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 Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission.

More than a pretty face—5 essentials for an effective church website

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Make your website more than a pretty face
Good looks are appealing, but not the most important thing when it comes to church websites--this article give you 5 essentials.

Much emphasis on websites today is on how they look and while important, looks are not the most important feature of your church website.

It's like when we meet a person who is physically attractive and are drawn to him or her. After a few interactions, we may find the person as attractive on the inside as they are on the outside and the relationship grows. However if we find that underneath that beautiful exterior is an empty mind or heart, we won't continue the relationship.

Following are 5 characteristics to keep your church website from being a just a pretty face and being a resource that can grow your churches relationships with members and seekers. . . .

Content-rich—

It really doesn't matter if people think your website looks great or not. What matters is what content is in it. There has been a big shift in the design of church websites in the design of church websites over the past few years and unfortunately many churches concentrate so hard on keeping up on design trends, they lose sight of the reality of the unspoken expectations people have of your website. People don't come to your website to keep up with design trends, they come to your website to find out content about your church and the Christian faith.

If you haven't been involved in a website redesign, please don't worry about it if your website format hasn't been changed from the day it was created, don't make redesign your priority until you have a solid foundation of content.

The content that makes an effective church website should be driven by the overall vision and goal to fully fulfill the Great Commission,  that is to help people come to know Jesus as Savior and to grow become Christ-like disciples.  To do that you need to go beyond the basic brochure details needed on every church website such as:

Location and contact information—If you don't already have it on there, the footer of your website is a great place to include address, email and phone number.

Staff and who does what and how to reach them—the important issue here is that if you include email, or social media accounts for staff, be sure they actively answer their emails or take part in the social media. Please do not include email or social media links for staff who don't engage in them. It is a huge disappointment if you post contact information and people don't answer inquires.

These and other expected other basics such as what newcomers can expect; sermons in audio and video, current bulletins and newsletters, denominational information, etc., are very important, but to fully fulfill the Great Commission with your website—go beyond each of these expected areas and be sure each area of your website has the two following website characteristics: Comprehensive and Connected.

Comprehensive—

This goes beyond labels that a website template or list has and actually giving people concrete information in them.

To illustrate the importance of this characteristic, how often have you seen a website with sections or labels, such as: Children's, Adult Ministry, etc., but when you clicked on the label to find out more they have nothing but a statement that says something like, "We believe in Biblical education for all ages and our church provides it through classes on Sunday morning and during the week.” Or it had the current lesson, but only the topic and nothing more. Or worse yet is the label "under construction."  It is better to leave a label off than to not have a comprehensive explanation about what is really going on in that ministry area.

Some ideas to make your site more comprehensive:

  • Show pictures of people and activities with captions that explain what is going on;
  • Have staff members share about themselves and why they do what they do;
  • Tell about how staff and lay leaders came to know Jesus, how they were called to ministry, or became involved in the church;  
  • Profile members of the congregation who lead ministries and have them tell their story and show what they do by pictures of them teaching kids or on a work project;
  • Give up-to-date details about what is taught and why those topics were selected.

Also be comprehensive about what you believe. A Statement of Faith is expected, but very few church websites actually tell people why they believe what they believe or even explain the terms in it.  This is such a missed opportunity because comprehensive explanations can be a wonderful way to engage people about the Christian faith. To do that, expand  the parts of your Statement of Faith with  links to blogs or discussions by staff or teachers about them the topics (e.g. why we believe the Bible is the word of God, not just stating that we do),  and invitations to interact with people who may have questions and who visit the website.

In the past the church has done outreach in many ways—missionaries braved jungles, oceans, and death; churches sent out mass mailings and volunteers went door-to-door sharing the gospel. Today people search for answers to life, death, and spiritual issues on the internet and if your church has content that gives answers and people who will answer questions and interact with seekers via email and social media, your website can be one of your most effective outreach tools.

Also, be comprehensive about explaining the most important thing about your church,  what it means to be a Christian and how to become one (quick—check yours out and see if you have this on your site). If you don't clearly share how to become a Christian, or how to explore what it means to be a Christian, or what ways your church welcomes seekers—talk with the staff about what to put on the site explanations and invitations in ways that fits your church tradition and the ministries it offers to guide people towards a relationship with Jesus. Most importantly, again, be sure you have links to people who will respond if someone has questions or makes a decision.

Connected—

Though we have one purpose in all our communications—to fully fulfill the Great Commission by helping people come to know Jesus as Savior and grow to spiritual maturity in Him—we have many channels through which we communicate this message and you need to have connections on your website to all of them to appeal to the various audiences your church reaches.

Connected means that website updates and key content are linked to social media sites. But even more important than this is that when you mention something on a social media site that it links back to more information on the website.

It is extremely frustrating to be on the receiving end of social media that advertises and announces "Come to this or that special event!" "Mark this date on your calendar!" "Don't miss out!" but when you go to the website of the church, there is nothing about the event and no place to easily find the details of cost, location, childcare, schedule, and the other critical details necessary to actually connect people with the ministry. This is where a website can answer questions, make the connections and give people the details they need to be part of what you mention on the website.

Consistent—

Consistency means having the same information in the same place and accessible in the same way. Websites are no different from paper-based communications in this way—readers dislike format changes done merely because the person creating the communication got bored laying things out the same old way.

Members come to websites to carry out a task: to find out what time their kids need to be at a meeting; to see what the upcoming sermon topics are; to find out how much the retreat or camp will cost. Seekers and visitors come to find out who you are, what you believe, and if they will be welcomed. Nobody comes to a site looking examples of great design and clever ways of arranging content. And no one is amused because you decided to change things up "to make it look more interesting." Frustration while trying to find something is never interesting.

Decide on website organization that you think will be clear and easy to use and then get feedback on how it serves its purpose.  One the best way to do this is to have some people totally unfamiliar with your church test your website while you are watching and see what they have trouble finding. You can also recruit some current church members and have them navigate the new design. Don't ask either group how it looks—people are innately polite and will say nice things no matter what they think.

To get a realistic view of how your site works, give them tasks to do: find out the time of an event; find the audio of the pastor's sermon; find out about adult and children's Bible training; figure out what small group to join and make contact with the group leader. If they have trouble doing these things quickly and easily—work on the organization and test again. If it works, keep it that way for as long as you can. Constantly add new and updated content (discussed in more detail in the next characteristic), but keep the organization consistent.

Current—

After all of the above, what sets apart a truly effective church website is that all the information is current.  As ministries, people, events change every week, this is a huge challenge, but without it, without your congregation being to trust that your website to be current, you won't accomplish all that you could with your website.  As Hebrews 10:36 reminds us:

For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised.

Keeping your website current involves more than the mind-numbing and often frustrating task of being sure that the dates, facts, and schedules are correct every week, when people forget to update you and you have to track down tiny details—it is truly "a long obedience in the same direction." Eugene Peterson

It is also spiritual warfare. Like the soldier who must constantly clean his rifle, check his equipment, making certain that everything is in perfect order for battle—you must make certain all your communications are as current and correct as they can be for the needs of your people. You might never know the spiritual destiny a tiny detail can alter. If you leave out the time of an event, perhaps a spiritual seeker does not connect with the church, a child is left lonely without an opportunity to meet friends, a believer who desperately wants to grow finds no resources. You are never merely dealing with schedules and numbers, you are making available tools for the salvation and growth of eternal souls.

Content-rich, comprehensive, connected, consistent and current—these essentials that make your website more than a pretty face are time-consuming and challenging to do, but if you want to make your website more than a pretty face, but something that helps people find Jesus and grow in their faith, the time spent on each of them is than worth it.

Details Matter—Looking Good in Print

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Details matter in church communications
the little things matter when we want to communicate in a way that honors our Lord.

When it comes to looking good in print, small details make a big difference.

As one ministry assistant pointed out, “Members use word processing at home now, so they pay more attention to our printed materials and notice how we put things  on the page. I really want to feel secure about how the bulletin and our newsletter look.”

One effective way to achieve that security is to develop an office style book. Start by choosing a reference to use as an authority. My personal preference is The Gregg Reference Manual, but there are others equally reliable. As questions regarding usage occur in your writing—newsletters, bulletins, correspondence, reports—look up answers in your reference and mark them for future use or make a list you can refer to easily.

The following brief guidelines from Gregg can get you started. In your own style book you can add examples and expand topics you use most.

• Ages
Express ages in numerals (including 1 through 10) when they are used as significant statistics. Spell out ages in nontechnical references and in formal writing.

• Clock time
Always use figures with a.m or p.m. If you have the option (and you likely do) use the small capitals A.M. and P.M. instead of lowercase letters. No internal spaces are used in either case. Avoid the use of all capital letters.

For time “on the hour,” zeros are not needed to denote minutes unless you want to emphasize the precise hour. In lists, however, when some entries are given in hours and minutes, add a colon and two zeros to exact hours to maintain a uniform appearance. Line up the colons to keep the lists neat and clean.

• Dates
Only when the day precedes the month or stands alone, express it in either ordinal figures (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th) or in ordinal words (the first, the twentieth). The default on some word processing programs superscripts ordinal suffixes (1st). For a more professional look, undo this feature and put ordinals, when you must use them, on the baseline (1st).

In most writing though, the day follows the month. In these cases, use a cardinal figure (1, 2, 3) to express it: on May 6. Do not use the form May 6th or May sixth, even though those versions reflect the way the date would sound when spoken.

• Percentages
In body text express percentages in figures, leave one space, and spell out the word percent: 20 percent. The % symbol may be used in charts and graphs, on business forms, and in statistical material.

• Sermon and hymn titles
Quotation marks are generally used around shorter works: television shows, poems, short stories, sermons, hymns, essays. Longer works are italicized: newspapers, books, magazines, movies, television series.

• Telephone numbers
The use of parentheses to enclose the area code tends to make publications look dated: (717)555-1111. The same can be said for the diagonal: 717/555-1111. An updated style uses periods to separate the elements:717.555.1111. This makes phone numbers consistent with the dot addresses used in website and email addresses.

Using these six guidelines consistently will keep you looking good in print!

Bonus tip for how to staying legal with social media

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Check out this article for specific advice, links, company requirements, etc. on how to use the logos, illustrations and citations for YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn in your church communications:  Honoring Copyright Part 2: Legal Ways To Use Common Social Media Logos . It's a good page to bookmark for reference.

Have you closed with Jesus? Something to consider if church communications seems impossibly difficult

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The Good Shepherd
Jesus can carry us in our work if we know Him as Savior and obey Him as Lord.

And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. So whoever has God's Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life. (1 John 5:11, 12 NLT)

Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as 'Lord,' but they still won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven. On judgment day many will tell me, "Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name." But I will reply, "I never knew you. Go away." (Matthew 7:21-23 NLT)

My sheep recognize my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them away from me. (John 10:27-28 NLT)

If you've been reading the posts on this website and if you have done church communications work for any time at all, you may have one of two responses. Either the words here have been an encouragement and a challenge to you in your work as a church communicator or perhaps they seem empty and your job remains a frustration.

If your job seems a constant frustration, beyond any solutions in technology or work setting, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you to take a few minutes to examine your personal relationship with Jesus. Church communications is ultimately and at its core communication about Jesus. Unlike other kinds of communication work, you will have a hard time doing church communications work if you don't know Jesus. Knowing him, listening to our shepherd's voice, is essential if our work is to pass the test of eternal value and to be bearable as we do it day-by-day. But how can we be sure if we have this kind of relationship with Jesus?

Please now, take a few minutes by yourself, without distractions, to read this section and think about it.

One way to evaluate your relationship with Jesus

Evangelists in the past used a term that we don't often hear today when they would ask, "Have you closed with Christ?" Their use of the term "closed" was taken from real estate back then and they used it just as we do today. You can look at a house, walk through it, admire it, want it, even invest time in getting a loan on it, but until you "close" on it, the house is not yours.

What happens when you close? On closing, only then does the house then becomes truly, legally yours. For that closing to take place, you have to give up something, usually a considerable amount of money, and you have to make a commitment to keep investing in the house for it to one day be yours completely.

No analogy is ever perfect, but this is a pretty good one to explain what it means to know Jesus personally. You can look at Jesus from far away, you can even get up close, perhaps visiting or regularly attending a church to examine his teachings. You might even work at a church and do communications work in his name. But unless a personal transaction takes place, unless you know Jesus personally and he knows you, you haven't "closed" with him.

That act of closing with Jesus is a serious commitment. That closing takes place between you and God, in prayer where you admit your sins have kept you from God and you recognize that Jesus death on the cross paid a penalty for those sins that you could not, and you ask that Jesus become the forgiver and leader of your life.

The cost of the transaction

If you do that you have closed with Jesus and you move into an eternal relationship with him. Though there is no monetary cost to this transaction meaning there is nothing you can do to earn or deserve a relationship with Jesus, at the same time before making that closing transaction, the Bible does encourage you to count to the life cost. The Bible is clear that the cost involved in closing with Jesus is that you now turn over the control of your life to Him: your priorities, your time, your focus, your decisions are now all to be under the leadership of Jesus. You aren't asked to make monthly payments (though giving regularly to your church and those in need is an expectation of all Christians), but you are required to give up your time regularly in the study of God's Word, in prayer, and in service to your world in the name of Jesus. In return the Christian receives much more than an earthly house that will deteriorate—the Christian is promised an eternal home in heaven and on earth peace, strength, and joy for whatever life God gives.

I'm bringing this up because at this point because as I've said earlier, doing Christian communication work is one of the hardest jobs imaginable and to last in it, you need every resource available in Jesus. You have to have a personal relationship with Jesus for his strength to flow through you to do this work; you must be on good terms with him to do it happily. Our relationship with our God is personal—more than a theology or belief system or set of rules—one with much more, but no less than the personal qualities of a relationship with an earthly friend.

If you have not closed with Jesus, count the cost of following him and if you are prepared to commit your life to him, close with
Jesus by praying the prayer that follows.

A prayer of "closing" with Jesus

Dear Jesus,

I admit that though I've known about you for a long time, I've kept you at arm's distance. I don't want to do that anymore. I admit that I need forgiveness for things I have done. I realize that in coming to you I acknowledging that you died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins and I want you to come into my life and be my forgiver and leader. I realize that in doing this I turn over
the control of my life and eternity to you and I pray you'd help me to live a life that is worthy of you. Thank you for your salvation and for being willing to have a personal relationship with me for all eternity. Amen.

If you sincerely prayed that prayer, welcome to the family of God! More than ever before you will have Jesus beside you as you do your work for him. Be sure to read your Bible every day and go to a church that preaches the Bible and you will grow and experience the reality of a friendship that will never end.

Evaluate your ongoing relationship with Jesus

If you are in a relationship with him, how is it? We take time to evaluate our human relationships and it is very important to give time and attention to our relationship with Jesus. Is it the happy, peaceful time you want it to be? Is a bit of resentment festering? Talk about it to Jesus. Is there sadness inside you that you don't feel will ever end? Share it. Have you forgotten to be thankful for the blessings of food and shelter that so many of our brothers and sisters around the world are without? Catch up on your thanks. Do you forget he wants to help you in every detail of your life? Invite him to share this moment.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," the apostle Paul said. (Phil 4:13, KJV)

Now that your relationship is right with Jesus, charge into your day in his strength.

Don’t steal videos for ministry—create your own with animoto!

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animoto video creation web software
Use animoto video creation software to legally create fantastic videos for ministry.

As I talked about in a previous article, it is illegal, it is stealing, to download and use videos from YouTube that you did not create. It doesn't matter if you are using them for church or if you don't get caught—you aren't supposed to do it.

It is a lot more work to create your own, but the online video creation software, animoto, makes it easy to create great looking videos for a variety of ministry purposes.

The software is SUPER EASY to use. After the demo videos below is a short video I did to show you how simple it is to use. It isn't cheap, currently it runs $22 a month if you pay for a year's subscription, but you don't need editing software, or any knowledge at all and your can create great church videos.

Two videos I created with animoto pro:

First is one I created using the free images from www.freebibleimages.com, a site I cannot recommend enough for a wealth of both drawings and pictures of actors in Biblical settings. You can use them to create your own videos as well as any other communication project in print or online. The second one is for Mother's Day and following it a short video that shows how I used animoto to create the Mother's Day video.


Video of how easy animoto software is to use

The video below was created a couple of years ago and animoto has made the process even faster and easier, but this video still give you a good idea of how the software works.