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.

5 ways to keep college freshmen out of your church

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Church communications for college students
College is a time to search for answers, consider carefully if you want them to search at your church (and I hope you do).

You know the group, the newly graduated from high school, the ones you are glad to see off to college. You might be happy you don't need to deal with their questions, challenges, and whining anymore, but somebody has to.

Fortunately USAToday (8-21-2012, by Mary Beth Marklein) just published an article, "What makes cyber-weaned college freshman click?" that provides some insight into these thorns in your flesh and how we can keep their disruptive influence out of our churches.

According to the article, here are a few phrases that describe them:

  • "Addicted to all things electronic and 'think nothing of texting a friend whom they know is only a block away.'"
  • "Electronically far more sophisticated than their parents or teachers."
  • "A generation with an average of 241 social media friends, but they have trouble communicating in person."

The perceptive among us can see that digital communication is very important to this group

Therefore, following are 5 ways you can use this to your advantage to keep them out of your church: [Read more...]

Video for your end-of-summer encouragement: When life gets stormy

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As summer draws to an end (or winter progresses if you live in that hemisphere...forgive the mixed up seasons), we sometimes feel like we are in a storm of things that need to get done. Life seemed to be sailing along smoothly and then BAM! We get hit with waves we didn't expect.

If we are following Jesus, we need to remind ourselves that though He never promised smooth sailing He does promise to bring us safely home. Though we know our ultimate safety is assured, it helps to be reminded that the shorter journeys on the way are also under His control. To help you remember and be encouraged, I created this video for you.

This was created using the fantastic Free images from FREE BIBLE IMAGES, http://www.freebibleimages.org.
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Don’t let your people be destroyed by what you don’t communicate

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Challenge from Jesus
Jesus entrusted us with the words of eternal life. We must know His words well to communicate them effectively. (image from FreeBibleImages)

". . . .my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also reject you as my priests.. . . .a people without understanding will come to ruin!" Hosea 4: 6, 14

The responsibility of Christian communicators goes far beyond being sure we select a pleasing typeface and attractive images or using the latest social media to connect with our congregations. We have been entrusted with the words of eternal life. The Great Commission outlines our tasks: we are to share the good news of salvation in Jesus alone and grow followers into disciples. In all of it we are to speak the truth in love.

In addition, as these verses reminded me, not only are we personally responsible for faithfully communicating the truth we have been entrusted with, but our success or failure in doing that has lasting consequences for the people we reach out to, lead, and train. If we don't know the mind of God, if we don't know what is on His heart and His view of what is important, of what good to do and what sins to avoid, we won't communicate that to our people. [Read more...]

What is the voice of your communications?

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I've been listening, studying, considering a lot of videos recently as I work on a major renovation of my church communication YouTube Channel. I've focused on two areas for my unscientific, random research:

1.  Some of the most popular videos as identified by the USA TODAY listing. This list in itself is a significant cultural shift point here and one churches need to note--USA TODAY now fills about a third of  the day's television schedule with what it considers important website videos.
2.  Specifically educational videos, everything from Ted Talks and Khan Academy to home-schooling English lessons and Bible teaching online.

Aside from the obvious differences in content, one thing that has struck me forcefully is the tone, the voice of various videos.

Many of the videos in "most popular" category on YouTube are of people speaking loudly, often outrageously and profanely. I'm not a fan and not familiar with these current small screen sensations, but the same voice of snarky superiority  seems to characterize many of them. Another characteristic voice of many is outrageous and angry, while self-assured of their right to be outrageous and angry. If a smirk can be translated into a voice, this is a base note of many.

After a short exposure to some of them, it was obvious who was listening to who, who was a follower, a disciple of this tone of voice. The current celebrity source is easy to identify; the spiritual source a little more challenging, but it is clear who it is not from. It is clearly not from Jesus.

The contrasting voice of Jesus

What does Jesus voice sound like? Though the entire Bible is literally his Word, his voice to us,  the following passage from John 10 is instructive. I've italicized the passages pertaining to Jesus voice--consider them as you read:

[Read more...]

What is really difficult about YouTube and what it teaches us about church communication

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The popular perception of YouTube is that it is really simple, easy, and anybody can slap up a video. In addition--if it is catchy, funny, or inspiring enough that the video will go viral and the video creator will gain immediate fame and fortune.

It really doesn't work that way.

I've spent a lot of time on YouTube lately trying to understand how it works and how I can make the most of it to equip and inspire church communicators. Part of that has been to study some of the popular producers and to look the advice YouTube gives on realistically how to make a video channel that will have significant impact on the audience you want to reach. My first conclusion is that it is much, much harder and more difficult than I imagined.

At the same time, if you follow their instructions--which require a tremendous amount of time and precise, repetitive work--chances are you will achieve your goals.

One set of instructions is their Creator Playbook

Without going into details, which I am very much in the process of learning and trust you will see the results of, I want to share the Creator Playbook from YouTube. CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE to go to download the ebook--it's free for anyone who wants it.

The Creator Playbook has 91 pages of how-tos. The book is one of the most useful, well-written and laid out of any ebook I've seen in a long time. It is worth the time to download it simply to study the structure.

More than that, it is a reality check. If I want to use video effectively to help train church communicators (and notice I said help train, not everyone is into video and I will continue to practice what I preach on the need for multi-channel communication) that it will take lots of time, work, focus, and prayer for understanding to make it work. The big and splashy aren't what count--it is learning how to do many new, repetitive, tasks:adding annotations, creating playlists, release schedule, better links, captions, descriptions--learning how to use analytics. Yet when I get past the initial, "Oh, my....how will I ever do this?" --there is also a growing excitement of how powerful the final results can be and awe of the incredible tools the Lord has given us.

How this YouTube experience applies to church communications [Read more...]