Effective Church Communications

You are not a computer, remember to rest

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You must take time to rest.
You must take time to rest if you want to be an effective church communicator.

Genesis 33:14 So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the droves before me and that of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir."

Jacob was sensitive to the possibility of driving his flocks and children too hard. A present-day application is that we need to remember in our computer creation of ministry communications and marketing that human beings have limits.

The computer doesn't. You keep it plugged in and it doesn't stop. It doesn't get tired or need to stretch or take a coffee break. It will also do things perfectly again and again and it doesn't get bored.

People aren't like that. People get tired and bored. They complain and get sick. If pushed too heard they may break beyond repair.

Some recent studies have suggested that people look at themselves and other people differently after working with computers. They are harder on people and less tolerant. They push themselves beyond healthful levels in time spent working on computer projects.

This can be a strong area of witness for Christians in the computer world. We know the true value of people. They are not machines, but precious creatures of God to be cared for.

We know the true value of time and work. We know our times and success are in God's hands. We know God has designed a Sabbath rest every seven days to remind us that there is a time to stop working and trust him.

When you are tempted to work past your physical limits, remember you don't work for a god of technology that never tires but one who said, "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest .... I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:28-30).
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Devotions Cover The above material is from: Devotions for Church Communicators. For a complete copy of the book in print and online formats, CLICK HERE.

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Why you shouldn’t plan too far ahead in church communications

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Plan ahead in your church communications, but do so cautiously.
Plan ahead in your church communications, but do so with wisdom and prayer.

At the start of the year, it's natural to want to do some planning, but planning can be both a positive and a negative thing. It's always challenging as I was reminded when several churches have asked how to create a communication plan for the next five to seven years. Each of them has mentioned that new technology can be costly and they want to be prepared, in their budgeting and for training. Though I admire their desire to be good stewards, planning ahead for five years in church communications, especially when it involves trying to figure out technology needs, is futile.

Could you have envisioned your communication world today five years ago?

Think about it. Five years ago, could you:

  • Have  imagined or planned for the iPhone and iPad?
  • Known texting would be a major way your youth group would communicate and your youth pastor would need a high-end mobile phone?
  • Have known that skill with Facebook  would be useful, if not essential, when you hire a church secretary?
  • Imagined that Tweeting would be a skill your senior Pastor might want to learn? Even known the meaning of Tweeting or that social media in any form would be able to overturn governments and raise millions for charity? [Read more...]

YOU CAN DO IT! all the church communications you need to do, in-house, using your people, and at low cost

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You can do it! All you need to in church communications.
You can do it! All you need to in church communications.

For your church communications, we've come a long way since the start of the digital revolution.  As we've progressed, more and more of the tasks of communication that were difficult have become easier with the development of resources that enable your church to create cost-effective and professional results, in all areas of church communications.

I've launched this website to help you;  I've got lots of resources designed to help you and more will be released on a continuing basis. I trust the information here will give you  inspiration and practical training, but overall, again, and again, outside whatever I can provide, my core message  is YOU CAN DO IT!

YOU, in your church, with your people can create all the communications you need to reach the people the Lord called you to reach and to grow your congregation to Christian maturity.

The Lord calls and gifts his people to do his work-you may not feel like, you may not want to, but no matter how quickly changing the technology, no matter how old or young you are, no matter where your church is located or how small your budget, you can do all the communications you need to win your community to Jesus and to help your people grow in their faith.

Following are expanded reasons why you can and should do your communications work in-house, in your church, by your church people.

Content is primary and should be personal

In your communication ministry periodically it's important to remind ourselves why we communicate anything at all in the church. We are doing it to fully fulfill the Great Commission given to us by Jesus to go into all the world, preach the gospel, and make disciples. It isn't the technology that we use that is of primary importance, but the content of our message.

Though the core message of every church, salvation in Jesus, is the same for every church, every church will express the gospel in its own unique way and no one can express it better to the audience your church is called to reach than the people in your church. [Read more...]

Four reasons for busy ministry folks to reconsider Twitter

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People in ministry are busy people. We have work to do. Ministries to run; people needing us and more to fill our days than there are hours in the day. The last thing we need is some new social networking something after we’ve been Linkedin and Facebooked and whatever else somebody said we had to try. Then along comes Twitter, which seemed like the most useless of all. If you thought those thoughts, as I did, here are four reasons I am now tweeting :

Reason #1: Twitter has changed; matured might be a better word

Early on, I would sum up most of the Twitterverse as simply, “ME, ME, ME.”

I signed up for Twitter early on, but after reading a number of people’s tweets, I found myself honestly disgusted by the self-absorbed trivia and self-indulgent life-styles shared by many.

This blather was in response to the Twitter  question you are supposed to answer which is “What are you doing?”

 I do care what folks I care about are doing, but I really don’t have time to read about every time they make a sandwich or that it’s time to go to bed or who they are meeting for coffee. You have no idea how either boring some people’s lives are or what secret party animals they are until you read hour-by-hour tweets—and I find I really don’t want to know.

After checking it out for a time, I forgot all about the Twitter and the Twitter account I set up, using my name, yvonprehn. Though I forgot  all about my Twitter account, Google had not.

I started getting emails that people were “following” me. Guilt is my middle name and I felt so bad that people had signed up for something that wasn’t thre, so I thought   maybe I’d look at it again. I discovered a different world and learned that now many people, ministries and companies, use Twitter to post material that is extremely useful to other people.

I started reading and researching and this is indeed the trend. The following advice comes from http://tedchris.posterous.com/ where he advises, in response to the “what are you doing?” question that people :

“Don't take the update question literally”

Instead he says you should ask yourself:

“ What can you share that might interest others?"   

 He continues with this advice: “You could provide a thought, a quote, an article, a provocative question, a video, a picture, a funny turn of phrase --  or just "retweet" what someone else has shared.  The best way to have a great experience on Twitter is to figure out your own way of giving your followers and potential followers something they'll like.”

The thing that is key here (and I’m still working on this on my new Titter account yvonprehn), is that if people signed up to follow you and you have a business or other area of expertise, that is what people expect to get tweets about. For example, I follow the pastor, John Piper. He is known as a conservative Bible teacher and his tweets are always about the Bible. He’s very good at packing a thought-provoking challenge into 140 characters.

I like that. I prefer a person who stays on topic. One unnamed Christian writer, whose writing I really admired in the past, rambles and babbles in his tweets and I’ve yet to read anything of substance in the endless lists of places he eats at and what his wife orders. Makes me wonder who edits the books he puts out.

#2 The development  and my discovery of URL shortening websites.

Twitter only allows 140 character entries. But one of the things that makes Twitter useful and not just self-indulgent,  is the ability to direct people to useful websites, but if the URL takes up half your tweet, they might not even know what the URL is for.

 For example: http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/03/the-ultimate-guide-for-everything-twitter/  is the link to an extremely useful site about Twitter.

The previous sentence is 152 characters, 12 over the Twitter limit.

To solve the problem and help make Twitter truly useful, along comes URL shortening websites. One of my favorite is www.tinyurl.com. It’s an incredibly simple site to use. You simply copy in the long URL, hit “make tiny URL” and it turns the URL above into:

http://tinyurl.com/djnho6

One other really good use for the URL shortening is for linking to Bible passages. I’ve just started a tweet about my daily Bible reading(follow me on: yvonsbiblebits). I was frustrated because I was not able to include a Bible passage and I couldn’t link to a Bible passage. You can put in a reference, but I wanted people to be able to directly click to the passage from the Tweet and you couldn’t do that. I like to link to passages in the Bible Gateway, but again, you have the long URL issue.

For example, here is John 14:1-9 in www.biblegateway.com:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%2014:1-9&version=31

And after tinyurl:

http://tinyurl.com/kqp2n2

That fit into my tweet.

3) All the fun things they do with a “T”

We all need a laugh in the deadly seriousness of life and Twitter makes me laugh at its Twictionary, a few examples:

Twaggle
A bunch of followers.

Twaigslist
To sell something via Twitter.

Twaiting
Twittering while waiting for something.

Tweeterbox
Someone who Tweets too much.

Tweetard
Someone acting like an idiot on Twitter.

Tweetheart
Another way to refer to friends on Twitter.

TweetIn
A group of users agree on a set time to Twitter to each other.

Twittworking
Networking with other Twitter users.

Twoogle
Twitter as the human version of Google, since you can post a question and get instant results.

Twoops
Sending a private message to Twitter by accident.

Twurvey
A survey conducted over Twitter.

There is more from the Twittonary: http://www.twittonary.com/

#4 It’s a form of social networking that fits into my busy life

Many people in ministry today know they ought to be doing some kind of “social networking.” I feel the pressure also. But Facebook gives me a headache. I tried; I have a page, but I just can’t figure out what to do with it. I’m not into endless picture taking and posting and writing on walls and joining groups.  I feel guilty--I consider family uses (my niece and nephew have babies), I'm considering having one for my ministry--but right now, Facebook is a core. Yet, I know social networking;  I know making connections is important.  Other ones just haven’t seemed worth the effort.

When I realized I didn’t have to talk about myself and could share something useful on Twitter, I got interested and the 140 character limit of Twitter is a wonderful limitation. It is a way to share about my ministry, update people, link them to useful information and do it in tiny bits of time. I don’t have to do a Constant Contact layout or agonize over a blog. One little 140 character burst of information and I feel I’ve contributed; I’ve updated folks; I’ve been internet social.

Now back to work. To follow me on Twitter:   www.Twitter.com/yvonprehn

 

Listen now to Yvon Prehn's interview on BlogTalk Radio by Chris Walker, the Evangelism Coach

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I had a great time on my hour-long interview with Chris Walker, aka, The Evangelism Coach, last Thursday.

If you weren't able to listen to it live, you can  listen to the interview by clicking on the link below and from there clicking on the BlogTalk Radio file.

http://www.evangelismcoach.org/2009/how-to-get-church-visitor-contact-information/

While you are there, take some time and look around Chris' website—he has quite a few great resources for evangelism.

He has also written a book on How to Welcome Church Visitors, that has lots of helpful tips in it.