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.

Our publications reflect what is in our heart

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You brood of snakes! How could evil men like you speak what is good and right? For whatever is in your heart determines what you say. A good person produces good words from a good heart, and an evil person produces evil words from an evil heart.Out of the abundance of the heart not only does the mouth speak, but the computer creates. Matthew 12:34

The quality of the ministry communications we produce never ultimately depends on circumstances outside ourselves. It's easy to blame tight deadlines, inadequate equipment, and the difficult people we work with for doing less than our best, but ultimately the quality of our ministry communication reflects our hearts.

We always have choices within circumstances. Tight deadlines can challenge us to streamline our methods, to focus our work. Inadequate equipment can challenge our creativity to see just how much we can get out of this old machine. Difficult people can drive us to prayer and force us to learn interpersonal skills.

It's in our hearts that we decide whether or not we believe that "God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans. 8:28, NAS).

If our heart is the key, how can we make it overflow with what is pleasing to our Lord?

Overflow comes from an abundance of what is already inside. Fill your heart with the things of God. Spend time in his Word; read your Bible daily; listen to Christian tapes and music; be with other Christians in church and conversation. Think about God's promises and challenges; write his encouragements and promises on cards to post by your computer.

If you consciously work to fill your mind with the things of God, if his Word and will is your priority, your heart and work will naturally and joyfully reflect it.

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All of the devotions on this website and many more have been collected into  The Heart of Church Communications by Yvon Prehn. To either download or purchase a copy, click here.

Designated donations, a biblical way to fund needed technology

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As the year draws to a close, many people consider giving year-end donations to a church or ministry, in part as a wise way to reduce their tax liability. Most churches strongly support this practice. Where questions and concerns enter, is in the area of "designated giving" where the giver specifies to what area he or she wants the money to be spent. Since much potential giving for the technology and equipment to support communication ministries can fall into this area, let's look at the Biblical basis for special, designated gifts.

The Biblical context of giving

Be assured it is not the intent of this article to in any way to distract from or to take away from regular giving to churches. Most churches have fairly clear teaching and expectations on giving and tithing to the church are taught on a consistent basis to their membership.

But where does designated giving fit in? Is it Biblical to give to special projects? All of us doing communications or other work with technology are doing it first and foremost to please our Lord and we don't want to do anything that would go against what the Bible teaches. For you to be able to raise money for technology and communication projects with proper Biblical support is the purpose of this article.

In both the Old and New Testaments there are clear precedents for special giving projects for special needs. In the sections below, I'll first give the Biblical citations that apply and then follow it up with suggested practical applications.

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My background  might be helpful here

Some of my readers may wonder why the church communications lady is teaching on Biblical giving and what background or authority does she have to do it. To answer, let me share: I have been for many years (and still am) a regular Bible teacher in our church. I have an MA degree in Church History; I have attended seminary; in the past I taught Church History at a Jesuit university. Bible teaching is my first love and what got me into computers initially was that they were a better way to do the writing and study I needed to do for my Bible teaching and ministry, which is what I still consider the most important thing I do.

In everything I do in church communications, I work very hard to have a solid Biblical base for it. One of my books, The Heart of Church Communications,  goes into and teaches a Biblical basis for church communications and I strongly encourage church leaders to read it. To continue with our topic:

Old Testament Giving

The Jews in the Old Testament lived in a theocracy where the civil and religious law and economics were combined. The tithe (Lev. 27:30) was not the only offering required. Additional offerings were required for sacrifices, both for sins and for joyful times (see Lev. 6, 7). In addition, the tithe was used to care for the Levites (the priests received their income from a percentage of the offerings for sacrifices) and to care "the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied" ( Deut. 26:12). The tithe in this way was part of the social care system. In addition, part of the tithe was to be used for celebration (Deut. 14:22-29).

In addition to these regular and expected offerings to God, at numerous times the Israelites were asked to give over and above them, for special projects. Most often these special projects had to do with the building or restoration of the tabernacle or temple.

Some passages that talk about this type of giving include: Ex. 35:4-9, where an offering was asked for the building of the tabernacle; 2 Chron. 29:1-9, where David and the people's gifts are listed and commended for the building of the temple; 2 Kings 12, where money was raised for Josiah's repair of the temple; Ezra 2:68, when the families who returned from exile gave freewill offerings to build the temple. Lots more examples could be given, but these show a pattern of extra giving when a need is there.

Current day application

The tools of technology and communication production are some of our most effective tools we can use to build the church. Whether it is new computers, programs, training, networking, web development—if churches gave resources to make these things possible many churches could be significantly grow and their ministries expand.

In addition to the building materials themselves, you notice from the passages above, that special giving was also used to pay the workers. This is a good precedent to follow. Many times people doing technology work in the church do it as volunteers. They may love what they are doing, but a technology minister is just as worthy of his or her hire as is the music minister. Many churches honestly can't afford to pay technology workers, but far more churches don't because they do not seek the funding to do it. It is biblical to pay people for the work they do to build the church.

New Testament giving

If we read the New Testament without preconceived notions, we find some rather interesting things. First of all, one of the few records we have of how the early church actually gave is in Acts 4:34, 35, but there are few churches today that follow the example of giving to the point so that "there were no needy among them."

That aside, it is interesting that most of the other examples of giving in the New Testament had to do with special, designated offerings. The primary example of this has to do with the special offering taken up at a number of places in Paul's journeys to help the saints in Jerusalem. Many of the passages used to guide giving in the church today, do not and were not written in the context of how giving should be done as a continuing pattern. That is not to say that the concept of consistent regular giving isn't a good one, but to be historically, textually and Biblically honest, the following verses were written on how to conduct a special needs giving campaign, not how to support the church on an ongoing basis. Verses included are:

1 Cor. 16: 1 Now about the collection for God's people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

2 Cor. 9: 1 There is no need for me to write to you about this service to the saints. 2 For I know your eagerness to help...5 So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised....6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (read all of 2 Cor. 8,9 for the entire context).

Current day application

As the passages above show, if read in context and true to their original meaning, special designated giving campaigns are not only acceptable, but projects to be undertaken with great care and biblically correct when the proper need was there. Again, to support a special giving project  is not in any way to take away from regular giving to the church, but in addition to that, I trust the study above can help put your heart at peace if you need to raise funds for your ministries in technology and communication resources.

Consider the place of communication in church building

Sometimes churches do not raise money for the communication ministry and equipment because they do not value the contribution of the print/we/overall communication ministry to the church. Sadly, it has been my experience from working with thousands of churches over the years that if a church does not place a high value on communications and have the funds, people, and equipment to support it, the church will never grow in size or in the power of their ministries as much as they could if they valued communication.

If you are a leader in the communication ministry of your church, prayerfully, respectfully and gently ask the church consider a campaign to fund communications ministry in the areas you need most in the coming year. Very carefully track the difference it makes when you communicate more effectively in the turnout of events at your church over the previous year when you did not have the resources you needed. If your experience is like many other churches and ministries, increased communications will mean increased ministry and church growth. When that happens, tell the stories, dream big, and be ready for next year—there are always more resources that can make your church communications program even more effective!

More resources on topics related to giving

NACBA: this organization (the National Organization of Church Business Administrators) has numerous books in their Resource section that detail the laws and guidelines for giving in the church. It is an excellent organization for everything related to church management.
http://www.nacba.net

ECFA, The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability is a key organization for giving guidelines for churches and Christian organizations. Lots of overall regulations, advice and rating of organizations on this site.
http://www.ecfa.org

We are unlimited in our potential to share the gospel message; what are we doing with it?

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Charles Spurgeon, in his introduction to Lectures To My Students, wrote:

Should this publication succeed, I hope very soon to issue similar work. . . . . I shall be obliged by any assistance rendered to the sale, for the price is unremunerative, and persons interested in our subjects are not numerous enough to secure a very large circulation; hence it is only by the kind aid of all appreciating friends that I shall be able to publish the rest of the contemplated series.

I often talk about the incredible opportunities available to us in communications today, but the reality of that statement struck me as never before when I read Spurgeon's words.

If I want to communicate something today, I do. I can blog. I can write for my websites. I can write, design, typeset, create a book and publish it with lulu.com, createspace.com, smashwords.com and many other sources. I can record a podcast and create a video at my computer. In minutes I can make these communications available to the world.

Spurgeon did not have that luxury.

The Prince of Preachers had to wait for his words to be published until enough money could be raised for the printing. We don't have to wait for anything beyond the moments it takes to upload our latest creation.

Enough has been said about how this instantaneous access to communication has cheapened public discourse; how any idiot with an opinion can become an instant authority or celebrity. The truth of those observations is obvious. Those who use technology need to handle the responsibility with care, but not with fear assuming that because a publication goes through the hands of a professional editor that  it will come out a better publication.

Professional editors can be extremely helpful and in my early years as a  writer I had the joy of working with tough newspaper and book editors who sharpened my skills. I'm not sure why, but it seems the precision and professional care of some so-called professional editors has deteriorated. In one of my more recent adventures with a national publishing company, (and I've had books published by a number of the major ones) I was given a very nice, but seriously grammatically challenged junior editor to work with on a book. He apparently thought my writing quite exciting—every few paragraphs he inserted exclamation points in addition to extensive and needless rewriting of much of my manuscript.

His flourishes did not make it into the final book. I'm trying to figure out a way to talk about this nicely, but the bottom line is that having to deal with the mess he made, being required going over his head to someone with authority to get permission to clean up the mess, all the time trying to be kind to him as a Christian sister, was a monumental and unnecessary waste of time. I can get a dozen articles written, five training videos, a couple of e-books created, and all of it posted on the web  in a portion of the time wasted on that adventure. When the book was published it came out with a typo on the cover.

Writers do not have to deal with editorial and book publishing company obstacles anymore to get their words into the public arena

We should not use this responsibility to create irresponsible communications. As much care and craftsmanship as is possible should go into our work. We should always be working to improve our writing, design skills, technology expertise, and growth in godliness as we do our work. Our opportunities are not an excuse for sloppy, unthinking work.

But work we must. Publish we must. If we feel we have been given a message from the Lord to share with a lost and dying world, if we feel we have words that can encourage the saints and build up others in the faith, we have absolutely no excuse to not get our message out there.

We have the words of eternal life. We have technology that gives us an ability to communicate far beyond our wildest dreams. What am I, what are you, doing with this opportunity?

To whom much is given, much is required.

Don't be too quick to do away with your TV ministry

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Recently I heard about a church that wanted to discontinue its television ministry. Though they acknowledged it was watched primarily by the elderly and shut-in, they did not feel it was cost-effective any longer. They wanted to direct all the funds to their internet ministry.  The situation prompted me to remember....

More than a lifetime ago for my nephew who is grown, married, and has a son of his own, I was religion reporter for the Colorado Springs SUN newspaper. In this Vatican of America, home to over 100 Christian organizations, reporting on religion involved much more than retelling stories about the variety of pies at the local church supper. Sometimes I got to interview interesting people in the Christian world and one week my assignment was to interview Robert Schuller.

I was ready for it, with what in my mind were insightful questions that would confirm my pre-determined opinion and expose what a disgrace he was to the Christian faith. I had earlier come to that conclusion as a reader of the Wittenberg Door, a sort of counter-culture Christian magazine of the 1970's, that had recently featured an article on the financial excesses of the building of the Crystal Cathedral. Social justice for the poor was important to me and the article detailed how many hungry kids each pane of glass would feed and similar statistics on the equivalent mission's work that each part of the structure could fund.

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I felt so self-righteous as I drove to the interview. Schuller started his church in a drive-in theater for goodness sakes. What kind of a pastor was that, I thought in the passionate judgementalism that comes from inexperience in real-world evangelism and the arrogant, ignorant authority of youth.

My editor told me I had to go to a bookstore where he was signing books and I could interview him when he was finished with the book signing. I got there and was directed to a chair near his book signing table and told I could wait there until he was finished. I'd called ahead, he had been signing books for hours already, it was late in the day, and I timed my arrival for what I assumed would be close to the time he'd finish. I was highly irritated and impatient when I saw the line out the door and around the block of people waiting to see him. This was going to take hours I grumbled, not quite quietly. Schuller must be tired, he'd been at it all day. I thought maybe he'd close it up. He had every right to big, mega-star preacher that he was.

He didn't. For almost three hours more I watched him sign books. His daughter was helping him. She would open the book and pass it to him. He didn't simply sign the book and push it to the waiting person. While his daughter got the new book, opened it and passed it over, he was totally focused on the people coming to him. For each one, he would pause, look  at the person, ask their name, chat a bit, sign the book. This is going to take forever at this rate, I realized.

Most of the people were not well-dressed. Many were senior citizens.

Again and again people would say, "You are my pastor, I don't know what I would do without you."

"I can't get to church," another would say, "But you encourage me."

Schuller would tell them it was his privilege to be their pastor. Sometimes he would stand up and give an elderly lady a hug. More than a few wanted their picture taken with him and he gladly obliged.

He never rushed anyone.  He would hold a trembling, older hand and pray. He prayed as if there was no one else in the room, except for that person in front of the book-signing table and the Lord. A large Latino family came up to the table and the father said something I couldn't hear to Schuller. Schuller stood up, walked around the table, laid his hands on the heads of the children and prayed.  He was blessing the children. He was their pastor. He took that responsibility very seriously.

I was trying very hard not to dissolve in tears. My assumptions melted. When it finally came time for our interview, I babbled and could only ask in a rather inane way why he did some of the seemingly outrageous things he did. He laughed and said, "People don't understand, I'm very conservative at heart, but the drive-in theater, the Crystal Cathedral,  is what the people need in Southern California. I'm their pastor. I do what I need to do to reach them for Jesus."

That's what we are all trying to do I realized then and now, simply trying to reach people for Jesus whether it's with a crystal cathedral or streaming video and podcasts. And though I'm all for technology (this is a blog after all), I think it would be a sad ministry mistake if the church that asked about about dropping their TV ministry (or any other church so enamored with current technology it forgets the older folks who don't even know the meaning of the term podcast) does drop its TV program. Yes, the web is a lot cheaper, a lot less trouble, but there are lots of folks who can't afford a computer with high speed access.

Sadly, cost-cutting probably means some churches will drop TV ministries. They will make self-justifying noises about how they will perhaps help the older folks, the poorer folks learn how to use the computer. May they will follow up and do it, maybe not.

But if they drop their TV service, I hope they tell their home-bound folks about Robert Schuller. He's still on TV, and I'm certain, still ready to be their pastor.

What is honestly unfortunate—communication channel pride

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7-29-09 the quote below appeared in USA TODAY in the article: “Governments tap into the power of  Twitter.” Tom Watson, a Labor Party, blogger said:

There are some very bright, digitally enabled civil servants who unfortunately have to write these documents for their bosses. . . who still get their secretaries to print off their e-mails so they can read them.

This situation is can be repeated in every office, governmental, educational, religious, in probably every nation in the world. No disagreement there. But here is what does bother me, not only in this instance are some of the unspoken attitudes expressed in this patronizing, snarky blog comment because they sadly sometimes seep into the church. My concerns:

The equating of digital skill with intelligence

It bothers me that the adjective “bright” is paired with “digitally enabled” and the implied contrast that follows with the bosses who, because their secretaries must print off emails, are obviously not bright because they are not digitally savvy.

This equating of intelligence with the ability to use digital equipment, if carried to it's logical conclusion would mean that the robots who assemble auto parts are far brighter and more intelligent, than the human who work in the factories. The robots after all, follow digital commands with complete understanding and without deviation. Humans make mistakes. That conclusion is obviously foolish when pushed to the extreme, but it is equally foolish in lesser degrees.

Equally bothersome is the pride that comes with the mastery of a new skill

Just because a secretary can use Twitter does not mean she has suddenly become “brighter”than her boss. There is a reason the boss is the boss and the skills required extend far beyond tweetability.

A bit of humility is in order. I couldn't help but wonder if the spelling ability, the penmanship ability, the ability to construct clear, lengthy business plans, and the ability to negotiate complex contracts, were also a superior skills of the secretary. I doubt it.

How this applies in the church

Our hearts are desperately wicked and our pride overwhelming. It is so easy to feel superior when we learn a new skill. So tempting to relegate those who don’t know the new skill as out of touch, and truth be told, not very bright.

No matter what the technology, we remain servants of Jesus. No matter what new skill we learn, we are always to consider others better than ourselves.

If we learn a new technology that is useful and others in the church don't know, understand, or use it, we have three choices:

  1. If it is something that might genuinely benefit them, we can offer to help them learn in a fun, upbeat way. I recently helped a young teacher with some online video creation I'd found great fun to do (www.animoto.com). Though I love this program, it isn't the greatest thing for everyone.
  2. If the person is unable because of time constraints, or other reasons, not able to learn or practice it, perhaps we can help them with it as a fellow worker and servant. Answering my husbands email (a bi-vocational pastor who works hard at a handyman job to work for a church for free) is the sort of work that falls into this category.
  3. We can wait, pray, be encouraging and available to engage others in the skill if and when time and interest are expressed.

The greatest commandment remains that to love each other and that involves all the demanding requirements of 1 Cor. 13, including patience, kindness, bearing all things, enduring all, never failing and related skills that are far more difficult to master than the latest computer communication skill. Mastering those character traits is what will make us bright, indeed.

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Note on context of this blog entry: I didn't write the cautions above as a technophobe. I've emailed since the days that email addresses were numbers; you can follow me on Twitter at yvonprehn. I wrote it to smack myself to never be proud of something I learn, but humble and thankful for the opportunity.