A few days ago one of my former co-workers at Park Community Church called me to tell me about the unlikely journey a couple had made to Park and it was all because of my blog. I was blown away by the story and reached out to them and asked if I could share it. To say I was humbled is an understatement. Read and you’ll understand why.

Several months ago, a friend of mine on Facebook posted a link to your blog post about a different kind of Christian demonstration at the gay pride parade.  I was touched and quickly forwarded it on to my husband who was also very touched.  Having read Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz, we had always loved his story of the “Confession Booth”, and knew that that was the kind of Christianity we wanted to be a part of, so to read this story was very encouraging to know that these Christians really existed!

Another few months had gone by and I was unable to sleep one Saturday night, so I started checking out some of the apps on my iPod.  I opened up the Catalyst app and found another one of your articles titled No One Cares About Your Church. I found myself agreeing with all of the points you made and thought “I need to find out what church this guy is from!” The next morning I was excitedly telling my husband about the article and how the church was in Chicago (a city we love!), and he was quick to respond, “Let’s get ready and go this morning!” So we did.  Once we got there, I think our whole family instantly knew that finally we had found our church home!

People are always surprised to hear that we drive an hour and a half one way to go to church. We are often asked, “Don’t they have churches in Lake Geneva?”  We use the drive to engage in good conversations.  We try to use our time in the city wisely and often pack extra lunches and leave early and hit as many exit ramps as possible before and after church, handing out food to someone in need.  We have a heart for the city of Chicago and love how Park reaches out to see the city for Christ.

Now, this is where the story gets personal. A year and a half ago, I found out that my husband had struggled with a lifelong pornography addiction.  I was devastated, to say the least.  He was exposed at a very young age and had been unable to get out of its powerful snare although it was something he desperately wanted to be rid of and went to great lengths to protect me from. So when I say I had no idea, I truly didn’t have any idea that he had this double life.  In dealing with this we reached out to several churches in our area but were discouraged at the counsel we received. Through God’s grace, my husband has been able to make great strides in dealing with this addiction even without the help of a church.

A little more than a month ago, he confessed that he had had an affair several years ago that stemmed from his pornography addiction.  It was something I had strongly suspected but continually tried to push out of my mind during the past several years.  After this painful disclosure, we turned to Park and my husband set up a meeting with one of the pastors.  After the first meeting we immediately felt hopeful that we had finally found Biblical help.  To my surprise, the pastor ended our session saying “I’m just going to say something…” and he proceeded to say that after what we’d told him that he didn’t believe my husband had ever truly become a Christian because of all the secrets and things he’d been hiding. He also said that either it had never taken root with me or that it had and I’d walked away from God.  Wow, I was blown away and immediately thought my husband would be devastated.  The pastor walked out of the room to give us a moment and my husband looked at me and said, “I’ve known that for a while now.”

When the pastor came back in, my husband thanked him for being bold enough to call him out on that, because he longs to have men in his life that WILL call him out when necessary.  That night we both prayed to receive and fully accept Christ as Lord and Savior in the pastor’s office at Park overlooking the Chicago skyline.

A few weekends later we were able to attend Park’s marriage retreat where we had some wonderful conversations, talked about some difficult but necessary things, and have learned so much about confession, grace, repentance and forgiveness.  We have been encouraged and committed to our marriage from the very beginning but what’s happened as a result of attending Park has made us even more hopeful that what was meant for evil, God can and WILL use for good. We feel like not only will we make it through this, we will be better than ever, and that someday I might even thank God for allowing this in our lives.  We ended the retreat sharing Communion as a couple and I’ll never forget the impact that had.  It was the first time I felt like I truly understood the significance of Communion and the price God paid to forgive my sins, just as I was being asked to forgive the sins of my husband and examine my own heart and seek forgiveness for my own failings as well.  After we took Communion, my husband grabbed my hand and prayed as we both wept and he asked God for a new beginning for us.  We truly feel like what happened at the retreat connected us on a spiritual level and in new ways that were never possible before until we were both willing to put God first in our lives and marriage.  While we still have a long journey ahead of us, I feel confident that with God’s grace and with the supportive community at Park, God will use all of this for His glory.

The impact that Park has had on our lives has been truly life changing.  We’ll always be so thankful that the pastorwas willing to call us out during that first meeting. And we’ll always be thankful for your blog and way that it led us to Park.  We truly feel like the adventure is just beginning.  I don’t feel like it was coincidence or by accident how everything has happened.

First, I want to thank this family for having the courage to share this story. It’s remarkable to see the journey God has led them on and it’s humbling to hear how they found their ways to Park and ultimately, back to Christ through two blog entries of mine. I’m so thrilled to hear how they have not only come to know Christ but are in the process of building a stronger, honest and Christ-centered marriage. I’m thrilled they’ve connected with Park and are able to begin to share their story and their journey.

I don’t share this to pat myself on the back but simply to express to the rest of you out there that you have no idea who will be impacted by the words you share. Our online presence can play an important role in the lives of people we don’t even know, helping them find their way back to God. This story serves as a reminder for me of why I do what I do. Beyond sharing ideas, insights, conference notes, and the occasional rants, I hope to create content that inspires the church to communicate more effectively with the ultimate goal of seeing people connect with Christ. That’s what it’s all about. And, in a crazy way, sometimes as in the example of this story, God can use your stories to help people find their place in His Story.

Keep sharing. Keep writing. Keep connecting. You never know who is on the other side of the screen or the journey God has them on. Fight the resistance. Post content that scares you. Be honest. Be authentic. Be willing to take some risks and speak the truth with love and grace, not compromising the message but with a humble heart to help people see the Church and Jesus differently.

One of the unique things we incorporated into this campaign was texting.

We’ve been using texting at Park for over two years now, both in our weekend services as well as a means to communicate important announcements and events.

During the campaign we used texting in some new ways that helped extend our message, engage our audience, and communicate information about the campaign.

Opt-in Text Group
At the beginning of the campaign we set up an opt in group for people to get text reminders throughout the sermon series.

During the week we texted questions for them to consider, highlighted what was coming up, and texted various verses and quotes on generosity and giving. It was also a great way to communicate announcements related to the campaign.

We announced the opt in group the first week of the [IN]VEST campaign and had over 950 people [that’s over ½ of our church] sign up to receive them.

It was a huge success and something we’ll consider repeating for future series as way to help people continue the conversation around our messages.

Text Polls

We’ve done text polls in service before, but for this series specifically, we wanted to ask some tough questions and challenge people’s understanding and motivation for giving.

There’s two distinct benefits to doing text polls in service:

1 – They create a shared experience. We all come into church with different experiences, thoughts, and ideas. Many people just  spectate and never engage in the service. Something as simple asking people a question invites them to participate, and in doing so, see that there are other people in the room who feel the same way they do.

One of the questions we asked during the series was, “Do you think people outside of the church view the church as being generous?”

2 – They help the speaker gauge the audience.

Texting in service can help bridge the gap between the speaker in the audience. And, it can help the speaker know where the audience is coming from or their understanding of a particular topic. In the few times we’ve done text polling the audience’s response has helped refine our pastor’s message and made the content more applicable to people’s experiences.

One question we asked toward the end of the campaign was what people’s primary motivation for giving was. It was a great way for our teaching pastors to see how our church viewed the topic of giving.

Commitments via Text

We printed about 3,000 paper commitment cards for people to fill out indicating how they’d like to commit to our campaign. Less than 100 printed cards were returned.

It took some creativity to make it work, but thanks to our friends at Jarbyco we were able to create a way for people to text in their commitment to the campaign.

Since our campaign was called [IN]VEST, we created the keyword IMIN and asked people to text in if they’d like to respond via texting. Nearly ¾ of our commitments for the campaign came in via texting!

The Results

• 455 households are [IN], representing roughly 600 adults – that number reflects the number of new people in our church since we did our last two campaigns!
• People committed to invest in hundreds of lives to help their friends cross the line of faith.
• People committed to invest in nearly 50 different neighborhoods around the city
• Our church has committed to fighting many different injustices, the greatest being those around education, human trafficking, and poverty.
• Our primary financial goal going into the campaign was to pay down 2 debts totaling $2 million.
• Thanks to those who continued to fulfill their pledges from previous campaigns and the new [IN] pledges we have enough commitments to meet our goal of paying off the 2 notes totaling $2 million!

Closing Thoughts

This was by no means a perfect campaign. There are probably many things we could have done differently, but it worked.

We didn’t follow a prescribed path, but charted our own course that was reflective of our congregation’s thoughts and experiences around a tough subject.

We focused more on the holistic aspect of stewardship instead of zeroing in on money. As a result, people are focusing on creative ways they can invest, make a difference in their neighborhoods, and in the lives of their friends.

More than anything else, we recognized there were many new faces in our audience and used the campaign as an opportunity to share our vision, tell our story, and invite them to invest in our future.

Campaigns suck time, energy, and resources and requite an incredible amount of work. And let’s be honest, whenever we communicate things related to money our jobs get very uncomfortable. No one likes when the church talks about money let alone when we ask them to give more!

In March, Park launched a campaign and we had our work cut out for us. There were a few key factors that made it complicated…

• It was completely focused on paying off debt. There were no buildings to be built or projects to fund… we just needed extra cash to make payments that were coming due on our previous building project. It’s easy for people to give to something they can tangibly see but it’s much harder when the focus is debt retirement.
• This was the third capital campaign Park had done in the span of five years. Yes, three in five years. With the amount of new people in the church as well as the number of people who come and go in the city, nearly 60% of  the people who are a part of our church today hadn’t been around for the first two.
• We launched the campaign during a time of financial hardship for a majority of our congregation. People in our church were just beginning to feel the affects of our economic downturn. Not exactly the most opportune time to ask them to give more.

Consulting firms that work with churches on stewardship campaigns have a cookie-cutter way of running them which typically consists of making lots of glossy handouts, having countless meetings, doing private invite events, doing a huge song-and-dance, etc.

We didn’t do any of that… we broke the rules… here’s what we did…

We Weren’t Shy About Why We Were Doing the Campaign

Instead of going with some clever or catchy title for the campaign, we were forward with what it was about when we named it…  We called it [IN]VEST. We were also very open and transparent about the state of our finances an why we needed to do a campaign.

Last fall, we put this video together to explain our financial situation:

We Didn’t Do Glossy Brochures

Since the goal of this campaign was to pay off debt, it didn’t make sense to go into debt by printing brochures and handouts. We already don’t print much at Park, so we opted to keep things simple and use space in service and existing communication pieces to communicate what the campaign was all about. The only print piece we did was our response card.

We Cut The Amount of Meetings

Instead of doing leaders gatherings, private ‘large donor’ events or all of the other meetings that are usually suggested, we scaled down to one gathering that we repeated over the course of five nights.  We invited our entire church to come with their small groups to learn more and to ask questions. We recorded that meeting and posted it online so anyone that couldn’t attend was able to get the content.

We Made The Campaign About our Vision

We used the campaign as an opportunity to recommunicate our vision. With so many people new to our church, we used the campaign as an opportunity to re-tell our story, share our legacy, and challenge people to invest in future of our church.

We also created this awesome video which linked the story of Park to the story of the Church!

We Tied it Into a Teaching Series

We spent a total of four weeks doing a teaching series called [IN]VEST where we challenged our church to invest in a holistic way, not just with their finances, but with their time and talent. The focus was more on what they were doing with their whole lives, not just their checkbook.

We Got our Small Groups On Board

We put together a 52-page study guide that our entire church went through over the span of six weeks where the idea of [IN]VEST was further unpacked and discussed in small groups. The study also included practical resources like helping people evaluate how they were investing their time, challenged them to consider how they were using their gifts and talents, and assisted them in creating a personal budget.

We Told Stories

There were people in our church who were already investing in major ways, so we used the campaign as an opportunity to tell their stories.

This is a cool story of a couple who chose to step out in faith and invest in a dream God had placed on their hearts while facing the challenges of raising children in the city.

We Launched a New Church Campus

As a church, our vision is to invest in the city by planting new churches in strategic neighborhoods.  The week before the ‘big ask’ we prayed for and launched a new church campus in Chicago’s South Loop neighborhood. [Which had standing room only their first Sunday!] This was a tangible way of showing how we, as a church, were investing and an opportunity to remind people that the more we were able to pay off of our debt the more we’d have to invest in church planting.

We Challenged People To Do More Than Give Money

Earlier in the year we challenged our church to pray around three specific areas: 1 Person, 1 Neighborhood, and 1 Injustice. So, instead of just asking people to give a dollar amount, we asked for the names of the people they were praying for, the neighborhoods they wanted to impact and the wrong they wanted to right.  And we were very clear that if people weren’t in a position to give financially that we wanted everyone to commit to invest in some way.

We Used Texting

I’ll share on how we used texting throughout this campaign and let you know the final results tomorrow!

Stay tuned!

It generated a lot of response and it got me thinking…  so I decided [with Dawn’s permission] to do a little blog series on some of the things that I think are essential for Church Communications Directors.

First up: Empathy.

In StrengthsFinder 2.0, Tom Rath describes empathy this way:

You can sense the emotions of those around you. You can feel what they are feeling as though their feelings are your own . Intuitively, you are able to see the world through their eyes and share their perspective. This instinctive ability to understand is powerful. You hear the unvoiced questions. You anticipate the need. Where others grapple for the right words, you seem to find the right tone. You help people find the right phrases to express their feelings – to themselves as well as to others.

Empathy is a gift of understanding how other people feel, and in our role in church communications it’s vital we put ourselves in the shoes of people our church may directly or indirectly come into contact with. It’s important we understand the way things sound and come across and that the language we use doesn’t hinder the ultimate message all of our churches must communicate: the message of the Gospel… a message of love, grace, forgiveness, compassion, reconciliation, and hope.

As Kem Meyer says, our job is to remove barriers to entry. We need to understand how to make things simple for people to understand and connect with our church and ultimately to Christ.

Here’s a few ideas on ways you can begin to practice the discipline of empathy…

• Listen to what you’re saying. Is the language you use easily understood by the people who make up your community? Are the words you use real words or Christianese? Do people need a dictionary to understand your ministry names and acronyms you use? Do you use a lot of ‘inside language’? Use simple, concise language that’s easy to understand. [Idea: If you have to explain what 242 or C.A.R.E. means, it may be time to consider a name change.]
• Gauge your audience. Think about the different people in your audience and their experiences… how is what you are saying coming across to them. What are their unique challenges and needs? Does your style and expression match theirs? [Idea: Look around at a church service and take note of the types of people there.]
• Be a student of your local culture. What’s happening in your community? What are people talking about, what do they care about, what are local challenges or hardships people are feeling? [Idea: Read local newspapers, follow local news outlets on Twitter.]
• How do you talk about ‘outsiders’? How do you talk about non-Christians, unbelievers or seekers? Do you make them seem like projects? Read what you write through the lens of a skeptical outsider. Never put the words lost, unbeliever and non-Chrisitan in any print communications and try not to use them verbally from up front. [Idea: At Park, instead of saying 'your lost friends' we just call people what they are... 'your friends.']
• Look at the image(s) you project. Do the photos and images you use accurately reflect people who actually attend your church? I’m pretty sure the iStockphoto family doesn’t go to every church in America. And, for the love, if you aren’t multiethnic, don’t use those awkward racially diverse stock photos. [Idea: Use real images of real people and celebrate your community by using images of your city.]
• Always be a first-time visitor. Always try to be an ‘outsider’ when you go to church. View the experience from pulling up in the parking lot to the closing “amen” and think through how every aspect of your experience would feel if it were your first time.Do you ask your visitors to do awkward things like raise their hand or stand? DON’T! [Idea: Have you asked people who are newer to your church about their experience and if it was easy for them to connect? ]
• Are you needy? How much are you asking from people? Are you consistently talking about your church’s needs or sharing ways you can help them in their own lives. Be people-driven, not need driven. [Idea: Scan through your bulletin or other communications and see how many things you're asking people to do... sign up for this, register for that, volunteer here...it will surprise you how much we ask of people.]
• How do you handle holidays? Holidays are always special times of celebration but can also be painful for many. On Mother’s Day, how can you express compassion for couples that cannot have children or care for those who have lost or aborted children?  On Father’s Day, how can you gently embrace those who grew up without fathers? How are you creating community for those with no family around Thanksgiving and Christmas?
• Remember it’s all about people. The church is a business that’s all about people. What we do, in the end, is all about people. Don’t forget that. Programs, policies, rules and regulations aside… it’s all about people. Too often we get so focused on what we do that we forget what it’s ultimately all about. [It's all about Jesus... but how we do what we do is all about people.]

Having Empathy for Those You Work With

Just as much as we need to be empathetic for new guests and members, we need to remember our role, in the end, is a servant role to our churches. We don’t run the show. Our role is important, yes, but it’s not about us.

For some odd reason, in most churches, the communications team/directors tend to be feared… and probably for good reason. With our style guides, font and clip art policing, policies, project requests, guidelines and standards… we can be a force to be reckoned with. We rain on a lot of parades, cause commotion, and shut down renegade designers.

We are a pain to work with. No matter how servant-hearted we may be about what we do, no matter how flexible and understanding we may try to be, we’re still a pain to work with.

What we do is important… we should care about the way things look, the way things sound, the messages we communicate, the images and words we use to tell stories, and ultimately the way everything our church communicates for one single reason: we care.

However, oftentimes HOW we do what we do isn’t very caring. Empathetic may not be a word your co-workers would use to define you… but it should be.

Church life is crazy. Everyone is busy and focused on their individual areas of ministry and our role is to support and help them maximize what they are doing. Some people won’t get it, and we need to learn to have patience and figure out how we can lead up and work with them instead of trying to make them fit a mold they’ll never be able to fit into.

Here’s some ways to begin to practice empathy with your co-workers, ministry leaders and renegade designers…

• Spend time away from your computer and face-to-face with your co-workers.
• Remember to always RESPOND, not REACT.
• Spend more time listening and less time talking.
• Matthew 18. ’nuff said.
• If there’s a miscommunication or misunderstanding resolve it in person as often as possible, NOT over email.
• Figure out the best ways to communicate with members of your staff and their preferred ways of communication. Some may like texts, others email, and some may prefer face-to-face.
• Don’t overcomplicate processes you’ve set up for projects.
• Use non-technical language.
• Share what you know! Create opportunities for people to learn what social media, blogging, and everything else you do is all about and why it matters.
• Be accessible… don’t lock yourself away or hide behind your monitor and ear buds. And, if you can, leave your door open [if you have one]. Interruptions aren’t ideal, but be accessible as possible.
• Admit when you make a mistake and take ownership of it… don’t make excuses.
• Do. Delegate. Defer. Delete.
• Remember people’s feelings matter a lot more than your policies.
• Edit yourself… ask for feedback from your co-workers about how you come across.
• As much as possible, show people what change will look like… don’t just tell them about it. Helping people see what the other side of change will look like will make the journey there a lot less painful. [This was invaluable when we killed our weekly bulletin.]
• Realize that people are just as busy, stressed and under the gun as much as you are… you aren’t the only one who is working hard.
• As much as possible, let people know you are for them.
• Remember what you do is all about people.

The Master Empathizer

“When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them…” – Matthew 14:14

If there’s one person who embodied the discipline of empathy it would be Jesus. He could read his audience, feel their pain, knew the right words to use, and was able to  compassionately tailor His message [however nice or harsh it was] to the individual. Take some time to read through the Gospels and see how He interacted with people… He’s the best example we’ve got to follow.

Closing Thought…

We need to care and care about the way we go about caring.

I’m not a huge fan of policies. They take too long to write out and shouldn’t really be an issue as long as you are managing what you are doing well.

That being said, here’s a few tips on how we use Twitter…

Why Do You Use Twitter?

I think this is an important question every church needs to answer.

Don’t Twitter because everyone else does, consider your audience and your context and determine if that’s an effective way for you to interact with them [and if it’s worth your time].  If it seems like a large number of people in your church use Twitter, strongly consider how you could integrate it into your communications strategy.

How Did You Start?

We set up a Twitter account for Park and connected it to the general email address that all of our church-wide emails are sent from. We didn’t promote we were on Twitter, we just let the account sit there. In less than six months we accumulated over 100 followers without advertising we were on Twitter… people were finding us. The 100 mark was my milestone to begin Twittering, so we did… about a year ago.

Who Twitters for Park?

I do. No special reason why it’s just me – I’m just the one person who does it well, so it falls on my shoulders. Other staffers do have access to the account. [If you want multiple people to manage your Twitter account, CoTweet is a great product to check out.].

Who Do You Follow?

We will follow back anyone who mentions us, retweets us [and doesn’t appear to be SPAM], and anyone who follows us who is from Chicago.

Why Follow?

9 times out of 10, anyone who follows us attends our church. Following them gives us a great window into their day-to-day life. We’re able to see what they are talking about, what they care about, and what they are saying about their experience at Park. It’s free research!

What Do You Tweet About?

We Tweet about a number of different things. The idea is to use Twitter to connect people to information that matters to them. We try to Tweet at least a couple of times per day, not to create noise, but to keep us at the top of people’s minds. [Also, we will typically update our Facebook Page status each time we post a new Tweet.] And, we use Twitter to help generate traffic to our site.

People have to go to websites to get information; social media enables information go to people.

If you look at our blog stats, one of the largest referrers to our site is Twitter and Facebook. So, use any form of social media as a vehicle to get people to your site – or wherever you deem your “central point” for disseminating information.

An Example of a Week in Twitter at Park

• Mondays – we post a Tweet when audio/video of weekend services is posted.
• Tuesdays – we’ll Tweet about any events going on that week for people to connect with.
• Wednesdays – link to an online version of our weekly enewsletter.
• Thursdays – focus on the weekend and events people can connect with during the weekend.
• Fridays – FollowFriday! On Fridays we typically do the FollowFriday thing and recommend staff members or ministries that we support.
• Weekends – we Tweet quotes from weekend messages, repost Tweets of what people are saying, and respond to questions/comments people make about their experience at Park.

Remember the most important thing…

The keyword in social media that is often overlooked is the word social. It’s meant to be a conversation, not a lecture. Don’t turn social media into another broadcast point, use it as a place to engage with you audience, to listen to what they are saying, respond to their questions, and bring more humanity to your church/organization.

Create Lists for Your Staff

One of the things we did recently was create a Twitter list of all of our staff members who Tweet. It’s a simple way of connecting our audience with people who work behind-the-scenes and make Park what it is. Again, another way to “humanize” your church.

Does Park’s Pastor Twitter?

Yes. A number of them do. Our lead pastor is @JaxnC. I don’t think every pastor should Twitter… most should. I addressed that in a previous blog entry.

Is there a “Twolicy” for Park’s Staff?

No. We trust our staff. We view all social media, blogs, etc. as the personal responsibility of our staff members. It’s their outlet and their place to be free to express their views/opinions and not an area we need to manage or control. We do, however, remind them that they do represent Park and to be mindful of that as they tweet and blog. Thus far we haven’t had any incidents or issues arise for us to do anything more than tell them to remember who they represent!

Even If You Aren’t Going to Twitter, Secure Your Account

A friend of mine works at a VERY large church that jumped on the Twitter bandwagon awhile ago. Well, the church didn’t… someone else did. Someone started a Twitter account for the church and began tweeting for them, following people [myself included] and quickly accumulated many followers. The only challenge was they had no idea who was doing it. Long story short, it turned out someone who was attending the church had started the account… he graciously gave the login info to the church who now manages it, but the lesson here is simple: create an account for your church, even if there are no plans to use Twitter on the horizon. This is a great rule of thumb for any form of social media for that matter.

Closing Thought…

Twitter isn’t a end all, be all… but can certainly be a great way to connect with your audience. Just remember it’s not another broadcast channel, but another way to engage.

We’re still learning ways to use it and for now, this is what we’ve learned.

What about you? Are there lessons you and your organization/church have learned from using Twitter? Any successes? Any lessons learned? Share them!

Here goes…

From Jenni in Indiana:

Hey Tim!

Our pastor has started using Twiiter and we are very new to it. I wondered if you could give me some help with this. Here are my questions…

1. Is it better for the pastor to Twitter, or would it be beter for our church to Twitter?
2. Our pastor doesn’t know how to handle managing all of the responses he’s getting on Twitter. He feels bad about not being able to be in open dialogue with everyone but there’s no way he can personally respond to everyone. He is very compassionate and doesn’t want to offend anyone. IS there a way he can keep Tweeting but not offend people if he doesn’t respond to them?

Hey Jenni,

Depending on your pastor and how you think he can manage Twittering for himself, I think both your pastor and your church should Twitter.

One of the great things that Twitter can do for a pastor is make him more “human” to people; it’s a great way for people to get an inside look at his life, things he’s thinking, what he’s doing with his family, etc.

Many pastors who Twitter share a balance of info on their ministry and their personal life… and that’s a great thing.

Your pastor might not be able to respond to everyone, but that’s ok. You don’t have to respond to everyone who responds to you on Twitter. If, for instance, he posted something and many people replied to it, he could simply post a Tweet that says, “thanks everyone for your feedback on that…” I think that most people understand that it’s impossible to personally reply everyone.

I would say let your pastor’s Twitter be focused on him… his world, his life, things he’s thinking, leadership insights… and our pastor, who Twitters (@JaxnC) will often use it to ask questions/research for his messages to get people’s input or feedback.

Also, just like our church, he follows back everyone who follows him that lives in Chicago or appears to attend our church. Following people back creates a great tool for him to be able to see what people are talking about!

Before your pastor jumps on the Twitter bandwagon, I’d recommend you have him join, follow some of the different Twittering pastors that are out there, and let him get a feel for how other pastors use Twitter. If he thinks he’s up to the task, then open the floodgates. [Also, exercise your own discretion. You know your pastor best and know if he could manage a Twitter following!]

For our church Twitter account, we post information about events, news, and use it as a way to communicate to our church throughout the week.

Also, on Sundays we monitor it and as people mention us or reference us,  and we respond back to them or retweet things people say about their experience… it adds a great personal touch.

Leverage your church Twitter account as a way to extend your message and as a communication channel to reach people throughout the week.

Hope this helps!

Tim

Having grown up in a church that had a map of the world and pushpins to show every missionary we supported, missions was always a big part of my upbringing in church.

Every year we’d do a missions week where we’d have church every single night of the week.

On the opening Sunday we’d have flags from countries all over the world adorning the stage of the church, guest speakers would typically wear native garb, and show a slide show with “Thank You for Giving to the Lord” playing in the background;. Then, there was always the international potluck meal, where taco salad was considered to be foreign cuisine. And us kids, we were given plastic banks to put change in to help buy Bibles for kids in foreign countries.

And that was missions week.

When the team at Park announced they wanted to do a missions week I nearly fainted.

However, with some creativity and innovation, this Sunday we’re kicking off something I think is going to be pretty sweet.

We took a traditional idea and made it more relevant for our crowd.

It’s all in a Name
Instead of calling it “Missions Week,”, we’re calling it Global Impact Week [part of our vision is to impact the world, so it fit our already existing language]. We found a cool image to use as a logo… a thumbprint that looks like a globe. Part of the challenge for the week will be to “leave your mark.”

Taking Missionaries to Them
Instead of having a service every night [let’s be honest, who would come?] we’re offering three webinars throughout the week that people can tune into during their lunch hours. So, instead of having to come to the church for a service, they can just tune in during their lunch hour from their office.

Cultural Tours
Chicago has some incredibly diverse neighborhoods, so instead of talking about foreign cultures, we’re going to experience them. We have three different tours that are going to different neighborhoods in the city to experience the food, culture, and customs of different ethnic neighborhoods in the city.

Getting to Know Our Neighborhood
One of the professors from Moody Bible Institute who teaches social justice is going to host a bus tour through some of Chicago’s roughest neighborhoods (including our own) to trace the story of thewww.timschraeder.comthe city.

Texting Reminders
We’re going to offer people the opportunity to sign up for a daily text message  update with a verse or reminder of something to pray for throughout the week. This will also be another way we can remind them about activities they can engage in during the week.

The thing I love about this whole idea is that it’s all happening outside of our church. We’re going to be out in the city, out in different neighborhoods we might not normally go to, and getting a first-hand look at how “the world” is really right in our own backyard.

I think I might miss the overweight, Caucasian missionary in a traditional African headdress with his slideshow, but I think Missions Week, 2.0 is pretty cool.

I’ll keep you posted and let you know how it goes.

Today he posted the “opening credits.”

Absolutely love it.

THE FORGOTTEN WAY PT. 2 from blaine hogan on Vimeo.

Blaine just posted a video that he and his team put together for one of Willow’s upcoming series called “The Forgotten Way.”

I absolutely love this video and how it raises a really important question… have we forgotten how to be?

I think there is definitely an art to visual storytelling and this team is consistently showing they’ve got some mad skills at making it work.

The thing I love most about this video is the fact that it asks questions. Rather than saying “hey come and learn five ways to find your way… blah, blah, blah…” it simply gets you thinking and it moves you. That, to me, is effective communication.

Instead of telling, you’re asking. And in asking, the people will tell themselves… wow, I need to check this out.

I’ll definitely be tuning in to these messages. I think learning how to be is something we all need to get better at.