You work so hard this time of year (and always) to create communications to build your church and encourage your people. Take 2 minutes to watch this video to be encouraged and to remind yourself why you do all you do. Know you are loved and appreciated by our Lord and me at this Christmas season.
Do not confuse irreverence for relevancy in your church communications
We serve a holy God.
There is a tendency today for some in church communications circles to use shocking or flippant language or advertising with the excuse of making the church appeal to the unchurched, or to make their communications appear cutting-edge, professional, and contemporary.
This is wrong. As Jesus’ ambassadors and representatives our words and lives are to mirror Him, not the current cultural fad. The Bible is clear in how this relates to our communications:
Eph 4:1; 25-31: Live a life worthy of the calling you have received. . . . Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor, for we are all members of one body. . . . .Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.
Col. 4: 6 Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.
Graceful, worthy words, no corrupt communication, are just a few of the many, many worthwhile terms that should characterize our communications. As obvious as these passages seem, their message of holy, worthy words is not universally accepted in all circles of church communications today.
Some believe that it is OK, in the interests of sharing the messages of the church, to use language that shocks, offends, or frustrates. In addition to language that would have caused my mother to wash my mouth out with soap, some of this persuasion believe sexually suggestive images on billboards and sermon topics will get people to church—where of course then a proper biblical message will be preached. [Read more...]
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Church communicators, resistence fighters for the Kingdom of God
Enemy-occupied territory—that is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
I chose this quote for the first on this website because it summarizes much of my motivation for this ministry because it reminds me that, in many ways, church communicators are like the French Resistance fighters living in Paris near the end of World War Two. D-Day was June 6th, but Paris was not liberated until August 25th.
The Nazis would not admit defeat and poured all of their power and persuasion into the belief that they would be victorious. The resistance fighters using underground presses, hidden radios, and graffiti proclaimed, “No, freedom is coming! No matter how powerful the ruling party, no matter how oppressive their actions, no matter the personal cost of resistance, we will proclaim the truth—freedom is coming!”
We know the outcome—Paris was liberated; the Nazis were defeated.
The collaborators who sided with the Nazis, were publicly humiliated and condemned. For the the vast majority, who did nothing, there was most likely overwhelming relief, perhaps interrupted with thoughts of "I would have done more, but I was too tired . . .or fearful . . .or busy. . .or something...but I wished the Allies well."
For the resistance fighters, the years of clandestine, sleepless, dangerous work to get out the true message of freedom was suddenly worth it and they were celebrated as heros. Theirs was was deepest joy. They believed the truth and at the risk of life and loss of comfort, acted on it.
You, church communicators are the resistance fighters for the kingdom of God. Our D-Day was the third day. The Lord Jesus conquered death, removed the curse and chasm between creature and Creator and rose victorious from the grave.
But our Lord has not yet taken possession of the land.
The enemy of human souls rules the minds and hearts of many with his lies. Some who collaborate share wealth, power, and influence unimaginable. Many can't imagine a Lord beyond immediate needs, appetites, self-preservation or indulgence. Many are too poor or hungry or frightened to think beyond the next day. Many have heard rumors of a resistance army, but suspect it's only for the fanatical and besides, there is another sale to attend, a meal to cook, a romance to pursue.
Church communicators, you are called, as Lewis said, to a "great campaign of sabotage." It may take many forms and many years, but we must pour our hearts and time into letting our world know the ruler of this age is defeated.
Our Lord has won the victory. Join us and joyfully look forward to his return when he takes full possession of this world.
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Chart: The Five Steps of Effective Church Communications & Marketing
This chart is the visual representation of Five Steps of Effective Church Communication and Marketing, a church communication system created by Yvon Prehn that helps churches fully fulfill the Great Commission.
Instead of church communications consisting of scattered pieces (any one of which might be wonderful on its own), this systems helps churches see how all the communications produced by the church can work together to progressively move people from outside the church, to involvement in the church, and finally to mature discipleship.Much of the material on this site is a practical working out of this system. To read more articles specifically on The Five Steps of Effective Church Communications, click here.To download the chart you can either click on the image or click here. You have our permission to copy and share it in any way that might be useful.
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Communications for a good continuing relationship with your volunteers
Every church is desperate for volunteers. It's not only important to effectively recruit them, but after they are recruited, it is equally important to work hard to keep them. Unfortunately, the difference between how we treat volunteers when we are recruiting them and after they volunteer is sometimes similar to the difference with some couples between courtship and marriage. Before the wedding the groom is all flowers and candy; after the wedding he becomes Mr. Grumpy.
Don’t become Mr. or Mrs.Grumpy to your volunteers. Be as kind, caring and thankful to them when they have been around for 6 months as you are the first week. You can express that thankfulness to them through a variety of church communication projects such as:
Reminders of meetings or volunteer responsibilities
You may be reluctant to do this thinking that you are unnecessarily bothering people, but we need to remember that unlike many of us, the lives of most of our volunteers do not revolve around the church. People may volunteer with the best of intentions, but if they did not write down all the details after perhaps signing up in the church lobby to do something, it is so easy to forget all about it.
Sending out postcards or emails a few days ahead of any volunteer meeting or can be a great way to serve your volunteers. Say something like:
“Thanks so much for volunteering to serve on the missions committee! We will be meeting 7-9 PM Thursday night, December 8 at the Jones house on 5555 Any Street. We’ll be looking forward to seeing you.”
You don’t even have to change the card or email month to month, just change the date and send them out again. Your volunteers will love you. One church secretary in my seminars said at the end of each month she took several hours to go over the calendar for the coming month. She made up postcards, mostly just changing the date from the previous month reminding everyone of all the various meetings going on at the church. It didn’t take long to produce them doing them all at once. After they were produced (mostly just on the ink jet printer with the light weight card stock), she filed them in an index card box according to the day they needed to be sent out. For example on the 5th she might send out notices for the coming week for the elders meeting, the mission committee and the choir prayer team. Volunteers loved this and people were much more consistent in showing up for meetings.
You can do the same thing if you send out email reminders. Programs like Constant Contact (and all other bulk email programs today) have a feature that allows you to create emails and schedule ahead for when you want to send them out.
Find out how people want to be reminded
If we could send out only postcards or only emails, it would certainly make life easier for church communicators. But unfortunately, we are in a time of multi-channel communication with lots of ways to communicate and lots of people preferring different methods.
When people sign up for a volunteer position is a good time to find out how they prefer to be contacted: email or print. It is our job to serve them in ways that make it possible for them to serve our church.
Do more than remind people of work to do; thank them
Thank you post cards are great to mix in the mailing of reminders. People love to get a personal note from the pastor. One way you can help the pastor is to put a big piece of clip art and preprint something like: “We are SO THANKFUL you are part of the Missions Committee!” on the card. Just leave a little bit of white space, just enough so the pastor has room to write something short, like “Jim, we couldn’t do it without you! Blessings, Pastor John.”
Emails can also be a great encouragement and some of the online greetings cards are a wonderful way to say thank you. I especially like the ones from www.dayspring.com, though there are quite a few companies out there.
None of these projects take lots of time, work or money, but expressing your thanks in tangible ways through church communications is a wonderful way to improve your working relationship with your volunteers.
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