By Jonathan Howe
Bigger. Stronger. Faster.
It’s a mantra you hear from professional athletes and coaches all the time. Successful athletes and teams are often the ones who simply can do more than their opponents. That typically works in sports. But does it translate to other areas of life? Not always.
When it comes to business, efficiencies are often more important than being the biggest, strongest, or fastest. It doesn’t always matter if your sales are the greatest or if you have more customers. If your margins are low and your overhead is eating away your profits, efficiency can mean much more than size.
But what about churches?
More specifically, what about church communications?
I would suggest that instead of being concerned with simply communicating more, churches should be focused on communicating more efficiently and effectively. These four steps will help your church determine what efficient communications look like in your context.
- Determine what works best for your people. There’s no one-size-fits all communications plan for any church. Different churches need different methods of communication. If you listen to your congregants, ask for their input, and pay attention to what seems to resonate with them, you can determine what you should stop doing, keep doing, or start doing.
- Don’t be afraid to try new methods. Unsure if your congregation would respond to an email newsletter? Try sending one per month for a few months and see what the response is. Find champions for new technology in the church to help you spread the word about the benefits of different communications methods.
- Be persistent, but not stubborn or wasteful. Give a new communication initiative a few months before throwing it out. But don’t be afraid to kill something if it doesn’t take, even if you like it, or if you want people to like it. Don’t stick with a communication method just for your own benefit or pleasure. If it isn’t working, don’t continue to waste time and energy on ineffective communications.
- Use tools that foster efficiency. Software—both online and computer-based—is widely available for communications. You have templates in Mailchimp, design templates for Canva, and social media auto-schedulers like Buffer and Hootsuite, dedicated social media apps for on-the-go posting. Use tools that work for your workflow and messages. Finding the right tool, or even a better one, can make a huge difference in the efficient use of your time and your message’s effectiveness.
Do you feel your church communications are efficient and effective? Or are you just trying to outshout the world to get your message out? What tools have helped you communicate more efficiently and effectively?
One of the tools that we use for all of our in-house training, LifeGroups and Sermon Notes is http://www.mogochurch.com. It is an excellent tool developed in Atlanta, GA. If you talk to the creator (Jake) tell him Matthew Wiley from Ontario sent you. I guarantee that you will not be disappointed when you see this tool. It has revolutionized how we communicate giving accessibility to each person’s notes in their own personal digital library wherever they are. Invaluable!
We see the struggle with church leaders to “become” organized. Management by crisis seems to be the preferred method today.
That’s a good observation.
Communications can easily be overwhelming, especially with technology changing and new ways to connect with the church and greater communities seem to pop up daily. Church communications is a very time-consuming ministry.
We have a strong team of volunteers who handle the online and social media tasks, as well as some of the print responsibilities. Thankfully, we have an incredibly supportive clergy, staff, and congregation who all give us info in a timely manner. We seem to have a very good balance of communication via print/email newsletters, social media, website, announcements, bulletins, etc. Definitely our weekly email newsletter has become a vital communications tool, and the congregation has truly embraced it. Photos are very important, and we have several volunteer photographers who produce a fresh supply of new photos each week (stock photos/clip art are not popular at all at our church).
Another area that really helps us communicate efficiently is that our senior parishioners (70+ years old) are a very tech savvy bunch, and are supportive in all our efforts. They provide us with content and invaluable feedback. I recently had a nearly 100 year old parishioner email me with his new email address. He didn’t want to miss any of our newsletter issues!
Great thoughts, Thom. I think the more “hooks” you put in the communication stream the more fish you’ll reach. We stopped sending out printed newsletters fifteen years ago. Instead we focus on communicating through a weekly e-newsletter (Life Support), an award-winning website that is up-to-date and mobile friendly, a church app, live streaming, and posting on the major social media platforms. We are doing less and less print media. We still publish a first-class quarterly magazine (which is also online as a flipbook) because the magazine is a great tool to put in the hands of guests who stop by our Guest Reception after all our worship sessions.
I need help with choosing the appropriate technology for a smal, but growing congregation desiring to reach the unchurched and those who attend infrequently.
I like your point on number 1. Churches often implement what they hear is working for other churches but fail to assess what will work for their own people.