Cutting Through the Static
09. Nov, 2009 
1 Comment
I’m going to old school here for a minute.
Remember rabbit ears?
No, not the ones your friend in high school or your Uncle Joe gave to people in pictures, but the rabbit ears that you used to have to use to get reception on your TV?
Yeah, it’s been awhile since most of us have had to use those… but I think there’s a lot we can learn from them.
The whole purpose for them was simple: to cut through the static and help you tune into a channel.
Messages were being broadcast all around you and the rabbit ears helped you tune into them and get the right signal. Sometimes you’d have to get creative with them to get them to work and on occasion you’d have to hit the side of your TV to see the latest episode of The Cosby Show. [ I used to have a crush on Rudy. ]
There used to only be a few communication channels to pick from when it came to church communications: the bulletin or announcements made by the pastor.
Today we have endless channels to broadcast our message on, so the challenge we face as church communicators is determining which channels people are tuned into. It’s not about how we want to communicate with them, it’s about discovering how they want to communicate with us. Otherwise, our messages may be coming across like static… unclear, unfocused, and fuzzy. Or, we could be communicating on a channel that people aren’t even tuned into.
If you oversee communications at your church, look at your role as being a set of rabbit ears… tuning in and helping get your message broadcasted on channels people are dialed into.
So, for the next five days I’ll be doing a series of posts on five of the top channels people are tuned into: Twitter, texting, Facebook, the web, and social networks.
All of these channels provide great outlets for your messaging, however, depending on your context, some may be more effective than others. Through this series of posts I’ll share a bit of our experience with communications at Park, and hopefully help you determine whether or not they are a right fit for you and your church.
There’s no one-sizes-fits-all approach when it comes to church communications but hopefully with enough of the right maneuvering, you can discover the channels people in your church and surrounding community are tuned in to and you can begin to broadcast the message of your church [ultimately, the message of the Gospel] in a way that’s clear.
First up: Texting.
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Tim, sounds like a great series. Looking forward hearing what you have you have to say and joining the conversation.