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; Effective Church Communications can help.

Flyer to encourage church communications: You are one of the Great Ones!

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The Great Ones Flyer, image 1
This is an encouraging devotion for church communications. It is a free, ready-to-print PDF.

Church communicators work very hard at one of the most important tasks in the church and the purpose of this piece is to encourage them.

The flyer to the left is free for everyone to download and print, either to remind yourself of the incredible importance of your work or to encourage another church communicator. It is a copy of the devotion, "You are one of the Great Ones and far more important than you may realize" CLICK HERE if you want read the devotion before you download it.

It is a black and white PDF and would look very nice printed on colored or parchment-looking paper. [Read more...]

Church Communicator’s review of Six Strategies for Effective Church Communications

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Six Strategies BookI try very hard to create materials that are useful to all church communicators. I do pour heart, soul, and many prayers into them and I send them off (typos and all) trusting God that they make sense and are useful.

It is wonderful to get positive feedback from people and following is a review of Six Strategies For Effective Church Communicators. I'm passing it along because I think the author covers many of the major points of the book well.

Please if you have comments, do send them to me and please put them in the comment sections of the books and even more on my books on amazon CLICK HERE to go to that link. Your opinion is what is so important--I don't do these to talk to myself, but to serve all of you as you create communications that will help your churches fully fulfill the Great Commission.

I don't do these to talk to myself, but to serve all of you as youelp your churches fully fulfill the Great Commission.

Email review of Six Strategies of Effective Church Communications

The Six Strategies are written in a concise style and makes for quick
reading... It should be very useful to help "train" those involved with PR
and church communications (the style should make it easier to get those who
don't like to read, to at least skim through the book).

I agree wholeheartedly with all the observations, insights, strategies and
advice you give, and especially relate to, and identify with, your thoughts
that there are too many media channels to leave to one individual to
effectively communicate with, and that there should be a "communications
team" where individuals from the same "Body" work on different areas
according to their areas of familiarity.  Also, that a congregation's
communications should reflect who they are and not try to convey an image
that does not match who they are.

As I am in the printing business, I am "painfully aware" of the enormous and
fast changes happening in communications and the multitude of "channels"
that are appearing and evolving.

[ I also notice you used some expressions from the OIKOS book (great
recommendation as well... I read it, although I don't agree with all the
content, but the basic message matches what I was taught in a "Master's
Plan" bible study from the 1980s.) ]
. . . . .
Again, thank you, thank you, thank you, for what you've assembled and
written in this book.  I give this a big thumbs up!  You put into easy to
follow words, thoughts that I have had for the past few years.  Even the
bible passages caused me to smile, as I just completed working on quite a
number of them in the last few weeks for the liturgical scripture readings
in our PowerPoint for worship.

In my opinion, the only thing needed to complement the strategies of the
book is a bit more explanation of the Five Steps so readers remember them
better as they read references to The Five Steps in the strategies. But I
guess I can look forward to that in the book you will publish soon: "The
Five Steps of Effective Church Communications and Marketing".

from EW, Canada

If you want a copy of  The Six Strategies of Effective Church Communication, CLICK HERE.

Q & A: What do you use to back up files?

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Question:

Do you back up your files? What system do you recommend?

Answer:

carbonite
I use this program to back up my files. It works automatically in the background.

Summer is a good time to work on this because you don't have a major holiday to deal with and can take some time to tune up various systems in the church office. We all know the importance of backups for our work in church communications, however--just because we know we should, we don't always do them as often as we should. However, after having lost my share of important files, I now have three systems in place:

The three I use include:

1) Jump drives for when I am working on a book, publications, graphics project--I like to immediately back up important material. I don't always do this, but I try.

2) Separate hard drive: Again, I frequently back up important projects as I'm working on them on a small, but very large in capacity hard drive. This is what I tell my husband is that it is the "grab if the house if on fire" piece of hardware. I use this, even though I have an online backup system that I'll tell you about next because, first of all the backup system takes time--some files don't fully back up for a day or so. Second, I'm an old lady, not completely trusting of "the cloud." I like a tangible storage system. I use an older "Buffalo" drive, but there are newer, cheaper, bigger ones out there--just ask any tech person for a current recommendation.

3) Carbonite:( http://www.carbonite.com/en/ )I really like this program. It isn't free, it costs $59 a year (quite reasonable). What I like about it is that it works continuously in the background. I do the ones previously mentioned, but not nearly as often as I should and I sometimes forget important things. I don't have to do a thing for Carbonite to work--other than sign up. It's very easy to restore files and to transfer the system to a new computer (which I recently did).

The one thing to keep in mind with Carbonite is that the backups can seem a bit slow--but as I said it works in the background and doesn't seem to interfere with other online work. Be prepared when you first sign up for it because if you have a lot on your computer, it can take over a week--with your computer on 24/7 for it to do the initial backup. After that things seem to go quite smoothly.

What hardware, software or system you use isn't important, but here is what is

You must have an off-site backup system.

No matter how great your system in your home or church office, unexpected tragedies, weather events, and all kinds of things can happen. If a flash flood happens or a fire or an earthquake or whatever else, you might not have any time to grab your backup drive and run. You might not even be in the church office.

That is why a system like Carbonite is so useful--the backup is safe no matter if your computer and entire office is under water or burnt to a crisp.

One other important thing--be sure to email yourself--or store with a friend in another state or both the access codes to your online backups. Once again, as we've seen from the many current natural disasters, things can happen to destroy an entire community with no warning. You want to be a good servant and care well for all that is entrusted to you.

We are promised eternal security, our computers aren't

How good it is to know that no matter what tragedies happen to homes, churches, data and computers, that if we know Jesus as our Saviour--we will make it home to heaven. Secure, loved, eternally protected far beyond the guarantees of any earthy software online or off.

If you aren't sure of your eternal security with Jesus, you might enjoy reading:

Have you closed with Jesus?

Effective Delegation—The Ultimate Balancing Act, part one

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Gayle Hilligoss Picture
Article by Gayle Hilligoss

Ed. note: There are many misunderstandings about delegation in the church office and I love it that Gayle starts out this article with sharing what it is not. We so often make the mistakes of believing these misconceptions and it keeps us from getting all the work done that needs to be done. Read her advice and learn to delegate with joy.

In church offices there are very often more tasks to do than hands to do them. As the ministry assistant you may see every job as yours alone. But, no matter how sincere the effort, so doing is seldom the best use of your time. Whenever you perform work that someone else could do, you are keeping yourself from the very important responsibilities that only you can do. One good way to multiply your time is through delegation.

Successful delegation involves more than assigning tasks. Success actually starts with the mindset of the person doing the delegating. It is essential to understand delegation is not:

• shirking your own responsibilities
• dumping unwanted work on another
• abdicating accountability
• taking advantage of anyone

Today’s wise supervisors recognize delegation as an indispensable management skill that allows assistants to balance the many demands of ministry with a realistic assessment of what can be done personally. Alleffective

managers delegate.

• Delegate? Who to?
If you are the office manager and supervise assistants, most often you delegate to them. If you are an assistant, volunteers are a good choice. Actually, recruits is a better word—you want to choose your helpers.

• Be clear about your goals.
The process begins by writing down very specifically what the job is, deadlines involved, and any necessary instructions. I hear you thinking, “I could do the job myself in the time it takes to do that.” If that is truly the case and this is a one-time task, go ahead and do it yourself. Otherwise, follow through and invest a little time now to save big time later.

• Choose personnel carefully.
Issuing a blanket announcement for volunteers is not the best idea. It may take more time (that again!) but it is better to match the tasks you have in mind with specific people suited for those tasks. Everyone can do something, but not everyone can do everything.

Many churches distribute annual talent surveys. Members indicate interests and skills they are willing to share. Surveys are a great tool to use when considering who might do what.

• Give adequate instruction.
The amount of guidance necessary varies with the task, but short written directions are advisable for all but the most basic. Even for simple jobs, give a demonstration and leave a sample of what the finished product should look like. Folding a brochure correctly is second nature for you; it may not be for your willing helper.

• Assign authority.
While you as supervisor are ultimately accountable, as much as possible let the recruit “own” the job and have the authority to manage it. On complex jobs where multiple volunteers have areas of authority, plan to avoid gaps or overlaps. The idea is to retain your position as leader while demonstrating your respect for the efforts of others and your trust in their abilities.

______________________

To go to Part Two, CLICK HERE

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