Happy Monday! Here’s some updates, the latest and greatest in the world of church communication, some favorite videos, links, Likes and more!
All posts tagged Kem Meyer
Less Control, More Influence, Kem Meyer :: AND Conference
- We can get over-zealous about what we do.
- We can push performance over people.
- We can push policies over personal relationships.
- Our first love can be the what, not the why.
- What do you care more about?
- Do you care about freeing up people to do what they can do?
- Or do you care more about getting them to comply with your rules?
- Sometimes the picture we are drawing isn’t what people are seeing.
- This is all about inner-personal communication, our one-on-one responsibility.
- The minute you start feeling frustrated, you need to have a personal fire alarm.
- We all need guard rails.
- Instead of pushing harder, back up, take an inventory, and try another approach.
- Scott Belsky, “Connecting with people across the spectrum requires us to stay connected to the needs and beliefs of those around us.”
- It becomes more challenging when we get lost in our creative pursuits.
- Our intentions can be good but we need to adjust our M.O.
- We can over-estimate what we need to get done and under-estimate the impact it has.
- Sometimes we are the last ones to know how we come across to others.
- When I feel like I’m stuck, I remind myself that I’m exponentially more effective when I draw perspective from people who don’t think like me.
1 – Rewrite your job description.
- If we skip the inner-work our outer work will suffer.
- Check out UNTITLED by Blaine Hogan.
- We are all creatives, regardless of what we do.
- Your best ideas must move you before they move someone else.
- Pace does not slow down in ministry.
- The frenzy will drive us if we let it.
- When you are serving people we think we are doing them a service, but instead of saying “Do this because..” say, “Do this yourself by…”
- You can lower walls by shifting how you approach things.
- Kem had her team write a one-sentence job description.
- “At the end of the day, if I’ve done my job well, this is what I’ve done…”
- Define why people would say thank you.
- Don’t communicate what you do, communicate the value people will feel by what you do.
- Pull back.
- Don’t focus on what you do, focus on what people feel because of what you do.
- “Lead and leverage communications and technology to eliminate information obesity and simply complexity across departments and campuses.” – Kem Meyer’s 1-sentence job description.
- Do the JFK – ask not what other departments can do for you but ask what you can do for other deparments.
- Check your ego.
- Maybe we take ourselves too seriously.
- “Watch your form. too often we become so concerned with our content that we forget the form. The feelings, rituals, experiences.”
- Focus on the meta.
- When you focus on the meta you can focus on a value instead of undermining it.
- Don’t communicate a message, share an experience.
- Find the “yes” behind the “no.”
- Always answer with “yes.”
- “Yes we could do that, or we could do this…”
- Communicate that you are “for” someone.
2 – Ask Don’t Tell
- If you are passionate about you do, chances are the people you work with are passionate about what they do, too.
- People will feel our passion.
- The heart of leading change is all about how you make people feel.
- Too often we come at people too strong.
- Example: Phil Davison
- Effective communication depends on a common vocabulary.
- Do you know the vocabulary of the people around you or do you expect them to know yours?
- Sometimes we can be our own communications roadblock.
- Surround yourself with people who can save you from yourself.
- Process. Slow down.
- We are all more Phil Davison more than we care to admit.
- Calibrate your motives.
- In the frenzy of the passion we might be over-inflating our self-importance.
- Take time to hear about people’s needs.
- Your job needs to start where it’s hurting the most.
- Don’t have an agenda.
- Sometimes we can focus from outside-in instead of focusing from the inside-out.
- Think about the emails you send. How long are there? What’s the context? What’s the tone?
3 – Get some margin.
- If you want to have communication breakthroughs, how much time are you leaving for communication?
- Is your calendar filled with insecurity work?
- Are you busy cranking out work to make yourself feel better or productive?
- Block out time for conversations.
- Produce less, get more relational collateral.
- Personal conflict can stop us.
- Different departments have different languages and values.
- Don’t avoid it.
- The more we communicate the less we communicate.
- Don’t add more weight to what people are trying to carry.
- Have self-control with what you communicate.
- Anticipate barriers and remove them.
- Barriers could come in the form of language or timing.
- Commit to rhythms and values; be done with lists of do’s and don’t's.
- Have you ever noticed we judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their actions? – The Noticer
At the end of the day, this is a trip… not a destination.
- Find joy in the journey.
- Matthew 6:22 – go through life with an attitude of wonder.
- Be full of questions… don’t have all the answers.
- Be a student of everything, not an expert.
Capital Campaigns :: AND Conference
- Granger just completed their 7th stewardship campaign in the life of their church.
- They did six, 3-year campaigns back-to-back.
- Their most recent campaign was “The New Normal Project.”
- Stewardship campaigns are a great opportunity to recast vision to your church.
- At the same time, you can generate people and financial resources.
1 – They didn’t call it a stewardship campaign.
- The word campaign is associated with war and politics.
- They called it a project… The New Normal Project.
- It gave people handles.
- It articulated what the church was going to do and how people could accelerate it.
- There are special people who want to go above and beyond, and those were the people who were involved in The New Normal Project.
- Looked for language to use from outside of their church.
- In all communications, they would communicate the issues, not the deliverables.
- Communicate the values.
- Don’t just communicate where you are going, talk about what is happening on the ground.
- Focus on the things you want to accelerate [church planting, small groups, etc] and find the values that those vehicles meet [connection, family, friends].
- What is for “our people” is really for “their family, friends, co-workers, etc.”
2 – Spent an entire year working on their 5-year vision
- This campaign became the face of Granger’s 2016 vision.
- Granger crowd-sourced their congregation and had them help them craft the vision.
- Spent 6 months listening to individuals; spent 1 month listening to the congregation; spent 1 month listening to the community and then wrote the vision.
- The crowd gave input on the proposed vision and revised it multiple times until it was perfect.
- Once the vision was complete people were ready to get involved — they had ownership.
3 – They asked for help.
- They did 2 campaigns on their own, 5 with the help of consultants.
- Stewardship consultants are the only free consulting you will get.
- There is a fee, but every single penny and more is a ROI.
4 – They didn’t make it an add-on, it was an extension of who they already were.
- Instead of adding events or extra communication pieces, they looked for ways to weave it into the life of things that were already happening in the church.
- They built a series around it.
- The didn’t do banquets, meetings, desserts, etc.
- It’s not that people don’t love Jesus or the church, they are just busy.
- The only way you can own it corporately is if people can own it individually. The only way people can own it individually s by making it portable.
- Make it easy for people to own.
- It invites more participation.
- It’s sustainable. People are breathing it, not carrying it like a backpack.
5 – They didn’t do extra printing.
- They did away with all of their normal print material and replaced the weekend bulletin with 4 “field guides” that served as their capital campaign material.
- Each guide was 6 pages long, at-a-glace it communicated the core issues and what’s at risk, it had to inspire and lead to action. Each week there was a different action. They didn’t ask for anything all at once. And each piece had to communicate a story [a tweet, blog post, etc].
- They only mailed 1 of the 4 brochures.
- Less material made it easier for people to focus on what was important.
6 – They asked for 2 year pledge instead of a 3 year pledge.
- They knew they were in uncertain economic times.
- The speed of implementation and the speed of culture makes it easier to go shorter.
7 – Took 24 businessmen on a vision weekend to California.
- They paid their own way.
- Senior leadership made personal invites for the businessmen to have an informal, relaxed time to get answers about everything and hear the vision first-hand.
- They were high-level thinkers who had the time and money to invest.
8 – It was the first project that soley focused on the And… attractional and missional.
- It was only the 2nd project that wasn’t all about buildings.
- A lot of it was focused on how they as a church could be more missional.
- Raised the level of complexity on communication.
- It’s easy to sell a building.
- On this project they were asking people to commit to missional communities… but instead of calling it that, they used language that gave people a handle on what they were trying to.
9 – The level of transparency was increased.
- Had multiple Q&A venues where people could push back, ask questions, etc.
- Senior team allowed anyone to ask anything.
- It’s risky.
- The level of transparency was HIGH.
10 – There was no big unveiling at the end.
- Campaigns are a big add-on in addition to the normal ministry that happens at churches.
- Portability, personalization and options are important.
- They created a microsite to tell the story and identify the unifying issues; to inspire and invite participation advocacy in multiple ways [social tools, mobile tools, etc]; and to serve as an ongoing update of what’s happening throughout the life of the campaign.
- They asked people why it was important for them to make a commitment when they made a pledge.
- All of those responses were published to the website sharing why it was important to them.
- They created a progress bar to show the stats for commitments coming in from different services, locations, etc.
- People were excited about seeing the real-time progress.
- It created a shared narrative.
- People were excited about it.
- Drip communication is important.
- Keep following-up with the donors… share the ongoing story of what’s happening as a result of the campaign.
- It fosters relationship.
- You’re communicating with the people who are already committed to the vision.
- What’s motivating to the donors if you don’t invest in communicating with them throughout the long haul?
- Up until the commitment, they are asking “Save the date, pray, etc.”
- After the commitment, it’s all about keeping them informed.
- Show them how their money is at work.
- Tell stories.
11 – Kept it in people’s faces.
- Put together a strategy that kept the campaign in front of people.
- Some of that communication was just to donors, other was over the weekend to the entire congregation.
- At least every 3 months they have something specific and significant in weekend services where they reference The New Normal Project.
12 – Phasing of the Website
- Phase 1 of the website was strictly for people at their church making the commitment and all of the tools to support that.
- There are 2 types of givers…
- Boomers are all in.
- Millennials are different.
- Engage large donors who can make large pledges or one-time gifts.
- Millenials can give more small one-time gifts.
- They can spread the word and be just as passionate.
Q&A
- They didn’t commit to doing any of the work until the money have been received.
- They didn’t raise all of the money that they wanted to.
- People weren’t disappointed.
Kem Meyer :: AND Conference
Less Clutter. Less Noise.
- You don’t need a budget, you just need some counter-cultural thinking and a little bit of self-control.
- You’ll never get it done.
- Effective communication is a mindset more than a skill set.
- It’s an attitude more than an ability.
- It’s not what you say, it’s what people hear.
- What we say is not what people hear… with words, images, etc.
- Sometimes the picture we are drawing isn’t telling the story the way we think it is.
The first step is admitting you have a problem.
- We think we are in control but we are not.
- We are not in control of the message.
- It is not our job to deliver the right message but to release the right response.
- The mechanics, methods and deliverables are easy to access… it’s everywhere
- Sending the right message assumes the audience will respond the same way.
- We all have our own biases.
- Communications is a two-part job: you’ve got to get all of the information THEN set it aside and step outside of the frame.
- It’s hard to see the whole picture when you are standing inside of the frame.
- When you hit “Publish” your job isn’t done.
- It’s more than proofreading.
- Step outside, look from another angle, get another perspective.
- People’s worldview shows up before you do.
- A lot of stuff is just plain invisible to people… they need what they need for that moment, not your agenda.
- We think because we say it, publish it, etc that people will hear it.
- Just because we share the information doesn’t mean people respond.
- We are so focused on our message that we don’t acknowledge simple things.
- A change in approach starts with a change in mindset.
- Not publicize but connect.
- Not control but cultivate.
- Not push but personalize.
- Not censor but coach.
- Not capture but liberate.
- Care for people where they are at, don’t shove your mindset at them.
- Have one unified mission statement with unique expressions. Every “mission statement” in your church should reinforce the central mission of your church.
- Bundle things, make things thematic.
2 – Reduce the Noise
- Check your attitude. Are you talking down to people?
- Check your context.
- Look at the images and language you use.
- You don’t have to have a lot of content to create noise.
- Too often we’re Captain Obvious and people are annoyed.
- The most moving art and stories are the ones that have tension and leave unanswered questions.
- Leave people wanting more.
- Invite them into the story.
- Speak to people like they are already there.
- Don’t tell people who they are.
- Believe in and call out the best in people.
- Acknowledge the barriers.
3 – Share the Story.
- Look for two-way communication.
- Everyone is involved in the conversation and has ownership.
- We are all part of a larger story.
- We are all part of something bigger than ourselves.
- We aren’t the only voice.
- Just because we work for a church doesn’t mean we are the only ones qualified to communicate for Christ.
- Commit to making sure everything you do is helping people connect with Christ and one another.
- Commit to trend-spotting.
- Commit to looking for opportunities for co-creation.
- Look for ways to make things portable.
- Make things mobile, online, shareable, etc.
- Don’t contain your content.
- Let people carry and share your content.
- Make things shorter.
- Make things visual.
- Make things searchable.
- Let people do the searching for themselves.
- Amazon.com homepage has 200 links off of its homepage, but everyone goes straight to the search.
- We invest so much time and waste so much ministry space trying to link to content.
- Make it searchable.
- Have one publicized link for your church’s website.
- You can link to other sites from your primary site, but only publish the on-ramp.
- Don’t create new content, link to content that’s already out there [via social media, blogs, etc].
- Look for any chance to give other people the microphone to share the story.
