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.

Church communicators—who you really are

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Devotions for Church Communicators
This devotion will remind you of the immense and eternal importance of the work you do.

It's easy to get buried in the burden of work required of any committed church communicator. Your world can easily narrow to a computer screen and a list of seemingly endless projects that all need to be done now. When you feel overwhelmed, it's also easy to forget that in many ways the immensity of your challenges is a correct representation of the eternal importance and value of your work. I wrote the following devotion to remind you of it: 

You are the Great Ones and far more than important than you may realize

Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. (Dan. 12:3)

Often when I ask someone who has come to one of my church communication seminars what they do in the church, they often respond by saying something like: "Oh, I'm just the church secretary" or "Oh, I just help work on the church newsletter" and similar self-deprecating statements.

My heart is broken when I hear that because the person who says it (and you may have thought similar things about yourself) has no idea of their true worth. Let me explain what I mean by sharing a story from a scene in C. S. Lewis' book, The Great Divorce. In this scene the main character is being escorted around heaven. He sees a woman coming toward him magnificently clothed and attended to by a great procession. The book goes on:

"Is it?...is it?" I whispered to my guide.

"Not at all," said he, "It's someone ye'll never have heard of. Her name on earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green."

"She seems to be . . . well, a person of particular importance?"

"Aye. She is one of the great ones. Ye have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things." [Read more...]

Progress, not perfection is what’s important in church communications

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We can't implement every communication challenge, but we can make progress.
We can't implement every communication challenge, but we can make progress.

As I finished the article: 9 essentials to prepare your church website for Easter,  I realized that though all the points are important and truly essential for a church website, to carry out all of them before Easter may be impossible for many churches.

That's OK.

Take a deep breath, relax. Have a cup of tea.

Even if you only get one or two areas updated on your website before Easter you will have made progress in better communicating what your church is about and how to find Jesus.

In some ways this ECC site is like a fashion or home-decorating magazine

What I mean by that is that almost nobody really dresses like the women in fashion magazines or has a home that looks like the ones in home decorating magazines. These are ideal images, goals, visions of style to strive towards. [Read more...]

What to do when you’ve been asked to lead a conference or training session, part four

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Some final tips to help your presentation be all it can be.
Some final tips to help your presentation be all it can be.

Ed. note: In Part One and Part Two Gayle covered the important foundational challenges in putting together your material for leading a conference or training session. Part Three covered putting the presentation together--and step-by-step Gayle will help you do that successfully. This final part ends with some invaluable personal advice.

What to wear?
Appearance plays an important part in how the audience perceives you. Assessments may be accurate or completely off base, but they will be made. To think otherwise is to be into major denial.

Clothes provide a strong non-verbal message. Two good guidelines for presenters:

• Dress up a notch. A jacket always gives a skirt or pants and blouse a touch of authority.

• “Wear” your profession. Dress for the role you are filling. You are a Christian professional in a role of leadership to other Christian professionals.

Clothes can make statements. A woman presenter expresses thoughtful listening as she gracefully puts her hands in her skirt pockets. She shows a move to informality by removing her jacket during a small group discussion time. A wise presenter chooses footwear allowing her to keep her mind on her work not on her tootsies.

Now is also a good time to review your hair style and makeup. Usually it is not a good idea to make drastic changes to your appearance just before your  presentation; to do so may only serve to make you self-conscious. Subtle changes are often confidence builders though, so have a good haircut and spruce up your makeup. [Read more...]

Challenges to all church communicators from Catholicism Inc.

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We all have much to learn from the current changes taking place in the Catholic church.
We all have much to learn from the current changes taking place in the Catholic church.

An op-ed article in The New York Times, "Catholicism Inc." by Bill Keller not only challenges the Catholic Church with some suggestions for change during this time of transition between popes, but it inspired me to make some communication suggestions for all churches, based on his ideas. What follows are quotes from the article, and then communication applications suggested by the quotes:

Catholicism is mostly a service industry . . . .  and its deliverables have stood the test of millenniums: instruction in how to live a good life, sacraments to consecrate major milestones, comfort in times of distress, the cleansing therapy of confession, penance and absolution, a sense of place in the universal order and the promise of a celestial payoff. . . . .There is still a robust market for the faith. The problem — evident in the waning confidence of the customers as well as the rising market share of evangelical start-ups . . . is with the management.

Communication application: Though we might use different terms to describe the benefits of our individual churches, a common denominator is that our gracious Creator has met every need of the human soul now and for eternity in the freely offered salvation provided by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, or as he says, "The fundamental problems are not in the catalog."

He goes on to lay the cause for the problems with the management of our churches and church communications are a key part of that.  If the core message of salvation is not getting across to your audience, if new people aren't coming to know Jesus as Savior and growing to mature disciples, if they are not sharing the good news with their friends, practicing their spiritual gifts, and being salt and light in their world, the problem is not with the culture or media or lack of time or the crippling demands of the modern world—the problem is with us, the managers, the communicators. We have to take responsibility  for what is happening our church if the message we preach and teach (or assume we do) isn't a reality in changing lives before we can make necessary changes. [Read more...]

What to do when you’ve been asked to lead a conference or training session, part three

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With all the preparation done, here's how to put it all together.
With the preparation done, here's how to put it all together.

Ed. note: In Part One and Part Two Gayle covered all the important foundational challenges in putting together your material for leading a conference or training session. Now for the real work of putting the presentation together--and step-by-step Gayle will help you do that successfully.

Composing your presentation

Putting material together effectively is by far the most challenging part of any presentation. Therefore, never commit to leading a conference about something you don’t really know or care about. You will likely not pay the price in preparation on such a topic. As a result, both you and your audience will get short-changed.

The skill of presentation allows a great deal of freedom for the creative process. You will eventually develop your own particular blueprint for putting together your conferences. Include at least these basic steps.

• Identify your specific goal. What exactly do you want those attending your conference to gain from the experience? To be most effective, make sure that everything involved in your presentation is compatible with your goal.

• Gather facts. Start with what you know firsthand. Add information from current media. Get input from as many reliable references as possible; keep detailed notes regarding your sources. Never overlook the obvious. The information you think everyone already knows may be precisely what many need to hear for the first time or as a reminder.

• Develop ideas on how to present your facts. Anecdotes, illustrations, or even appropriate jokes will give impact to a point you want to make. Whenever possible, demonstrate. Showing how is always better than just telling how. [Read more...]