All posts tagged Principles

An Open Letter to Church Communication Directors

by Tim Schraeder on 12/17/2010 in Church Communications, Park, Principles with 7 Comments

Dear Church Communications People Everywhere,

In less than a week, I’ll be closing my office door at Park Community Church for the last time as well as closing the door on a nearly 10-year career of doing church communications. While in my new role I’ll still be championing the cause for church communications, it won’t be in the capacity of being an everyday practitioner. That being said, I have a few things I want to share with you while I’m still “one of you.”

First, know that what you do really matters.

Communications rests on different levels in the life of many churches, so regardless of where you fit on the flow chart, know that you do really matters. We’ve been entrusted with an incredible opportunity to share and communicate the message of the Gospel in new and creative ways. It’s more than letting people know about the next membership class, new sermon series or women’s prayer group. It’s more than doing bulletins, designing graphics or building websites. It’s more than responding to a tweet or posting a link on Facebook.  It’s about stewarding the opportunity God has given us in our hyper-connected world to help people find connection with Christ.

God has uniquely gifted each one of you with different creative gifts to express the message God is longing to communicate to your city through the work and ministry of your local church.  The things you write, design, or create help pave the road for people’s journeys back towards Christ. You may never be up front teaching or leading worship but the work you do helps to remove barriers so people hear and connect with the message. People may never know who you are or really understand what you do, but more times that not, something you’ve created or designed intersects someone and causes them to come to your church to find out more.

As silly or minute as it all may seem, in today’s world stuff like this matters. People will often form their first impressions of your church when they come to your website or see something you’ve designed that’s been put in their hands by a friend, mailman, or however else you may work to get your message out there. The time you spend picking out fonts or finding the right image, the tireless time you spend writing and revising, editing and redesigning all matters. You are helping to present your church, and ultimately Christ to your community.

How your church communicates is vitally important and in most instances, that responsibility rests on your shoulders. Don’t look at what you do as a job; consider it you holy calling. Let your passion for God flow into the things you create and ways you communicate. Recognize the immense responsibility you have and steward what God has given you to communicate with pixels, images, or words that express His heart and compassion to the world around you.

I could probably write a short novel about my heart for all of this and for all of you but let me condense it to a few bullet points:

There’s much more I could share with you all, but let me leave you with this thought:

In our ever-changing world God has given you the responsibility to communicate His unchanging message to a world that’s desperate and searching for hope.

I DO believe that the Church is the hope of the world and firmly believe that our greatest days are yet to come. While the world around us is shaking we stand on the truth of God’s Word and rest in His love and compassion. He is our hope.

Each one of us has the opportunity to share that Story, to tell of the Kingdom of God, to explain what is unseen and bring people into God’s glorious light. It’s not a secret to be kept but one that must be told again and again in different, creative ways.

We’ve got the greatest story to tell, how will YOU help your church share it?

“God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.” – Matthew 5:14-16, The Message

It’s been an honor serving the Church with you – remember greater things are yet to come!

Tim Schraeder

The Case for Church Communications Part 2: The Call to Communicate

by Tim Schraeder on 08/21/2009 in Church Communications, Principles with 5 Comments

I thought before I got too deep in ideas and thoughts about why church communication matters TODAY that we should put the conversation on pause real quick, take a step back, and get a solid foundation, one rooted in God’s Word… to lead the rest of the conversation forward.

There is no shortage of great ideas or thoughts out there as it relates to church communications. And often, the ideas that are out there are ides that we’ve adapted from business thought leaders, marketing people, etc. I think there’s immense value in doing that, but I think the danger can be that we oftentimes turn our work into more of a career and less of a Holy Calling.  Our spiritual work can quickly turn into a business where Jesus is our CEO, the product we are selling is salvation and we look at people in the community around us as customers. While some of those ides and thoughts could translate, they don’t necessarily sit well with me.

At first glance it can be hard to find “church communicators” in the Bible. I mean, there’s not words like branding, social media, target audience, etc in the Bible… and the closest thing to marketing you can find is the word “marketplace” where Jesus turns the tables over in the Temple. Not the best place to start.

But, I think if you look beyond the surface and look at the context, you can see a lot of the ideas and thoughts we talk about and examples of people who were church communicators in the Bible.

So here goes…

God is a communicator.

I love how in the first few verses of Genesis we get three glimpses into God’s character. We see that He’s timeless, creative and that His voice spoke creation into existence. And, He spoke directly to those He created.

All throughout the Bible we see God speaking to His people. Sometimes it was audibly (like to Abraham in Gen ); other times it was through signs, like a burning bush. Other times, He raised up people to speak for Him, like the prophets in the Old Testmment. Jesus spoke His message and His word is still speaking to us today.

Our Calling

Jesus’ final words to His disciples were of instruction, to pray and wait for the Holy Spirit to come and empower them to be His witnesses about Him to the ends of the earth.

I think we need to switch our thinking. It’s not about communicating “our message” it’s about communicating His message.

We’re not just graphic designers, web programmers, video editors, tech geeks or artists, I believe our calling is ultimately to be prophets… to tell God’s Story, to be His witnesses.

Prophets?

Dicitionary.com has a cool definition of the word prophet…

  1. A person who speaks by divine inspiration or as the interpreter through whom the will of a god is expressed.
  2. A person gifted with profound moral insight and exceptional powers of expression.
  3. A predictor; a soothsayer.
  4. The chief spokesperson of a movement or cause.

Of course, the Bible gives us some different examples of prophets, and honestly, I believe our call as church communicators is ultimately a call to be prophets… to hear God’s voice, see ahead, and know how to create messages to compel the people God has called us to reach.

Sounds a lot different than just making bulletins, designing fliers, and sending out email newsletters to me.

We’ve really got to begin to see the work we do as a spiritual one, and our role, although it might have us doing bulletins and newsletters, as a place where we need to be dependant on God’s voice and His Spirit’s leading.

Too often I think our gifts and talents can stand in the way of us living out our calling. Too often we look to them for inspiration and depend on them too much instead of looking to the One who gave them to us.

We need to get into the discipline of seeking God first. I think too often (I am so guilty of this), I reach for my iPhone to see what’s going on in Twitterland or on my emails before I spend time on my knees in prayer and in God’s Word.

God is the author of creativity and I know that a lot of the “roadblocks” I get when thinking through an idea or creating something is usually there because I haven’t spent enough time with Him. I think if you are in tune with God, His voice and His word, you can really begin to see Him empower you with creative thoughts, ideas, and insight.

We’ve got to surrender our gifts and talents to Him in pursuit of our calling and ask Him to empower us with His Spirit to be the witnesses, and the prophets we need to be to our communities and cities and ultimately to the world.

A Parable Explains it All

Prophets are really like messengers. God speaks and they relay the message.

There’s a parable that I think explains our calling so clearly. It picks up in Luke 14 where Jesus tells the story of a man who prepared a great feast and wanted people to come and take a part of it.

A man prepared a great feast and sent out many invitations. When the banquet was ready, he sent his servant to tell the guests, ‘Come, the banquet is ready.’ But they all began making excuses… The servant returned and told his master what they had said. His master was furious and said, ‘Go quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and invite the poor, the crippled, the blind, and the lame.’ After the servant had done this, he reported, ‘There is still room for more.’ So his master said, ‘Go out into the country lanes and behind the hedges and urge anyone you find to come, so that the house will be full.

God has prepared a great feast… we’ve been called and commissioned to go out and tell people about it… that His house might be full.

You can look at this as a picture of Heaven or also think of the house as the “Church” here on earth.

Modern-Day Prophets

What we do is about creating things to communicate and to compel people to come inside, and to take a part of the great feast God has prepared for them.

In the parable of the great feast all they had to work with was a personal invite, word-of-mouth, a viral campaign if you will… we have a lot more at our disposal today and many new ways to be  modern-day prophets… be it through the art we create, sounds and melodies, images that move or cause people to be moved, words, expression, or anything else, we are communicating God’s Story and inviting other people to find their place in it.

He promised us His Holy Spirit to lead and guide us and to empower us. So don’t get too dependant on your talent or giftings, remember it won’t be done in your strength, but in your surrender.

You need to be tuned into God’s voice and in tune with the world around you to know how to communicate the message God is speaking to you in a language that people can understand.

More on that next time…

The Case for Church Communications Part 1: What is a Director of Communications?

by Tim Schraeder on 08/12/2009 in Church Communications, Principles with 34 Comments

I’ve been asked a lot lately about the role of a communications person in a church and actually haven’t found much out there to define what the role of communications is in the church, and to explain why the role of a communications person is important.

So, I decided to take a stab at it and write my thoughts.

This will be the first in a series of posts where I’ll plead my case for why churches need communications people, what they should be doing, and why it’s important.

Most people, when I tell them what I do, have no idea why a church needs a communications person. The most common reply I usually get is, “oh, so does that mean you make the bulletins or something?”

Well, while that is something I do… I honestly do a lot more. The role of church communications is changing… it’s no longer about a church secretary typing announcements into a pre-printed bulletin shell. Church communications now involves a lot of planning, strategy and people who are focused on directing the different communications channels of a church.

So let’s get down to the basics, what is a “Director of Communications” anyway?

Wikipedia defines a director of communications in the corporate world as being:

a position in the private and public sectors. A director of communications is responsible for managing and directing an organization’s internal and external communications. She or he supervises public relations staff, creates communication strategies, and serves as the key spokesperson and media contact for the organization.

The director of communications usually reports directly to the chief executive officer (CEO) of the organization, and advises the board of directors on all communications work.

In an organization, the director of communications directs the Communications Department, sometimes called a Public Affairs Department. The director of communications may be assisted by a deputy director, clerical staff, and communications specialists and public affairs officers.

Or, to make it more “churchy”…

The director of communications is responsible for managing and directing a church’s internal and external communications. They work to create communication strategies and (depending on their role or level of authority) serve as the key spokesperson and media contact for the organization.

The director of communications typically reports to an executive pastor and/or lead pastor and advices the board of Elders/Decaons on all communications work.

The director of communications handles all messaging in the church outside of the Sunday morning messages and works to built teams to support all facets of church communications (print, media, web, etc.).

Communications directors should be champions of the church’s vision, being a key person involved in how it’s messaged and communicated across different mediums.

While most may sit lower on the “chain of command” in the leadership structure, I’m absolutely convinced in order for them to be empowered to do their job effectively, they need to be close to the lead visionaries of the church and close to important conversations where vision is communicated. I really believe it’s key for them to be involved in upper level conversations and be “in the know” about what’s going on.

While their day-to-day routines may vary by church, size of staff, etc their essential functions will be to (in Kem Meyer’s words) oversee anything people read, touch, or click beyond the platform.

  • Read would include any written messages communicated from or about the church… be it in print or electronic form.
  • Touch would include a weekly bulletin, newsletter, brochures, mass mailings/postcards, or anything else that represents the church or has the church logo on it, in print form.
  • Click would relate to any form of web or email based technology, as well as new social networking tools like Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Directors of communications should be able to communicate clearly and succinctly, be passionate about the churches they are serving, and be up with what’s new in the world of technology. More than likely they read blogs, they should know who Seth Godin is, they understand the concept of Twitter and Twitter themselves, they either have a Blackberry or iPhone, and probably have a mild case of ADD.

Their day-to-day functions might look different depending on the size of their church staff… some do graphic design, others to video, sound or lighting. Some are techie geeks, others just have a great eye for design. Some are PC. The cool ones are Mac.

But to sum it up, I’d say that someone who serves as a director of communications is really just a brand advocate.

Every church has a brand and by a brand I don’t mean a logo.

In the book The Brand Gap, Marty Neumeier describes a brand as “a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company.”

In other words, “a brand is not what YOU say it is It’s what THEY say it is.”

Successful church communicators are attuned to the pulse of their church and the culture outside of the church and strategize ways to built bridges from their community to the church and helps people connect the dots to take their next steps toward Christ once they are there.

They are passionate about the church’s vision and care about how it translates to people inside and outside of the church. They defend it. They design it. They care about it. It keeps them awake at night and is a reason for them to get out of bed in the morning.

And now, more than ever, it’s absolutely critical to have people in a position of leadership who are listening to what your church is saying,  who are attuned to what other people inside and outside of the church are thinking and feeling, and who can create channels of communication to connect the two.

More to come… what do you think so far? Agree? Disagree? Discuss…