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.

From Gayle Hilligoss–challenges for a Happy New Year

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Happy New Year 2014
Decisions you carry out are what will make 2014 truly a HAPPY New Year.

I trust 2014 will bring many blessings your way.

The start of a new year is a good time both to reflect and to project—a time to look back and consider what you have experienced and learned, a time to look ahead to where you will go next. One sure sign of personal progress is the realization that you not only know smart things, but that you do smart things. You will know, feel, when it happens. The difference is beyond measure.

• Put first things first
Sometimes we stay so busy doing the good that we neglect the best. Pray for wisdom to know what is truly important. Then give your time, energy, and love to those things first. Unless you make a deliberate effort to set priorities and stick with them, your days will be filled with other people’s priorities and not your own.

• Respect time
Understand that time is the most precious of all resources. Without time you have nothing. Spend your minutes and your hours wisely. Plan your days rather than just letting them happen.

• Stay calm
Know what matters—and be passionate about those things. Know what doesn’t matter—and don’t let those things get you down. You know you are becoming more mature when you control your emotions instead of allowing them to control you.

• Take care of yourself
Your body is a gift from God; being as fit as you can be is a testimony in itself. Eat wisely, exercise appropriately, get enough rest, schedule regular checkups. Don’t allow lesser activities to keep you from a daily walk or workout. Commit to some healthy extras: swimming, biking, whatever you like. Few of us do all we could or should to take care of ourselves. But we can!

• Nourish your mind
God’s world is a wondrous place. Learn something new every single day. Today, look at a flower and be amazed. Tonight, go outside and gaze at the stars. Tomorrow, browse the Internet for places you’d like to visit. Turn off the television. Ditch the smart phone for a few hours. Visit one-on-one with a friend. Think new thoughts. Grow.

“Let each one examine his own work.” —Galatians 6:4 CEV

It’s not about your creativity, it’s about serving your congregation with your church bulletin

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Letters need to be organized to communicate.
Letters don't mean anything until your organize them into clear, consistent communications.

Though the church communicator emailing me was asking about another topic, in passing she mentioned that she was going to be taking over the production of the church bulletin and was looking forward to changing it every week so she could express her creativity through it.

Her excitement about the new project and a wish to be creative was commendable, but it isn't a good idea to change the format of the church bulletin (or any other church communication) on a weekly or any other frequent basis and here's why:

People don't read the bulletin because they are looking for creative inspiration, they read it for information.

People access information by means of the structure you give them in your communications. The structure of your bulletin consists of the layout, the type and illustrations that you use, plus how you organize material into sections.

You want to come up with a clear system of how you use these structural tools so that people will not be conscious of the building blocks of your system, but will be able to easily access the information.

Type is one of the most important building blocks. On your church newsletter or bulletin, if someone says, "that was an interesting typeface," it isn't a compliment.

Did you notice the typeface on any blog you read regularly, on Facebook, or your local newspaper? You don't because you should always see through the typeface to the content. If people notice the typeface it can be a distraction to your message. [Read more...]

How to effectively name and create a logo for a church or ministry

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Church Logo Sample
Church names and logos represent your vision and calling--take time to carefully make your decisions.

The name of your church or ministry and your logo is the first thing people see. What impression does it give them? Does it give a message that you want? An email from a young pastor prompted this article. Following is his email and my answer that, though not exhaustive, gives some important guidelines for naming and creating a logo for a ministry or church.

The email that started the conversation about naming and branding a ministry

Yvon,
After a year and half of working with this youth group we still have the old Ignite name and logo.  I don't really like either one but am having trouble coming up with a better one.  So I was wondering what process you go through to choose names and how you finally decide on one and if you have any names you would suggest?

I would love for the name to represent our ministry well, but mostly I just want to it to help give the ministry an identity and brand so to speak.  I want to be able to get some shirts made with a simple name and logo which will spark curiosity.

A few names that have popped up are: The Bridge, Rip Tide, Altered, and Driven. What do you think of these, any suggestions?
Thanks!

Following are my suggestions:

Dear Pastor,

I commend you for thinking through these issues. Corporations spend thousands of dollars deciding questions like this and though we don't have those resources, with thought, prayer, and the Lord's guidance I have seen many churches come up with excellent solutions. Here are some thoughts and suggestions that might be helpful:

#1: Recognize that naming a ministry and creating a logo are very important.

These are not frivolous, non-ministry related actions. The group’s name, the way it is presented, the colors used, the connotations of the name and colors and the logo all give out an impression. These impressions are the first thing people see and hear and they help form their first response to your ministry.

Give yourself plenty of time, thought, and prayer as you decide. There are many resources on the web that can help with the design itself, but the suggestions that follow are all decisions you need to make before you have a graphic design implemented.

#2 The name/logo will give an identity and ministry direction to your group, so think it through carefully.

Groups will live up to their name. In my experience, when my husband Paul and I first led a Single Adult Group, we called it OASIS. We were very intentional about it and the name came from what we wanted the group to be about. Here was our thinking:

Being here in S. California, we liked the California connotation to a tropical idea, we had a palm tree and sun for our logo, it had the idea of rest, relax, recharge. More important than that, we had a ministry direction to the name we wanted the name to emphasize:

OASIS stood for:

Our Adult Singles In Service: Service to God, Service to others, Service to our world.

We worked hard to make certain everyone in the ministry knew the meaning of the name. We never allowed the name to be used in any church publication without the tagline. We did that intentionally because we wanted singles to know that singles are not to live only for themselves, but that the Bible teaches singles are to be the most involved, godly, active people in the kingdom of God. We constantly stressed that in our teaching and activities.

#3 Color is also important in your choice of a logo.

Think team colors. Our primary color for OASIS was yellow; we colored the sun in the logo that color. When we printed stuff it was always on neon yellow paper. I used to send out (before everyone had email) lots of postcards, always on yellow card stock. People referred to getting those “little yellow postcards from Yvon”

Because then the church did not have a full color printer, all our bulletin inserts, newsletters, everything, was printed on that neon yellow paper. We had yellow t-shirts with our logo on them. This was very effective when all the singles would wear them on a Sunday and it was a not-so-subtle way for the church to see that singles were involved (at that time we had about 300 of them) in all aspects of the church: choir, children’s ministry, ushers, you name it.

Also with color you have to think through your printing options, can you print in full color? How will it look if you can’t? Today, be sure to pick colors that will work on email, the web, up on PowerPoint.

Keep in mind that colors have different associations to different groups and that colors change in popularity.

#4 Think through carefully the connotations of a name

What do you want your group to be about? To be known as? This is especially challenging with a youth group, because the temptation is to focus on the impact of the name itself, (what is cool or edgy or "in" at the moment) but all words in common usage have previous connotations that you can’t ignore.

Because of that don’t only think of the current appeal of a name—think the identity you want the group to be known for, what has the Lord called you to be?

Here are a few thoughts on this topic in connection with the names you suggested:

The Bridge:

The “bridge” has lots of good connotations of unity and joining God and people and all that, but at present it is also a common church name and there is at least one church here in Ventura named “the Bridge” so that name could be confusing in your advertising and outreach material.

Rip Tide

The idea of going against the current is a good connotation, but I wouldn’t use this one because rip tides also kill people, as happens at least a few times a year in this area. It also is something you can't see, and if you are caught in one, it is very hard to get out of it. It can carry away and you'll die. None of these are great connotations for a youth group.

Altered:

This name has possibilities. It is a bit edgy and counter cultural—altered states of consciousness come to mind. But it also has some valid biblical connotations:

Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (2 Cor.5:17, NLT)

Today people alter lives and bodies for all kinds of reasons, why not for one of eternal and real value? If you are in an altered state, people usually know it—so, don’t hide who you are in Jesus!

You could come up with some interesting light/ dark/contrast sorts of logos, any strong color combination could work—this one has real possibilities

Driven

This one also has some great possibilities: ideas of direction and what is driving you and to get somewhere, who is driving you, what fuels your life, etc. Lots of biblical images of the road, the way, are obvious here.

Again, could do some neat graphic images for the logo, some contemporary ones—ideas of road trips, maps needed, lots of good analogies and design images for websites, e-newsletters, social media groups, devotions for the road, etc. could go along with this.

Also too I like the idea of this one because the term “driven” usually means someone is really committed to, sold out on what they are doing—could have some great lead-ins for challenges to discipleship and being driven by things eternal.

#5 You don't have to be where you want to be when you pick a new name/logo

As you read some of the material above, you might be hesitant as you pick a name because you know your church or ministry isn't what you want them to be. They may seem more like a dangerous rip-tide at the moment than a group of people driven to love and serve Jesus.

In situations like this, let's look at some biblical examples of naming. When God first called Gideon to deliver his people, he said:

When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior.” (Judges 6:12)

When Jesus called Peter, he said:

Jesus looked intently at Peter for a moment and then said, “You are Simon, John’s son—but you shall be called Peter, the rock!” (Jn. 1:42, TLB)

Gideon was hiding in a winepress when God called him and Peter would go on to deny Christ—both were a long way from mighty men of God they would become.

Give your ministry a name worthy of the calling God has given you. Don't settle for a name based on your current situation, but on a vision for the future and with His help, work to make it all the Lord wants it to be.

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.

_________________

 

Video introduction for long-form content and the information design needed to make it readable

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An overview of long-form design
Check out this short video to see the Information Design used to make long-form content readable.

ed. note: An apology first: I messed up on this in the first of the video, I refer to content that is "long-form" with the words, "long-term." Dumb mistake on my part, but I don't have time to redo the video now, so I ask your forgiveness. The basic ideas are so important, please ignore my brain freeze.

Long-form content means you aren't restricted to 140 character tweets or 500 word articles (what many recommend for the web) to share your ministry message or challenge. As a recent blog post discussed many organizations and publications are now putting long-form content on the web. However, for that content to be read easily, you can't just dump thousands of words on a website.

Information design is the tool that makes long-form content readable. Though we'll cover this in upcoming instructional videos and articles, this short video gives you an overview of some of the new long-form publications online and how information design makes them differ from earlier sites that simply contained lots of content.