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.
People often look to churches for help in hard times and rightfully so as we represent Jesus to them. Here are some things to consider so we don't disappoint.
Yvon's note: I wrote this initially soon after the start of the previous recession. As I was reorganizing the website I found it and realized how similar our situation, challenges, and opportunities are with the current pandemic. With a small amount of editing and updating I trust it will be useful now.
We communicate with more than words as followers of Jesus. The little poem below reminds me of this. It's something I memorized years ago and I'm afraid I don't know the author or title, but here it is:
We are writing a gospel, a chapter each day
By the things that we do and the things that we say.
People read what we write, Distorted or true.
What is the gospel, According to you?
We have an opportunity to live out the gospel during this recession (and now pandemic); to communicate the love and care of Jesus in tangible ways. Let's look at one situation, job loss, and some suggestions on what to do and what not to do as a church to people who are out of work.
When so much of the world is filled with bad news, there is good news to be found in Jesus. Check it out and be encouraged!
Pandemic, crazy weather, racial injustice, and political turmoil—wherever we turn, bad news fills our world. There is one place the news is good—in the good news about Jesus. Many call this the gospel.
There are two reasons why it’s essential to explore the gospel now. First, for those of us familiar with the gospel, we do well to remember what great news that is, no matter what else is going on. And for those who aren’t familiar with it, this news has implications for you far beyond the hysterical headlines that currently fill your news feeds. The gospel is good news, the best news ever.
Why the gospel is GOOD NEWS
Good news. That is the dictionary definition of the term gospel. The question to answer next is, of course, “What is the good news?” or “Good news about what?”
The best answer to that question is in the Bible, where John 3:16 tells us that: “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
The good news is that God didn’t sit up in heaven, watching humanity make a mess of their lives and their world. He did something about it with extraordinarily important implications for people both now and eternity. To explore the good news in more detail, let’s look at our situation and what God did for us.
Without God, making a mess of our lives is pretty much what we do.
It doesn’t take unique insight to know our world is a mess right now. But now, let’s look away from the world. [Read more...]
If only one link is broken, the entire chain fails. The connecting details in our church communications work the same way.
UPDATE editorial note: I've recently downloaded software that was attractively and appealingly advertised. Then I tried to use it and found that the creators apparently used all their energies in selling the software, but almost no time in the hard work of showing how to USE it. We can do the same if we have a splashy advertisement for a church event, but don't do the work to put in the connecting details that will get people to the event. This article from our archives will help you to avoid that mistake. We always must remember that our task is not to simply wow people with our witty, brilliant designs and catchy phrases about upcoming events, but to simply get them there so God can help them grow in their spiritual lives.
"He that is faithful is that which is least, is faithful also in much," (Luke 16:10), is a biblical principle we are all familiar with. It is also an important principle to remember in your church communications when you want people to respond to your church communication with concrete action. We don’t do church communications for people to think they look fantastic or to impress them with our technological prowess—we do them so lives and eternities will be changed. The details must be included for people to be able to respond.
If you don’t include the little details (time, date, location, duration, contact information) completely and consistently in every church communication you produce, the great design, writing, typography choices, and graphics will not mean anything. All of these design issues that many church communicators work so hard on, are virtually useless if you don’t have the details included that will actually connect people to the church events. This not to discount the importance of good design. Good design is important, but similar to James reminder that "faith without works is dead," so too, great-looking design is useless if it doesn't result in actions.
In the rest of this article I’ll talk about why we leave out church communication details and then I’ll give you a list of the details that are essential to include. PLEASE take time to read/review this article for maximum results from the hard work you do in your church communications. Pass it on, make copies of it for your staff to discuss.
Why we leave out the details in our church communications
Our default mode when creating church communications is to leave out connecting details. We do this for a number of reasons and here are some of the most common reasons why we leave out essential details in church communications:
In a medical emergency, the first responders immediately triage victims to see who needs immediate care. That's a great examples to follow on processing connection cards.
Ed. intro: When you host a special event or seasonal celebration, you'll have lots of visitors and you'll be collecting lots of visitor cards from them. But you've got to do more than just collect them if you want them to make a difference in your church. You'll learn what to do from this excerpt from the book:Connection Cards, connect with visitors, grow your church, pastor your people
It is critically important to respond to the connection cards received each Sunday and all special occasions, but not every card needs the same timeliness or intensity of response, but how do you decide what needs what? The concept of triage can help.
First, here is the history and definition of TRIAGE from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia:
TRIAGE
The term [triage] comes from battlefield or natural disaster situations. When the wounded are brought in there are three categories in which the wounded are immediately placed:
Red / Immediate They require immediate surgery or other life-saving intervention, and have first priority for surgical teams or transport to advanced facilities; they “cannot wait” but are likely to survive with immediate treatment.
Yellow / Observation Their condition is stable for the moment but requires watching by trained persons and frequent re-triage, will need hospital care (and would receive immediate priority care under “normal” circumstances).
Green / Wait (walking wounded) They will require a doctor’s care in several hours or days but not immediately, may wait for a number of hours or be told to go home and come back the next day (broken bones without compound fractures, many soft tissue injuries).
Though you aren’t dealing with actual battlefield situations, this model is useful in responding to the connection cards you will receive from those fighting spiritual battles each week. Following are suggestions for how to apply the three levels of triage in how you respond to the people turning in connection cards: [Read more...]
