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 #3: Create multi-channel communications—to reach and serve every audience

In this time of rapid communication changes one of the biggest challenges for church communicators is to keep up with new technologies and communication tools.

These are important, but it is more important to remember that though we want to learn the new and innovative, we can’t stop doing the tried and true if we want to reach our entire world for Jesus, not just those with the latest tech tools and tastes.

It is a time of both/and in church communications, not either/or and Effective Church Communications and our training school, Church Communications Training, have many resources that will help you navigate this challenging time.

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The silent, destructive communication war between Boomers and Millennials

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Generations need to learn to communicate

There is a silent war going on in churches today. Nobody talks about it and many in the church are not even aware it is going on, but it continues day after day and the injuries, both to individuals and to the Kingdom of God, are immense. This is the war of communication expectations between talking on the phone, email, and texting.

Though this conflict can happen between any members of the church, for purposes of this article, I’m going to over simply it by sharing what I’ve seen happen many times between Boomer and Millennial age groups. Though I’m using these two groups as examples, read into them “Boomer and older” and “Millennial and younger”.

I’ll first give some examples and then suggestions for ways to improve the situation.

Here are some typical skirmishes:

Situation #1:

A Boomer congregation member places a phone call to a Millennial Youth Pastor and leaves a message. No response. Boomer tries email. No response. Sunday comes around and Boomer angrily confronts Millennial, "I was going to give two scholarships to Winter Camp, but since you didn't have the courtesy to respond to my offer, the scholarship money has been donated elsewhere."

Millennial response, “I’m really sorry. I didn't get any of your messages.”

Situation #2:

Millennial Youth Pastor texts the Boomer age people in the church who have said they want to be part of the prayer team for youth. She is excited about the list she received from the church office and then sends them a series of Instagram links to images showing the kids they will be praying for at an upcoming strategy session at Starbucks.

When the time comes for the strategy session, only one person out of the 15 she sent multiple text messages to shows up. On Sunday, when she tries to be kind and asks why various Boomer individuals didn’t show up, she gets a combination of blank stares and replies of “You never contacted me” in response.

What is going on

In both groups, the person sending the message felt they were doing all they could to communicate. However, just sending a message is not the same as communicating a message. [Read more...]

Three Channels of Effective Church Communications

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3 channels of effective Church Communications
As you consider what channels to communicate in, here are some options.

In this challenging time of multi-channel church communications, to make this situation manageable for practical application I’ve divided the many communication channels into three overall groups. It is much more difficult to communicate in all three channels, but I trust this section will encourage you and give you some strategic ideas how to be more effective as you work.

The three channels of effective church communication

Channel #1: Print

This channel consists of printed bulletins, newsletters, postcards, invitation cards, connection cards, instruction materials, printed matter of all kinds, sizes, and quality that we create in the church. Print, in color, black and white, and all its forms is still one of the primary and most important ways we communicate with people today and will be for some time. Almost everyone has access to this channel.

Channel #2: Digital

This channel is the latest tool we have to communicate the gospel message and we use it in PowerPoint® presentations, the internet, our website, email newsletters, cell phone and small screen communications, and anything else that makes up the newest, latest, and greatest communication technology. This channel is still emerging, developing in new systems and tools, and is expanding constantly. Not everyone has access to this channel and speed of adaptation varies tremendously with age and socioeconomic groups. [Read more...]

Intro to Strategy #3: Create multi-channel communications

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Multi-media challenges for church communicators
What is the best way to communicate your message today? We help you sort that out.

A key strategic question for any church any church today is what to do about all the channels of communication available? What material should go on the web? Stay in print? Be in both channels? What about social media?

If we look at secular communications, we see an explosion of options. USA Today's publisher Larry Kramer shared his strategy to provide content in a variety of channels when he took the job by saying, "The paper will build 'closer relationships with our readers' through new uses of technologies. . . . . We're going to give people what they want, when they want it, where they want it. You want it on your watch; I'll give it to you. Or inside of your sunglasses. "

Those sounds great—give people all the content they want in any channel they want it in, but realistically in the church, we don't have the time or money to do all this. Most churches are not looking for additional work in communications. Many are overwhelmed by the option of the print and the web and thinking about other channels seems impossible. We naturally want to simplify our communication workload in a ministry setting because we don't have time to do all the work we need to do. Most churches are not looking for ways to increase, but to consolidate their communication efforts. Following are typical questions I've received for help in doing that:

"What is the best way to communicate with people today?"

"What is the way to reach people best: the web, email, or social media?" 

"Do we still need to print?"

"What is a communication channel? Which communication channel works best to reach people outside and inside the church?"

These questions reflect the concern, confusion, and frustration over the communication channels available to us today, which include print, web, email, postal mail, telephone, texting, social media, digital projection systems, voice, and people. When overwhelmed with channel choices and having limited time to implement them, it is natural to want to narrow our church communications down to one or two that will be effective. Because of that, I always feel bad as I answer people's questions about what to use because I know people want me to tell them that one channel, especially if it is the one they prefer, is all they need, but I can't do that. I can't do that because to be effective in your church communication ministry, to fully fulfill the Great Commission, there is no one way. [Read more...]

Print and Digital—More Powerful Together! videos and studies to show you why

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Print and Digital E-book, more powerful together! by Yvon Prehn
If your want people to respond to your communications, use every tool you can!

People are busy, stressed, and time-starved—what is the best way to reach them? Many voices would answer "SOCIAL MEDIA!"

But if that is the answer, why aren't our churches filled and every event well-attended, when social media costs almost nothing to produce and we can push it out to the world?

Part of the problem could be that we have confused the popularity of social media with effectiveness (source for this idea in the video below). We assume social media is the way most people communicate today, and though that idea is wildly incorrect for many congregations, even among those who do live glued to a Twitter feed, don't necessarily take action on what they see on social media.

What follows isn't about bashing social media

Far from it--keep tweeting, Facebooking, Pinning and Instagramming, as the Apostle Paul said, "we need to become all things to all people to win some" (1 Cor 9:22).

But consider re-introducing PRINT into a more significant place in your church communication mix. As you'll see a number of communication and marketing studies show this is the most effective way to get an audience to respond to your message.

Below are 2 videos--one a more lengthy teaching one about the effectiveness of combining print and digital for any non-profit group and the second one is a series of slides with thought provoking quotes and commentary.

Below each of them are handouts of the presentation.

Below both is PDF e-book that has the quotes, studies listed and more.

Why here, now and free to all?

As I've been working on Fall and Christmas communications I've realized that unless you understand some of the key points in the material that follows your fall outreach will not be as successful as it could or should be.

Either one of the videos would make an excellent discussion topic for your next staff meeting because communication ministry is the foundation of the success of many ministries in the church and it is far more difficult today than it was in the past when you only needed to worry about how many times you printed an announcement in the bulletin.

I'm working on a longer class and book on this topic, but I felt it was too important not to get out now what I did have ready.


CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF of NOTES for the video above: Print & Digital More Powerful Together HANDOUTS


CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF of NOTES for the video above: Slide Show of Print and Digital Quotes, HANDOUTS

Print and Digital E-book, more powerful together! by Yvon Prehn
Click on the image to download a copy of this e-book.