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.

It’s always personal: how to communicate effectively and professionally as representatives of Jesus

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Church communication needs to be personal
No matter what channel we use, church communication needs to be personal.

As I was preparing to write this article and introduce the topic of the importance of personal communications, including how we communicate on the phone, my husband who is a bi-vocational pastor (unpaid pastoral position at church, handyman for income) came home for lunch and shared this story with me.

My husband was doing some repairs on the mobile home next door to the home of a Christian man who passed away a few days earlier. The son was in town to take care of the details for the funeral. The mother was frail and both parents had not been able to attend church consistently over the last couple of years because of ill health. The son wanted to hold his father's funeral at the church they had attended for a number of years in the past.

He shared with my husband, over the course of a couple of days, his attempts to reach the church to arrange the funeral. He left messages. He talked to one person and was referred to another. He left more messages. He himself was a pastor and told my husband that the family had over 100 relatives in town who would be coming to the service, most of whom who were not Christians. After a few days of not receiving a call back, he decided to hold the funeral service at the clubhouse of the mobile home community and he, the son, would do the service. Other than being an emotional support and encouragement, my husband was extremely sad and frustrated as he told me the story. I'm making it sound over-spiritual--I think my husband wanted to punch somebody--but knew that would not be appropriate.

Obviously somebody dropped the ball in a big way in this situation, but these days of answering machines in churches that route calls to answering systems of staff, it's not hard to imagine this happening. Who knows why this happened, but what could have been a time to personally minister to a hurting family and unreached friends became a situation of sadness, resentment and pain--all because phone messages were not answered. [Read more...]

A church communicator reminds the staff that personal interactions matter

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Sometimes in the course of our work as church communicators we forget that we need to repeatedly share what we have learned about communications with the church staff. As with any skill, because we practice it on an ongoing basis, we forget not everyone has the knowledge base we have. If we don’t share why we do what we do, or why it is important to communicate in the ways we know best, our churches won’t be as effective as they could be in outreach and communications.

I recently received this email about the importance of multi-channel communications and wanted to pass it along. I really like that the person who did it called his communication an “Insight Note.” What a gentle and kind way to educate the staff of the importance of what you do in church communications. Many in leadership have not studied communications other than the communication involved in preaching. You can be of great service by helping them understand effective ways to share the church’s message.

Note from a church communicator:

Last night I went to a "Church Council" meeting and presented my regular report to which I had quickly appended a note adapted from your material about there being three primary channels of communication.  I was quite surprised when I was asked to explain the note and the "lights that went on" when I mentioned that we tend to not emphasize the third channel enough.  And, yet, the third channel is probably the most important.

My note is reproduced below.

Insight Note: Communications is now multi-channel, with three primary channels:

1)    Print Channel  (articles, posters, leaflets, signage, bulletins, newsletters, business cards, stationery, door hangers, tracts, ads, invitation cards, calendars, etc.)

2)    Digital Channel (email, websites, social networking, video, podcasts, etc.)

3)    People Channel (conversing with neighbours and friends and sharing print and digital resources to invite/inform others. One function of the church (PR) is to provide resources and tools that people can use to invite others. We tend to not adequately emphasize, equip and support the “people channel” when planning church communications, yet the “people channel” is probably the most effective method of communication.)

All three channels are needed in today’s communications.

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For the article that prompted this Insight Note, The Five Steps Strategy #1: Create multi-channel communication, click here.

Our thanks to Ewald Wuschke for sending his comments. Please send any comments you have on what has worked in your church communications to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com. We learn the best from learning from each other.

Annotated list of resources I use to create online training and webinars

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Though I recommend that you view the video first (click here to go to it) that shows you and explains in more detail the software and workflow involved in creating training resources, I also thought an annotated list of the products mentioned would be helpful.

When you download this list in PDF format, you should be able to click directly on the links to go to the websites. If you can't just copy and paste the URLs. {+}

Click on the image below to download the PDF.

Annotated Software List, how I create

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

What makes an effective church website?

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The debate is over—churches today realize they need to have a website. The question now is, what makes a website an effective ministry tool for the church? With many companies vying for your website development dollar, this is not an easy question to answer....or is it? Actually I think it is very easy to answer and in this article, we'll not only answer that question, but give you some resources to make a website incredibly effective (and either free or for very low-cost for your church).

The answer is simple: CONTENT

We need to remember when we are creating websites for the church that the purpose of the website is ultimately the purpose of the Great Commission: to help people come to know Jesus as Savior and to grow to maturity in the Christian faith.

Churches create websites for different reasons than secular groups do and we must NEVER forget that if we are to have an effective website. It isn't flashy graphics or the latest technology or how "cool" or "edgy" that our site looks that is most important, it is our CONTENT.

Content that is important

Content that is important falls into several categories:

  • Basic church information: times, dates, locations, all the details about ministries that actually will connect people with the ministry.
  • Overview information about your church: this content answers basic questions, including: Who are you? What do you believe? Are you part of a larger group? Who is that group or denomination? Why is that important and what do they believe?
  • Core content about the Christian faith: What does it mean to be a Christian? How do I become one? What does it mean to grow in faith and how do I do that? Your denomination may have a unique way of explaining this, do that on site.
  • How your church expresses the basics of the Christian faith and what it means to grow to mature discipleship.
  • Articles on how staff members either explain the Christian faith or their approach to ministry.

All of these areas of content are vital. In addition, you need more than just a sentence or two to describe them and they need to be constantly updated to be of any use at all.

You must know how to get this information on your website and how to continuously keep it updated. It isn't enough to buy a website with a fancy front page and then nothing but filled-in forms when people click-through for more information.What would you think of any company that did that for a product you wanted to learn more about? You'd think they were lazy and didn't really know what they were doing. People don't think any better of a church that looks great on the homepage, but is thin on content.

What you probably don't want (but might be doing) on your website

Most of you would probably agree with what I just wrote. I doubt if anyone would say:

  • "No, I want a website for my church that is static, boring, and with almost no content about the Christian faith."
  • "What I really want is a constantly out-dated site so visitors will think we are sloppy and lazy about our information."
  • "I want people to think Christianity is some sort of secret club. That's why I don't want my website to really tell them anything about our church or what our denomination believes."
  • "Most of all, I want people to think we are phony. To do that I'll use stock photos of smiling, happy, perfect people on my home page—people that nobody in our church or community actually looks like."

You may not verbalize any of these things, but it is pretty obvious that many church websites by the content that they have that without meaning to they are sending these messages.

How to get the content you want

Bottom line: you need a website creation system that will allow you to create and keep updated the content that is an important to your church and core to the Christian faith.

I can help you do that! I have a series of webinars that will guide you step-by-step how to do that.

If you want to see my latest real-life church responsibility--my husband a bi-vocational pastor who has recently been appointed  in charge of small groups at our church (smallish church now, been through big trauma, from one of the biggest in city to under 300 now)--you can go to the WordPress blog/website I created for the Small Group Ministry that almost totally died at the church. We are still building and have a long way to go, but this site and the interaction it has generated has been great at the church--here it is: http://smallgrouplinks.wordpress.com

This is a very simple site, I write all the content and send out weekly emails to update small group leaders, but it has really revitalized an almost totally dead ministry. It has lots of CONTENT and it is changing lives--people who never used online tools, or got into theological discussions, or been involved in small groups are going to the site   and commenting to me and the staff about it. It is a very small step, but the content is making a difference.

What the site cost to create—lots of time and NO money

We live in S. California and the economic recession has slammed our church. Our giving is less than half of what it was over a year ago. The church laid off half of the paid staff and more cuts are coming. That is why my husband is bi-vocational (has a handyman business that supports our ministry habits). This site cost zero dollars to produce, so fits well into the church budget now.  Obviously many hours of my time have gone into it, but I'd much rather use my free time to change lives for eternity than in other pursuits.

Even though the site for small groups didn't cost a penny to produce or host, as you can see, it still has a lot of things on it: lots of content, videos, graphics, pages and posts, tag clouds. In addition, the custom nameplate and side-bar video were both created in MS Publisher (the same process as described here).  I could have done much more, but as I said, I did it totally in volunteer free time and as always I didn't have enough time to do all I wanted to.

WordPress.com is what I used to create the site

The site you are on now was created with WordPress.org; the church website with WordPress.com.

You don't have to have fancy, moving graphic images to change lives. Simple sites with rich content can be used greatly by our Lord who delights in using small things for His glory.