Want to improve your church bulletin? So your printed worship guide will be wanted and needed? You have an uphill battle since the print medium is dying. The vast majority receiving a bulletin don’t read it. Most throw it away while some churches conveniently provide recycle bins to save the planet from the...
Interestingly, in order to effectively communicate, the church needs to stop talking before the congregation (or community) stops listening. Or we’re just wasting our time! It’s crazy how short the average attention span has gotten all while we drone on and on. Here are 5 (somewhat unexpected) locations that deserve a good hearty...
Many churches rely on church socials (fellowships). From my youth there were many great memories from church suppers, ice cream socials, and dinners on the ground. We’d gather with people you’d only see on Sundays in order to do “fellowship” stuff. Like eat, talk, and laugh. Socialize! Social media is the new church...
I fly a lot, and I pray before each flight that God would allow me to have an effective conversation with the person next to me. Effective? That means I’ll represent the Church in a good light and talk about Jesus or faith somehow. Occasionally, the Holy Spirit prepares the stranger and,...
As churches grow and Pastors (ministry leaders) are hired to look after various ministries, the healthy church-focus becomes threatened by the inevitable: Ministry Silos. This is when ministry areas become myopic — nearsighted — to the point they rarely look at the entire organization or even at another ministry outside of its narrow walls....
Churches need to demonstrate good stewardship. Especially if you want people to donate hard-earned money to your ministry. No one wants to give to a non-profit that looks wasteful. Communication is often seen as a disposable and temporary item. You promote an event for a few weeks and it’s done. But this...
It happens all the time. Someone in your congregation sees you and asks about an upcoming event or a regularly occurring ministry. They have no idea if it’s happening. What’s scary? It was just announced in the service PLUS someone crafted a paragraph about it in the bulletin that’s tucked in their...
Sad truth: People aren’t paying attention to most (church) communication. In fact, most people are only half-listening or half-reading. An exasperated church communicator recently asked me, “how do you change this trend!?” Stop wasting people’s time. That’s the easy answer. Then, after a little thought, I added “there’s probably 4 things you have...
Church communication is easy if you can get people to pay attention. Except we live in a world that only half-listens because they have so much noise around them! We’re all bombarded with messages, promotions, and information in a multi-level, continuous track so that we end up with 1000’s of communications available to...
