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.

Leaders for effective church communications, essential characteristics and skills needed

By 1 Comment

Communication Coordinator
Finding an effective church Communication Coordinator is an important and challenging task, this article will show you what to look for.

Previously we talked about how church and ministry leaders can't be expected to do all the all the communications work and how a team is an answer to this challenge.

Once the decision is made to find someone to head up the church communications team, then these questions come up:

  • Should the church or ministry hire a professional designer specifically to do church communications?
  • Should they use a professional volunteer or make communication creation part of a staff position?
  • Or should it be a full-time position?
  • What should a church look for in skills? Attitudes?
  • Should the person do all the work, or should they train a team?

We'll look at some of the issues and answers in this post.

Keep first things first—Spiritual Maturity is the most important characteristic to look for

In the same way that a church would not hire a senior pastor simply based on the person's charismatic appeal as a public speaker without evaluating the spiritual maturity, shepherding skills, and godly character of the candidate, the spiritual and servant qualities of a church communications coordinator are equally important. The job involves far more than putting pretty images and catchy phrases on the print and digital communications of the church. The job is a strategic, core, ministry position. Church communicators are responsible for expressing the message of your church and the words of eternal life. The following list of characteristics are essential and following this list, they will be discussed in detail. You will notice that none of them say anything about technical or design skills-I am assuming those skills as a given or the person would not be applying for the job. What follows are the spiritual essentials. Someone can always be trained if their skills are not what we would like them to be. It is much more difficult to change a heart. That's why the following skills are essential for someone wanting to lead a team to produce effective church communications:

Essential characteristics for a church communication coordinator

  • A church communication coordinator must have a servant's heart.
  • A church communication coordinator must understand the scope of communications needed.
  • A church communication coordinator must understand what he or she can personally create and what to delegate.
  • A church communication coordinator must be totally committed to fully fulfilling the Great Commission.
  • A church communication coordinator must be willing to continuously learn and to train others.

A ministry communicator must have a servant's heart

Any decision on hiring a person for church communications should always be looked at as part of the overall ministry of the church, with a strong emphasis on the word "ministry." To minister means to serve and I've seen churches get into huge problems when they hire someone who may be a good graphic artist or designer, but who does not have a servant's heart and who does not understand the unique challenges of communications work IN the church, as opposed to secular design work. Communications and design work in a church setting is usually a collaboration, often with people who have no design or writing skills or understanding of the time and effort required to create spectacular graphic or Internet design work. A Sunday School teacher who needs a simple flyer, a men's ministry director who wants a brochure for the men's retreat often won't care about font choice, white space, or cutting-edge graphics-they just want their PR done. To help them do it or get one done quickly because they forgot work deadlines-these sorts of challenges will be constant and if not approached with a servant's heart, the communication coordinator's job will be constant frustration and misery. The function of church communication is to make a message clear and to involve people in events, not wow them with great design impact. The design person will rarely if ever be thanked or acknowledged for their creative genius and they will be often attacked for seemingly petty reasons. The way in which a typo, a left-out announcement, or a change in a publication can be raised to the status of personal insult and heretical rebellion is unimaginable if you haven't personally experienced it. A servant's heart, and a very tough, yet tender one, is needed for this job.

A ministry communicator must understand the scope of communications needed

The Five Steps of Effective Church Communications and Marketing

Often when a church staff considers hiring a church communications coordinator, they primarily think in terms of the overall bulletin, newsletter, website, possibly social media, and a few other assorted communication pieces for special events. In reality, these pieces represent only a small percentage of the total number of communications necessary for an effective communications ministry in any church. Unless both the church and the person doing the work understand all that is truly needed in communications for a church to function and grow, they will have problems.

PLEASE take time to look at the chart and read the article on The 5 Steps of Effective Church Communications. This will give you an idea of the volume and type of materials you need to produce for a truly effective communication ministry in your church that will get people into the church, involve them in the church, and grow them to Christian maturity. Your communication coordinator must understand this system and be committed to it for your church communication program to be an active tool in helping your church fully fulfill the Great Commission. At the start of the hiring or volunteer recruiting process you need to clearly define all the work that needs to be done and then clearly communicate your expectations for getting it done. When you look at The 5 Steps chart, it is easy to be overwhelmed with the amount of work that needs to be done. That is a correct assessment of the situation. There is an overwhelming amount of work-we are communicating to alter the eternal destinies of people. What is important to understand is that all the work can't be done by just one person. That is why the following characteristic is also vitally important:

A church communication coordinator must understand what he or she can personally create and what to delegate

To get all the communications work done that you need to, it's important to divide your church communication production in the following way and to recruit more people to help in the overall communication ministry. In addition, if you understand these two levels it helps to define the job description for your communication coordinator. These two levels are explained in more detail in the article, The Two Production Levels of Effective Church Communication, but a brief summary/review follows:

1. The PR Communication Level

2. The Ministry Communication Level

It is important to understand these two levels in terms of:

1) the communications produced in each one,

2) who does the communications and

3) the guidelines and standards for each one.

For both of the levels described below, keep in mind the publications can be in either print or digital formats.

The PR Communication Level

  1. Communications produced: overall pieces that represent the church, such as the logo, stationary, business cards, primary bulletin, newsletter, major outreach pieces, primary website and social media, and major ministry brochures.
  2. Communications producer: usually a staff person, often the communication coordinator, whose job may or may not have other responsibilities. The larger the church, the more it is recommended that the church hire someone specifically to create and oversee communications. This could also be done by a volunteer who has the time and commitment to work closely with the church staff.
  3. Communications standards: usually somewhat strict, as these pieces reflect the overall vision and reputation of the church.

Ministry Communication Level

  1. Communications produced: everything else in the church outside the communications listed above, from very simple notices, lessons, flyers and announcements to more complex communication projects.
  2. Communications producers: THIS IS IMPORTANT: here a staff person, such as your communications coordinator, or perhaps a key volunteer may oversee, train, encourage and help, but that person cannot do everything needed for a complete communication ministry in the church, nor should they. Ideally, every ministry in the church (children's, youth, men's, women's, etc.) should have at least one person who can help do the communications needed for that ministry. At this level, the church communications coordinator becomes a coach and encourager.
  3. Communications standards: much more flexible. You do not need the same standards of design or perfection for a one-time postcard that is going to remind the guys of the men's breakfast that you do for the four-color, outreach brochure for the church. If you are too hard on volunteers, they'll quit. People do improve in communication creation skills with time, training and encouragement and the ministry communication person needs to decide what is really important in standards and what is picky personal preference. Train to bring up to important standards and let the personal preference issues slide.

The church communication coordinator must be totally committed to fully fulfilling the Great Commission

Fully fulfilling the Great Commission means to make disciples. The articles on discipleship (please take time to read the article at this link) on this site go into detail on why this is so important, but this core characteristic cannot be overlooked. I have seen so much in the over twenty years I have traveled and taught church communications, but one thing that continuously amazes me is how obvious it is when church communications are created with the glory of God, obedience to the Great Commission, and the fulfillment of God's purposes as the primary goals, how God blesses that church.

What is also often amazing to me is that the person responsible for this kind of work varies tremendously in their formal training or skills. Some have training in writing, design, and advertising; some have no formal training at all. Some are young and new at their job; some have worked in the church office from the days of typing blue stencils. The one thing that unites all these men and women, that comes out clearly as we chat is for each of them, no matter what it takes in time, training, discovering skills, tools, or tips, the primary goal of their communications work is they want people to find Jesus and to grow as his disciple. They are truly the Great Ones. Their churches are growing. Though challenging, there is often joy in the church office and the challenges of their jobs. Sadly, I also meet a smaller number who bring me what on the surface appear as beautiful church communications: often glossy printing, impeccable design, clever writing. However, the person presenting these items is often angry or frustrated because:

  • People at the church don't appreciate them.
  • They can't get all the rest of the church communications to match up to their standards.
  • They had no idea that working in a church would be this hard.
  • They are astounded that people are not responding and want to know who to blame, because the problem is certainly not with their design.

I'm never certain what to say because I usually sense the person asking really doesn't want an answer but an ally to agree with their anger. But I can't. When I suggest perhaps a spiritual solution-time spent in humble prayer to discern the Lord's will and answer and a reminder that God can't bless our work when we are fighting with those with whom we work and serve-sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes tears appear and the person says, "I never realized this was a ministry."  There is hope for that communication ministry.

Sometimes, my suggestions are dismissed with barely concealed contempt and my advice relegated to the, "What does she know about it?" category. In this situation there is also an often unspoken, "what does prayer have to do with people not appreciating me?" Things probably won't get better at that church and often the person finds work in a secular setting where their skills can be used without the spiritual baggage.

Please don't dismiss the necessity for spiritual maturity in a communication coordinator as unrealistic. God does not need anyone, no matter how talented to get out his message, but he can use anyone if their heart is right. The Bible is filled with stories of ordinary people who God used to do extraordinary tasks. People can be trained for any skill if willing, but training a heart to care about the Great Commission is more challenging. Find a person with a good and godly heart who cares passionately that people come to know Jesus-that is what is most important in a church communication coordinator.

A church communication coordinator must be willing to continuously learn

Though a good heart with a proper focus on fully fulfilling the Great Commission is essential, it is irresponsible to not train the person with the good heart in the practical skills they need to be a proficient church communicator. In this area, we ought not lie to ourselves or to our communications coordinator by thinking that skills training in church communications is easy, quick, or once done, taken care of. On the contrary, to be a skilled church communicator you must:

  • Master many complex skills: writing, design, layout, typography, media, marketing
  • Learn new and ever upgrading and changing software and digital skills
  • Master production using the computer and other church office equipment
  • Learn how to integrate and create communications in print, online, and in whatever new channel appears
  • Manage people, pray for wisdom and peace in leading and organizing a team
  • Constantly be open to new ideas, skills, tips, insights
  • Do it all with an impossibly low budget and crushing deadlines

Though the challenges are constant, the church must attempt to provide the time, money, and encouragement for needed training. The church communication coordinator must be open to continuously learning, but the opportunities for it must be available. Don't even think about hiring or designating a church communication coordinator if you do not commit to support, train, pray for, and encourage that person. Effective Church Communications has many resources, links, and recommendations to enable you to do this. Much is free, many excellent resources and the membership subscription cost for our training videos is very little.In addition, a membership in Effective Church Communications is for the entire church, so any of the resources, templates, ebooks, and training videos can be freely shared with other staff members and communication volunteers.

In addition to training and tools, the most important training gift you can give to any church communication coordinator is the gift of time. As part of their job description, block out time, several hours each week, where that person is assured of completely uninterrupted time to read articles, take an online class, try things to improve their skills and help equip volunteers. If you do that, your church communications will be more effective and your church will grow.

Finally, it isn't easy to hire a church communication coordinator, but it is worth it

It isn't easy to find a person with all the spiritual and practical skills to do an effective job. Most likely you will have to help train and mold someone into the position. A significant amount of prayer and time is required, but essential because your ministry communicator and their team will be the ones who will literally incarnate the message of your church to your community.

Christmas encouragement for church communicators

By 4 Comments

Take 2 minutes to watch this short video and remember that because of all the hard work you are doing this Christmas season that heaven will be different.

With my love and prayers for all of you for a wonderful Christmas,
Yvon

How to get the most from the job you love–in good and challenging times

By Leave a Comment

How to make the most of your job
Every job has good and challenging aspects--our job is to make the best of any situation.

Ed. note: one of the things I love about this article is that it challenges all of us to take responsibility in our job satisfaction. Gayle gives us some very practical advice to make the most of every challenge we face to make a great job even better.

You love your job. You know what you do is important. You perform your tasks well. You are a giver and thrive on serving others. Still, you recognize a certain sense of dissatisfaction with your work. Why? [Read more...]

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

By Leave a Comment

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...]

What church leaders need to do for their church communication creators

By Leave a Comment

This article is for church leaders and those who oversee church communicators. You are responsible for the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the people who create your communications. Their job is vital to the growth and success of the church, but often they do their job under very difficult circumstances.

Please consider the following suggestions to help you effectively pastor and shepherd these vital members of your church team. They do so much for the church, following is what you can do for them:

{+}

Realize the important place communications and church communicators play in the overall strategic success of your church

"What people haven't heard about they can't take action about. Uncommunicated issues DON'T EXIST." Stuart Brand

"Why is communication so vitally important to the health and vitality of the local church? Communication is the means by which we reach our ministry goals. You cannot find a healthy, growing church that is plagued by ineffective communications. Such an animal simply does not exist. If your church is going to maximize its potential, it is  imperative that you understand the communication process and constantly strive to upgrade how well you and others in your church communicate." George Barna, Marketing the Church

No matter how Bible-based, prayed over and passionate you are about your vision for the church, if it is not sequentially, clearly, consistently, and repeatedly communicated to your church, it will not happen. Today, the role of your church communicator in making your vision real has grown in importance because of two primary reasons:

  1. In our post-Christian world people don't have the unthinking understanding of churches that they did in the past. Church is not a part of people's lives today in the same way it was in the past and because of that, your church needs to be much more intentional about its communicators than ever before. This often requires that either a person be hired with the specific role of Church Communicator or Director of Church Communications, or in a church where the administrative assistant or church secretary has to juggle many responsibilities, where the title of Church Communicator is at least a professional part of that person's job description.
  2. The demands of technology and multi-channel communications make it necessary. In the past when the church had one communication tool: the church bulletin and one way to produce it: the typewriter, communication was still extremely important, but it was much easier to manage that task for the church secretary in the midst of the many other demanding tasks in the church office. Today when many kinds of communications produced through many channels: print, PowerPoint, web, social media are needed by churches, the role of the church communicator is more important than ever.

Because the role of church communicator is vital to the success of your church today, you need to support, involve, train, and encourage that person so they can serve the church most effectively. Following are some suggestions on how to do that.

 

Include your church communicator in strategic staff meetings

No matter what the communicators role is in the meetings—whether they can contribute to the discussion or not, whether their input is valued or not, whether they have a part in the decision making process or not, if you want your decisions clearly communicated to the congregation and your community, your church communicator needs to be in the meetings to do their job well.  All of the restrictions or inclusions mentioned above will vary depending on your church beliefs and practices, but if you want your decisions carried out, they need to be there in a listening role at a minimum. However, growing, successful churches greatly value and include their church communicators and churches can benefit greatly from the input of a skilled communicator. Your church communicator can:

  • Advise you on how well your congregation and community might respond to your message.
  • Suggest some ways other churches market or publicize ministry events.
  • Remind you of what was done in the past and the success or failure of communication methods.
  • Give you an evaluation on whether or not your church has the technology and resources needed to carry out your communication goals.
  • Help staff be realistic on the time needed to promote or communicate about events.
  • Help your message be consistent with other ministry messages in the church.
  • Suggest some communication channels that are new to the staff.
  • Provide feedback of program names, slogans, and approaches if you allow them to be honest.
  • Be a prayer partner to contribute to the success of the vision and ministries of the church.

There are so many things beyond this brief list that a well-trained and committed church communicator can do for your church. The rest of this article provides ways for you to help them be and do all they can for your church.

Give them authority

Communications people need authority to have the final say on editing decisions. They know how much space is available for articles and announcements and without authority they are constantly frustrated when someone demands every word is used and no changes made on what goes into the church bulletin or newsletter.

Practical ways to give them authority are:

  1. Make a decision on what they are in charge of and what they need to come to you for. In communications the church leadership should decide on basic themes and messages and perhaps even the overall look, but NOT on layout, or final editing of articles or announcements.
  2. Publicly announce and print your decision. You might say something like this. “Jenny Smith, our communications coordinator has final editing authority on the layout, deadlines and contents of materials that go into the bulletin and newsletter (and whatever else you want to list). She has posted her guidelines and submission deadlines on our website. Please support her decisions and deadlines so we can produce 1 Cor: 14:4 publications, ones done decently and in order.”
  3. Back up your decisions. Invariably people will test you on the rules. I am convinced as both pastor’s wife and communications trainer that inside all of our adult looking bodies is a little junior high school person who never, ever got a paper for school done ahead of its due date.

Invariably when you are instituting new guidelines various church members will come rushing in at the last minute with an article that just HAS to get into the newsletter. When your communications director tells them it is past the deadline—you know what they will do.

The little junior high person in him will bubble up and he will walk right around that person’s desk and in to your office and say something like, “She isn’t being very Christian today—she told me I missed her deadline and you need to tell her to get this article in there!”

If you answer by saying, “She is being very Christian. I have given her authority over that area and to do her job in a way that honors God and the church. I’m very sorry your article can’t go into the bulletin this month. We’ll make copies and have it in the church office, but Jenny’s deadlines are firm.”

Any other answer, or taking back authority or vacillating on this point will not only make the publication creation process a mess, but it will greatly harm your relationship with your communications director.

This approach benefits everyone

In delegating authority and holding your people to it, you are helping them grow up in their ministry responsibilities. Usually the article the tardy person wants  in at the last minute is about something he has known about and been planning for six months, but was not enough of a priority to get the information about it written up in time for the church. That sort of behavior would not be tolerated at the person’s regular job and should not be encouraged at the church either.

Exceptions of course can always be made for genuine emergencies, a family illness or something similar, but these are far less seldom the case than a lack of respect.

Give them protection

Giving your people authority gives them protection from disorganized people, but physical protection is also needed at times.

This doesn’t mean protection against robbery or whatever, but a church secretary with an arm brace because of carpel tunnel is the sign of a pastor failing to properly shepherd his or her sheep in the fields of technology.

Talk to some of your secular business leaders in the church and find out what is needed to make your church office ergonomically correct. Your communications people need proper chairs, wrist rests, and the right kind of mouse or trackball, the computer monitor at a proper height. They need to be protected from doing repetitive data entry; they need to get up and stretch if they have been working at the computer for hours without a break.

Care for their eyesight

Another area that needs to be looked at is the condition of their eyes. Because working with the computer requires the eyes to focus on a mid-range target instead of either distance or close reading, many people cannot adequately see both their screen and the text of a page they are typing from.

In practical terms this means they may need to get trifocals instead of working with bifocals (or no glasses at all). They may need special glasses for the computer work. Without proper eyewear your people will get eyestrain, headaches, neck pain and have a host of problems in creating publications.

I can speak from personal experience in this area. I recently got properly fitted with graduated, no-line trifocals. I can see better now than I have in 20 years. I had no idea that my problems with seeing the computer screen (glasses on, glasses off, focus, out of focus, headaches, etc.) could be fixed so easily.

You must be proactive in this area, because many people who work in the church office suffer in silence. In addition, the church should be financially responsible for decent chairs, wrist rests, and help in the cost of good eyewear, which can be very expensive.

Being a good shepherd means more than simply having devotions with your staff. A good shepherd also cares for the physical needs of the sheep.

Give them training

Training can take many forms. A membership to this site is a great gift if you are not reading this as a member. The books from Effective Church Communications available through this website's RESOURCE Section and the printed resources available at http://www.amazon.com (just do a search for Yvon Prehn)  will help in detail in many areas of church communication.

For training in software programs and website creation, http://www.lynda.com/ is fantastic. Best of all, free up a few hours each week where they can practice or explore new skills without interruption.

Give them adequate tools

Decent tools in terms of an up-to-date and well equipped computer are not a luxury for your church communicator—they are essential for the good stewardship of the person’s time. I’m not going to give specific recommendations here because what is adequate changes so often, but again, this is an area where a board member who has wisdom in the technology area may be able to advise you on what is necessary today to do the communications work needed by your church. For highly technical areas such as video creation and editing, a few hours of a consultant’s time would be wise to help you make adequate purchases.

Be sure that the advice you get matches the communication needs of your church. A small church that creates simple communications (that can still be incredibly effective) does not need the hardware of a larger church doing complex color work and website creation. Be sure your communication person has the equipment and software needed to get the quality of work done that you require.

Give them awards and encouragement

It seems in most churches that the only time the person who does communications is publicly acknowledged is when they make a typo that makes someone really mad. They know their name then, they make everyone aware of it

Don’t let that happen in your church. Award your communications people regularly and publicly acknowledge them. Honor and thank them in front of the church. When a ministry event has been successful, acknowledge their part in it. Know them well enough to know what kind of a monetary reward would be appropriate for them. For some it might be a gift certificate to Starbucks, to someone else a Christian book store gift certificate.

Pay them decently

Find out what the going rate is for graphic designers and webmasters in your area. People know that working in the church they will probably make far less than in the secular world, but if your communications person has become highly skilled in both print and website design they are worth paying decently. If you know your church is paying your church communicator far below what they are worth, at least acknowledge it.

Remind them that what they are doing matters for eternity. Regardless of your ability to pay, remind your church communication creators of the value of their work. It is so easy to forget that value in the midst of doing information cards for 20 small groups or while updating the brochures for all the ministries in the church. Take time to remind them (and yourself) that Heaven will be different because of the work they are doing.