MarCom 2015, the presenter talked about the importance of understanding your audience better so you can serve them better.

He went on to quote the following statistics:

87% of Millennials say they believe in Jesus

47% say they go to church

The question we need to answer is: Why such a big difference? Why do so many say they believe in Jesus, but don't go to church?

The answer isn't rocket science. The advice they gave answer was to get out in your community and ask.

It really is that simple. You can't look it up somewhere; you can't do a study. If you want to know the answer to why people don't go to church in your community, just ask them.

But don't ask the person directly because you don't want the person to be defensive. Instead, ask them "Why don't people today like to go to church?"

You'll find that when you ask about people in general, the person you are asking will almost always give you their personal answer.The "people" they talk about are themselves and their friends. This is invaluable marketing research for reaching your community.

Effective Church Communication application ideas

A great way to put this into practice is for a group of you from church to go out to a mall or other gathering place in your community, tell people you are taking a 3 question religious opinion survey and ask if they could give you 60 seconds of their time (it really doesn't take long). Here are the questions:

1. Do you believe in Jesus? (no lengthy answer needed, just yes or no)

2. Do most of people you know go to church? (yes or no)

3. Why do you think people go or don't like to go to church? (Here let them talk as much as they want and take notes, but don't push for lengthy answers.)

Afterwards, thank them for their time and if at all possible, have a business card that says something like this to give to each person:

Thanks so much for taking time
to answer our questions!

We really do value your opinion.

If you'd like to find out more about Jesus
please come to our church (add or info)
or visit our website (add info) or
 contact me (if you are comfortable sharing a personal email).

After each person has asked 3-5 or up to 10 people, meet back at church or someone's home and share the results. Ask these questions of your group:

What did you learn about the people in our community you didn't know before?

What was the biggest surprise?

How can we use what we learned to reach these people for Jesus?

Then pick ONE thing you can do and do it in the coming month. Don't make it complex, it can be as simple as changing how you view the people around you.

Close your time by praying for the individuals you spoke to and continue to remember them in prayer.

Last bits of advice

You can do this as a small group, a staff or parts of staff, or a few interested people in the church. Don't make a big deal committee project out of it or something that needs 5 levels of approval before you find out more about the people in your community who need Jesus.

This is not a "witnessing" project—you are simply trying to learn more about the people the Lord has given you to reach in your community. If you have the opportunity and want to share more, that's fine, but you don't have to.

Don't be afraid. Be an objective interviewer and you'll learn a lot. Pray for the Lord's insight and wisdom to use what you've learned to reach your community for Him.

Finally, REPEAT the process.You want to keep in touch with the people you are trying to reach. Don't try to figure them out—get to know them.

 

Why ministry leaders aren’t always good communicators and what to do about it

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Leaders communication challenges
Leaders can't sit at their desks to create all communications needed--they need a team to help.

The important term in the headline here is "aren't always." Ministry leaders, including pastors, leaders of groups like Young Life, and missionaries are almost always great verbal communicators or they wouldn't be in ministry. They do great talking to groups, teaching, challenging, motivating. But in today's multi-channel communication universe, that isn't enough.

What's needed today

When the Apostle Paul said he needed to be "all things to all people that he might win some," he had no idea of the multitude of communication tools and effective ministry program needs today, but his words couldn't be more true in this area.

You need a variety of communication tools because no church or ministry is a homogeneous group when it comes to what communication tools works best for each person in it.Your message stays the same, but for different groups of people to take it in and act on it, you need different ways to reach them. Here are some examples:

What works in a church

In the church, some people like the traditional bulletin and print newsletter to find out what's going on at the church. Others prefer to get their church news online. Others will only pay attention if they get a text message just before an event and others need large print format to stay informed. In the church if you want your people to know what is going on and to take part, it doesn't matter what you as a leader like or think is useful and proper for the church. What matters is what channels of communication are the various people in your church are responding to.

In the church we always need to remember that the majority does not rule when it comes to being a servant to all. There may only be 4-5 or 10-20 people who still need the newsletter printed out and mailed to them, but we must always remember that our Lord went after the one little sheep. He expects us to value the straying and weak in the same way. [Read more...]

Bait and switch is not a tool for church communication–two sad examples of it

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bait and switchThough bait and switch most often refers to the retail realm, it can also apply in many other areas as this definition from Wikipedia clarifies: "Bait-and-switch is a form of fraud, most commonly used in retail sales but also applicable to other contexts."

The Wikipedia article goes on to describe how bait and switch is used in many areas of contemporary life including the obvious teaser rates for the airline and travel industry, hotel and resort pictures that show non-existent levels of excellence, dating sites that post fake profiles, and methods of authoring legislation that hide the complete intent of a proposed bill.

This use of bait and switch, of a headline or link promising one thing, but not delivering what was expected, has become so pervasive in the media that many readers are no longer shocked or outraged, but meekly and quietly assume that you can't trust much of what you read or hear and if you get taken in by false of misleading claims, you, the reader, simply were not careful enough.

Caveat emptor, "Let the buyer beware," may be the rule for anything we read from the secular market place, but it should not need to be our response to communications from writers and organizations that claim Jesus as Lord. Sadly, this isn't always the case.

Remember who you represent

Christian communicators serve the Savior who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life" (John 14:6).

We are Christ's ambassadors, as 2 Cor. 5:20 says, "We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God"

Let that sink in. As a Christian communicator, you speak for God. A core description of your communications should be that they are true.

To make that practical to you in your church communication work, following, I'll discuss:

  • How the reality that we are Christ's ambassadors applies in Christian communication
  • Some overall guidance on how we should communicate as ambassadors
  • Two examples of bait and switch in Christian communications
  • Application and advice on how not to be guilty of bait and switch  in your communications

[Read more...]