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.

How a limited number of communication channels limited the ministry of a church

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When you look at your church communications plans and goals for all the options you have in communication channels, it would be helpful to look at this question from one church and my response to it:

“We have a website and bulletin, both of which are beautifully done, and we put the newsletter in a PDF email format on the website, and still nobody comes to our events! People say they don't know what is going on. We decided to cut down on the number of communications we were sending out so as not to overwhelm people and now even less people attend events than did before.”

Though I tried to sympathize with their situation I knew immediately what was happening—it’s a common response to shifting technologies that I’ve heard from many church communicators . Like Solomon said, “there is nothing new under the sun.”

Though church communicators often feel alone because they seldom have the opportunity to talk to other church communicators, many churches have the same frustrations. One opportunity the Lord has given me from traveling thousands of miles every year for over a decade and interacting with many church communicators online, is that I have a bird’s eye view of what is going on in church communications and most of the problems experienced by one church are experienced by many. This situation was not unique--there were several  incorrect assumptions they were making that may have caused their problems .

The rest of this article is an expansion of the advice I shared with them.

Incorrect assumption #1: Assuming less communication is more effective than more communication

Go ahead; read that statement again. It’s goofy.

Imagine trying this in a marriage: "Sweetheart, I think we can communicate better if I only talk to you once a week and only in the way and time I want to."

We know a lack of communication would kill any marriage, any relationship, but it is amazing to me how many church communicators say similar things with a straight face. Less communication doesn't improve any relationship or make any response better.  It doesn’t matter how busy people are who how new and appealing a technology is. In communication, less is seldom more.

Think about it:

  • Do you think direct mail marketers communicate less because mailing less is the best way to sell their product?
  • Do you think a TV advertiser will limit himself to one commercial an hour so that people won’t be tired of hearing about his insurance company?
  • Do you think your spouse will know you love him if you only tell him that once a week so as not to be an emotional bother? Or better yet, never verbally tell him. Or maybe it’s your wife—if she is twenty something and loves the web, you decide the best way to communicate is to post your love for her on a marriage communication Facebook page that you update on a weekly basis. Do you think she'll appreciate your technical expertise in your disciplined, yet technically perfect, declarations of love?

The answers to these questions are obvious and it should be obvious that putting out less communication is NOT the way to be more effective in your church communication ministry. It takes a lot of communications in every available channel to get across the ministry messages of churches today.

Why is it that so many people in so many churches make this statement? I think danger #2 answers that question.

Incorrect assumption #2: Assuming that everybody sees, reads, remembers, and pays attention to every communication you put out

This assumption is wildly far from true. Yes, people might get tired of things if they saw every email, postcard, bulletin insert, and web posting on a topic that we put out, but they don’t.

Studies show that less than 20% of your congregation is at your every week in a month; 30% are able to be there 3 weeks out of a month; another 30% 1-2 weeks out of a month and about 20% of your church people cannot attend on Sunday (often work-related these days). If you only advertise something for a couple of weeks, probably half your people never even see it. Also, do you believe 100% of the people there each week are paying attention to every word you print and every announcement you make? Have you ever tracked how many people come in after the PowerPoint announcements?

For other forms of communication, remember not everyone has email and lots of people who have it don’t read it very often. Not everyone reads all their postal mail. Not everyone can read. This is a sad fact few churches take note of and in addition, some people, who may be able to read in one language, cannot read English well.

That’s why successful advertisers know that repetition, repetition, repetition of the message in every possible channel is the only way to make sure a message is communicated. You may be sick to death of a getting out a message that most of your audience will only hear once or twice.

Incorrect assumption #3: Assuming all your people want to receive communications in the same way you do. In other words, assuming your preferred communication channel is the preferred communication channel of your church members.

This is the big one and a danger many church are falling into today with the best of intentions.  The danger is that they were putting out communications in the channels they preferred (they told me this honestly) – and that preference is the same for many church communicators—primarily web and PDF email.

Though these two communication channels are easy for churches to produce, they are not the channels easily accessible to or preferred by many people. Few folks will wait for a large PDF to download with a dial-up connection. Even if they can download a PDF newsletter, not everyone likes to read them on the screen (especially if the creator of it designed it for paper, not screen reading). If they don’t want to read it on the screen, they may begrudge the ink cost to print out all the pretty colored pictures that are in the newsletter.

Few people will go on to the website to hunt for details of where to go for a church activity, especially if they remember at the last minute. If you have not been totally up-to-date and complete about the times, dates, locations and all important scheduling details for church on your website in the past, people won’t even think of going to it. A postcard or bulletin insert on the refrigerator with all the times and details may be a more useful channel, if not as exciting or cutting edge. Much of this is changing and the web is becoming more and more important, but it takes a long time for any newer technology to be used by many of people in the church. Even as more people are online more, most churches are not up-to-date with even facts on their websites.

For youth events, if the information isn’t accessible by cell phone; it probably won’t be accessed. Cell phones and texting are the primary means teens communicate today and if a church staff member does not have the technology or the skills to use this channel, they will have difficulty communicating with them. Mobile phone accessible websites and information are becoming essential for some age groups. Often this requires design characteristics (much more simple sites) that may not be compatible with the overall church website.

Why it’s easy for churches to fall into these dangers

In my seminars I remind church leaders of the “church office bubble,” the world those of us who work in the church live in. When we are in it, it is so easy to forget what life is like for those who do not live in our familiar bubble. We know understanding and overcoming our tendency to use jargon and talk to ourselves is foundational to outreach communication success, but it is also important that we are aware of our unconscious preferences in communication channels and how these affect the communication of our message.

The issue in choice of communication channels is that those who create communications and those in the church office are included in this, by their natures and jobs are often "early adaptors."  Some love the technology; they want to try all the latest and greatest tools. Some may not love it personally, but their church office manager or pastor does and there is often subtle peer pressure to learn and create with the latest technology. These tendencies are understandable, but we have to be careful that they do not negatively influence our communications by causing us to produce communications that we like to produce, but that are not necessarily ones people want to receive.

The folks from the church referred to at the start of this article, which were experiencing a low response, really liked creating the fancy bulletin, the PDF newsletter, and the website. That’s great that they enjoyed doing those things. But by their own admission, this focus on what they considered simple to do and cutting-edge was not working with many in their congregation.

Bottom line: create what you love because some of your audience will love it also, but in addition, love your church audience enough to create a variety of communication channels so that the people with the slowest computers and those without computers will also hear and have the opportunity to respond to the communications from your church.

Biblical considerations in multi-channel communications

Technology aside, we must always remember that those who name Jesus as Lord must always keep our eyes on Jesus and his Word as our guide for every aspect of our communications.

One theme woven throughout the fabric of the Bible is the concern of our Creator for the poor. There will always be inequalities (in everything from finances to bandwidth) in our fallen world and there is always the temptation of those who have much to ignore those who have little. This is as true in technology as it is in monetary resources. There is always the temptation for those who minds work quickly to be impatient with those who learn slowly; for those who love the new to disdain those who fear it.

If Jesus is Lord, we may create an incredible multi-media website and full-color email blasts; but we make sure there are also postcards, large-print bulletins, and handouts and personal phone calls for those more comfortable with these channels of communication.

Remember, doing this sort of servant work for "the least of these" is doing communication work for Jesus. He who created and named all the stars is not impressed with our technical abilities, but when we pour our hearts out in communication projects, both complex and simple, to make sure everyone is informed and shown love by the time-intensive work required—those channels of communication merit his favor.

NEW Columnist for ECC: Gayle Hilligoss! First article: Business E-mail 101

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Gayle Hilligoss Picture
Gayle Hilligoss, founder of Success Systems, founding editor of PROfile newsletter and now a columnist for Effective Church Communications.

Editors note: Effective Church Communications is thrilled and honored to announce that Gayle Hilligoss, founder of Success Systems, Inc., a training and development firm providing resources to church office professionals, and a personal hero of mine and role model to me, has graciously agreed to share her wisdom with us in a series of articles on church office basics.

For many years Gayle taught seminars to thousands of church office professionals and her newsletter PROfile was a continual training tool and inspiration to many. Here is the the first of many articles that will equip and encourage you to do your work as a professional as you serve our Lord. Her first article is on email basics, something we often think we know well, but often make mistakes in that do not reflect the quality our Lord and church deserve.

but often make mistakes in that do not reflect the quality our Lord and church deserve.

Business Email 101

Everyone knows at least one—a coworker who copies emails to everyone, a friend who forwards every email crossing her screen, an acquaintance who writes in all caps, another who uses a signature with a slow-loading graphic, a neighbor who packs every message with smileys and LOLs.

The frustration of dealing with these kinds of big-time senders often makes us give more thought to the premise that all communication has rules for proper usage. Could we use email more effectively ourselves?

Some email essentials to consider:

Realize email is not private.

Never put anything in an email that you wouldn’t want passed along (probably numerous times) with your name attached. It could happen. Absolutely avoid sarcasm, criticism, rants. Email can last virtually forever.

Follow writing protocol.

Business email shouldn’t look like a teen’s text messages. Spelling and grammar are important. Keep your messages brief and to the point; stick to the subject. Make messages more readable by breaking text into paragraphs; leave a line between each of those paragraphs. Short, bulleted lists are effective for making points.

Use proper upper and lowercase.

ALL CAPS is shouting; all lowercase looks dismissive. For emphasis use boldface, italics, or asterisks before and after the word you want to stress.

Fill in the subject field.

Say what the email is about—not just “Hi” or your name. If you need a reply, note it: Reply Please. Keep the subject line short and specific.

Choose the appropriate form of reply.

Explore CC, BCC, Reply, Reply All; know how and when to use each option. Send mail to the person you want to read and respond to your message. Send copies only to others who need to know. The names of those who get CCs are seen by the others; those who get BCCs are not visible to other recipients.

Use “Reply All” only when all in the group need your input.

Someone sends you and 20 others a question—what size T-shirt do you want for the fundraiser? Reply to the sender only; no one else cares about your size; getting the mail only clutters their mail boxes.

Reply in a timely manner.

Business email requires some sort of reply generally within a day. Not to reply, however briefly, is simply rude. Copy the relevant part of the incoming message in your reply; by the time the sender gets your “I agree,” he may have forgotten what he asked.

Know when email is not appropriate.

Very important or complex matters are best conveyed by phone, visit, or handwritten note.

Avoid “cute” fonts, multi-colors, and graphics attached to your regular email.

Some programs don’t handle these well and they often slow down downloading. Likewise, use a formal email address for business communication; janejones@aol.com will serve you better than jollyjane.

Be courteous about forwarding mail to groups.

Ask recipients before adding them to any list you regularly forward to. Many choose not to receive miscellaneous messages—political, inspirational or informational alerts and the like.

If you forward an email that was itself forwarded to you, highlight and forward ONLY the message you want to pass along.

Otherwise you will be sending along addresses, personal notes, and probably several copies of the pictures and message in the original email. Don’t feel you must forward every message that tells you to do so. Much of this email is pure hoax.

When addressing email to a group, use BBCs (blind courtesy copies) and not the To or CC function.

Not only is it impolite to broadcast email addresses, but few recipients enjoy wading through a list of addresses to get to the message—especially if the message requires printing. By using BBC, each recipient sees only two addresses—her own and yours.

Get acquainted with Snopes.com.

If you feel you must forward a “startling fact,” check it out before passing it along—and do the checking yourself. Often e-mails falsely say they’ve been verified as true; you don’t want to send along misinformation.

Avoid attachments if at all possible.

In most cases it is possible to include all the information in the body of the email. Because many people choose not to open attachments, if you must send one—especially a large one—it is best to ask first. Formats and firewall issues can be time wasting factors.

Use a signature.

For business mail include contact information: address, phone, hours. Generally, don’t attach photos or excessive extras: logos, mottos, verses, etc.

Re-read before sending.

Readers don’t have the benefit of seeing facial expressions or hearing the inflections of your voice. It is very easy for messages, especially those written in haste, to convey a meaning not intended. By the way, remember this when reading email from others; if their words come across unexplainably out of character, take another look. Perhaps you are simply misinterpreting the message.

And finally, never address an email until the message is composed and proofread.

Establishing this habit will save you from accidently sending mail before it’s really ready to go. I can imagine each of us could tell a story about the message that got away before its time.

Email is a wonderful tool. Using it well is a skill every professional can and should master.

Multi-channel communication defined and why it is important

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Multi-channel communication means making the most of every opportunity you have to communicate the gospel message.

Unfortunately this is not something most church communicators want to hear. In this time of ever-changing options for communicating in our churches, it is easy to be overwhelmed and we naturally want to simplify our communication workload. This desire is expressed by the question, “What is the best way to communicate with people today? Is it the web, email, or podcasting? Do we still need to do print? What works best to reach the most people?

When overwhelmed with channel choices, it is natural to want to narrow it down to one or two that will be effective.

I always feel bad as I answer because I know people want me to give them a simple answer and to tell them that one channel, especially if it is the one they prefer, is all they need, but I can’t do that. I can’t do that because to be effective in your church communication ministry, to fully fulfill the Great Commission, there is no one way.

Today to be an effective church communicator, you have to use every channel available to you.

It is the time of both/and, not either /or

No one channel will work because people aren’t any more alike in their communication preferences than they are in other areas of likes and dislikes. Some folks love to go online; others don’t have a computer. Some love words; others prefer images and videos. Some love to listen to podcasts; others don’t have any idea what a podcast is. Some text continuously on their mobile phones; some won’t read anything that isn’t on paper.

It’s challenging because all of folks just mentioned go to your church. We can’t simply pick out one way to communicate because the Lord has put us into a body of wonderfully diverse people and it is our responsibility to create communications that are useful for all of them.

To make this situation manageable for practical application in church communications, I’ve divided the many communication channels into three overall groups. It is much more difficult to communicate in all three channels, but I trust this section will encourage you and give you some strategic ideas how to be more effective as you work.

The three channels of effective church communication

Channel #1: Print

This channel consists of printed bulletins, newsletters, postcards, invitation cards, connection cards, instruction materials, printed matter of all kinds, sizes, and quality that we create in the church. Print, in color, black and white, and all its forms, is still one of the primary and most important ways we communicate with people today and will be for some time. Almost everyone has access to this channel.

Channel #2: Digital

This channel is the latest tool we have to communicate the gospel message and we use it in PowerPoint® presentations, the internet, our website, email newsletters, cell phone and small screen communications, and anything else that makes up the newest, latest, and greatest communication technology. This channel is still emerging, developing in new systems and tools, and is expanding constantly. Not everyone has access to this channel and speed of adaptation varies tremendously with age and socioeconomic groups.

Channel #3: People

This communication channel is often easily forgotten, but it is probably the most important in any church communication program. You can have the most beautifully designed bulletin and the most complete and functional website imaginable, but if the folks at your welcome center ignore visitors and prefer to chat with each other, if the person answering the phone (assuming a real person can be reached) is having a really bad day and takes it out on all callers, or if the members of your congregation ignore visitors, the most beautiful and cutting edge communications, no matter if they are in print or digitally presented, will be useless. People are the church—the church throughout the ages is made up of people. Our people are always the primary message delivery tool of the gospel, accessible at all times to all people.

We are living in a time of great communication transition

We need to keep this transition time in mind as we consider the various channels of church communication. A few hundred years from now, things may settle down a bit and everyone will perhaps receive messages beamed wirelessly into their brain stem in a way that can be turned on and off with the blink of an eye, but right now we are in the midst of the biggest communication revolution in the history of humanity and this revolution floods us with communication options of every kind. In practical terms this means you need to learn and grow in all areas of communication.

That is what this site is about and to help you do that, here are some more resources that discuss multi-channel communication:

In your excitement over new communication channels please read: Never forget the people who don’t have access to the easily created channels

The Five Steps Strategy #1: Create multi-channel communication

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Multichannel communication is needed in churches
We live in a time of Multichannel communication--a time of both/and not either/or.

In this time of ever-changing options for communicating in our churches, it is easy to be overwhelmed and we naturally want to simplify our communication workload.  This is expressed by the question I get frequently  in my seminars and through email when people ask me, “What is the best way to communicate with people today? Is it the web, email, or podcasting?  Do we still need to do print? What works best to reach the most people?”

People may not realize when they ask, that they are asking for a ranking of communication channels including: print, online, web, small screen, and many more are the communication channels used to communicate today. When overwhelmed with channel choices, it is natural to want to narrow it down to one or two that will be effective.

I always feel bad as I answer because I know people want me to give them a simple answer and to tell them that one channel, especially if it is the one they prefer, is all they need, but I can’t do that. I can’t do that because to be effective in your church communication ministry, to fully fulfill the Great Commission, there is no one way.

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Never forget the people who don’t have access to the easily created communication channels

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After writing an article for Christian Computing Magazine on ways to save money in your church communication programs, I got an email with a question that I know many churches struggle with. The question in shortened from was, "Is it OK to do away with our print newsletter? We'd save so much money if we just put it on the web." As I was putting together the answer, I realized that it is a topic that would be useful to share with all of you.

Though I can totally understand where the woman is coming from who wrote the question, as always, there is more to it than simply saving money, doing away with a print version and putting it all on the web. I'm working on a larger book that deals with this issue, but here is a helpful section from part of it:

Why keep printing some materials:

It is very difficult to take time to do a print postcard for the three people who don’t have internet access when fifty other people in the class are so easy to reach via email. Or to make a copy of the newsletter (in large print at that) and mail it out to the ten people who vow never to use a computer when everyone else in the congregation can get access to it on the church website.

Jesus left us a very clear example of what to do in these situations. He told the story of the shepherd who went after the one little sheep who wandered off.

Jesus isn’t nearly as concerned about the efficiency of our newsletter delivery as he is that we care for the wandering little sheep just as much as he does. That little sheepie was probably a naughty little sheepie and wandered off for no good reason. Jesus still went after him and carried him home lovingly.

Sometimes we might feel that some folks in the church make our communication tasks more difficult just because they are onery—and that might be true. But Jesus still expects us to love and serve them, just as much as the rest of the congregation.


No matter what the cost, people are always the most important consideration, no matter what the cost.