Sometimes people don't think they are doing all they can for the Lord, that they aren't excellent or perfect enough in their communications ministry unless what they produce is done in slick, full-color printing or is professionally programmed. Sadly, it also often means that no one in the church is good enough to create the communications in print or on the website, so an outside, professional firm must be hired to do it or only products purchased from a professional company are used. Or, if done at the church, only a select person or two in the church is good enough to produce the quality needed.
But being expensive and professional, as defined by using the standards of a professional ad agency isn't the only standard of perfection for the followers of Jesus.
If we honestly look at Jesus' life, what sort of standards of perfection did he have?
First of all in who He chose as his disciples, the ones who would be trusted to carry out his message-they were a pretty scruffy group and they didn't get much better in three years. Not one of them was a professional religious person.
Second, his meetings weren't very organized affairs: little kids running around, not enough food, constant interruptions by sick people. Not what anyone would consider a professionally managed event.
Third, when he left his remaining disciples with the task of evangelising the world, he didn't leave them with a plan even vaguely perfected. The Great Commission could be summed up as "tell people about me and help them grow in the faith." For a perfectionist manager today, those parting words have a tremendous about of wiggle room that would allow wildly divergent attempts to apply it.
It wasn't that Jesus didn't care about excellence, but he obviously had a different standard of perfection than what we might consider perfection today. Following are two more observations and commentary how Jesus inspires us in our goal for communication perfection:
Observation #1: Jesus always focused on the needs of people in his communication, not on how great he was.
He could have created a little world in the palm of his hand as a demonstration to show his power; he could have had stars fall from the sky to prove his might; he could have healed a city with one booming command, but he didn't do any of those things to show his perfect godhood.
He showed us what God was like by meeting needs of his creation. He bailed out an embarrassed groom who ran out of wine at his wedding feast; he made little kids comfortable; he healed a woman humiliated by a chronic disease.
Commentary and application:
Perfection in communications doesn't come from showing people what a big-deal perfect church you are or how you can create communications that are more expensive and fancier than the church down the street.
Jesus idea of a perfect publication, if we follow his plan, would be one that made sure it addressed the needs of people. It would be onne that told them why the event would help them, how it would serve them, how their lives would be better because of it. It would give them all the details necessary to attend without having to take an extra step of calling someone or looking it up on the web or jumping from link to link if it was an email. Those details would include the time, location, name of person in charge, directions, child care provisions, cost would all be there and easily accessible.
One area that I see this "perfection" lacking in so often today is in church websites. I've recently observed a number of websites that were created using professional groups that supplied a fancy, flash-enabled, website with lots of photos of smiling people, great colors and buttons to push to hear sermons. But try to find the details of what small groups are meeting or what time to get your kids to a youth group meeting and where it is being held or what the church really believes about anything and it can be an impossible task.
People do not go to church websites to be wowed by flashing graphics and bright colors or cheesy pictures of grinning people, they go to have needs met. If they can't get those needs met quickly and easily, your website is far from perfect.
Observation #2: Jesus focused on potential perfection.
When Jesus called Peter, he was not anything like the Rock he would become. He was more of an irritating pebble in Jesus' journeys.
But every time Jesus called him, "Peter", Simon had a vision of what he would become. Eventually, he became the leader and pastor, the Rock, Jesus knew he would be.
Commentary and application
Your volunteers and staff members doing ministry publications seldom come into that job with any training at all. They are far from perfect in communication knowledge about design ideas or execution. Focus on encouraging, equipping, and providing opportunities. Love them lots. Give them time to try things and to grow up in their skills. Provide training and tools and they will amaze you.
Regarding training, I was recently communicating with a lady whose church had spent several thousand dollars (a typical amount) to have their website professional designed. They were having all sorts of problems getting their church content to fit into the design and the costs kept mounting.
Knowing there were other options for getting this done, I asked her, "How do you think you could have done if the money spent on this company had been used to train you and give you time to carry out what you learned?" She just sighed.
This situation could be repeated far too often and it shouldn't be. Your people have tremendous potential and with time, money and training they will not only do great things for the church, but you will have participated in growing them in skills and service. To invest money and time in your people instead of a quick, "professional" solution may take more time, but the results will be much more lasting.
Finally, complement them for every step of learning and shield them from negative and nasty people when helpful comments become hurtful criticism. Remind the critics to pray and give to the communication program at the church. Remind them that all of us are pilgrims and we haven't arrived at perfection in anything as yet, but that we all need love and encouragement as we progress to becoming more and more like Jesus in the perfecting of our service to him.
Please share your thoughts, comments, questions!