Church Communications by Chuck Scoggins

I was flipping through the channels last Saturday and ran across a show on the Fox News Channel called the “High Cost of Freedom.” It got me to thinking about how most communications directors have a longing for a bit of autonomy and freedom in their position. Namely, we desire:

• Freedom to make communications decisions on behalf of the church.
• Freedom from micromanagement.
• Freedom to manage the church communication budget in the way that we best see fit.
• Freedom to use our time in a way that makes sense to us, and…
• …Freedom from the expectation to complete people’s last minute requests.

I could probably name a dozen more.

The question is, what have we done to show ourselves trustworthy? What have we done to earn these freedoms? Have we paid the high cost of relational investment?

If not, why not get started doing the hard work today?

A little more than 10 years ago, Robin Dunbar, an evolutionary psychologist, found that most people cannot maintain many more than 150 meaningful relationships. Obviously this was before the social networking revolution and Dunbar’s study began by following the habits of households sending Christmas Cards. The average English household sent about 150 cards every year. He and other like-minded anthropologists discovered this phenomenon throughout other areas of civilization as well:

• Military Companies
• Hunter-gatherer Societies
• Successful Business Divisions
• And many others (see links at the end of this article)

If true (and there are some who claim that it is bunk), this phenomenon has enormous implications for us as church communications folks.

What if there is a limit to the number of people with whom a communications director – or any church staff member for that matter – can reach through traditional communications methodologies such as the weekly printed program? Is the age of mass media dead as a means for connecting people to one another in spiritual community and helping them take the next step in their faith journey? Are we seeing a weakening in the effectiveness of announcement/promotional videos, newsletters, and bulletins? Do people trust those communications avenues?

Whether the Dunbar number speaks to the effectiveness of traditional methods of church communication or not, I think we can all agree on one thing: relationships today are driven more by social connections and less by mass tools than in days gone by. We need to consider new ways of connection if we are going to successfully help the church continue in her Matthew 28 commission. The job of the communications director is shifting from a disseminator of information to an equipper of social influence. Our goal should be to help our fellow staffers be as connected as possible to their sphere of 150.

We’ve entered (or better said, re-entered) the relationship age in church communications. It’s time to think differently about our role.

Here are some links for additional reading on the Dunbar number, if you’re interested:

From Bloomberg Business Week, an article written by Drake Bennett (touted as the Guru of Social Networks)on 1/10/2013

‘Dunbar’s Number’ may Change the Math of PR – from The PRNews Blog

A New York Times article that explores an interesting correlation in how Dunbar’s Number affects political candidates

Why Dunbar’s Number is Irrelevant (socialmediatoday.com)

Podcast with Greg Laden & Desiree Schell on Skeptically Speaking talking about Dunbar’s Number

For those in church communications these days, there is a self-imposed expectation to have a communications system in place for receiving incoming communications requests. The problem with these systems is that they give us a false sense of resolution. They only help us receive incoming requests and do very little to help us successfully fulfill the requests. Once ministry leaders make their requests using our system, there is an expectation that they are going to get what they’ve requested. We need to do a lot of work before the request is even submitted in order to manage expectations if we ever hope to have a life of reduced communications stress.

Here are a few things I recommend:

1. Get Clear About The Church’s Vision

Help your church leaders become super clear about the church’s vision and then gently remind them on a regular basis of things that don’t push that vision forward and encourage them to relentlessly avoid pursuing them. This will go a long way toward reducing the demands on all-church communications because there will not be marginal ministries and events that need promoting.

This process takes a lot of finess and leading up…but if you have done the relational work to gain trust with your leadership, you should be able to speak in to this. If your leaders don’t let you speak into the church’s vision…well, that is a topic for another time.

2. Get Clear About The Communications Philosophy & Methodology

Decide early on (with buy in from your leaders) how and when and how often you will communicate various ministries and events. Decide which types of requests will get the full gamut of promotion and which ones will get none…and everything in between. Maybe create 4 tiers of support, for example:

3. Communicate Communications Priorities

Once we decide how and when you are going to communicate, we need to let those making requests know. Circulate the tiers mentioned above and have discussions with ministry leaders. Explain to people that their ministry is extremely valuable but might not fit within the promotional priorities of the entire church. Show them how their niche ministry benefits when the entire church is functioning in a healthy, focused way – even if that means their communication request never makes it into the weekly bulletin on in-service announcement video.

4. Communicate Communications Plans

As we’re developing our weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. communications plan, we need to make sure everyone who has made a request gets feedback on what they can expect and where their request fits into the plan as a whole. Show them the big picture and where they fit in. Often, people will understand our decision to de-emphasize the publicity of their request when they see the big picture. For example, the senior adult ministry potluck dinner should receive proportionately appropriate promotion when being promoted alongside the church’s stewardship campaign.

5. Help People Find Alternative Promotional Avenues

The role of communications director should be spent mostly in helping smaller groups find alternative solutions for their communications needs. Help the children’s ministry find alternative ways to recruit volunteers (how about every existing volunteer invites a friend to serve alongside them). Help the women’s ministry find new and refreshing ways to promote their upcoming retreat (how about leveraging Facebook and Pinterest since most women are already in that space).

One last thought: communications request systems are an essential part of the equation. If you don’t have a process in place for receiving requests, your life will surely be full of chaos. However, we need to move past the thinking that having a request will solve all of our woes. We need to work toward a strategy that helps us manage expectations and appropriately fulfill the requests.

Check out this post from my friend, Phil Bowdle, on his 5 step process of working smarter, not harder to get project from problem to solution.

Is It possible to get along with your leader?

In my recent survey, I asked you what was the most frustrating part of your job. One area of overwhelming response was frustrations with senior pastors and senior leaders who don’t respect us and what we do. I can certainly appreciate that sentiment and have experienced this same frustrations myself. However, it got me to thinking, “I wonder how many senior pastors would say the same about us?”

As a communications director, I did a lot of things that didn’t help in my relationship with my senior pastor. So, I thought I’d throw out a brain dump of ways we can get along with our boss…

1. Be a servant
I think one of the main ways we can get the respect of our leader is to be an amazing servant. Is there a chance we will get taken advantage of. Yes. Is it worth the risk? I think so.

2. Follow through
This one is self-explanatory. If you say you’ll do something, do it! Be the most dependable person on your staff team.

3. Say “thank you”
When was the last time you thanked your leader for all they go through and all they do?

4. Do great work.
If you want your pastor to think you’re remarkable, do remarkable work.

5. Believe in him/her
When you consistently show that you believe in him/her, you might find that they start believing in you too.

6. Buy in to his/her vision.
If you can’t, get off the team…you’re doing yourself and him/her a disservice otherwise. I’ve stayed on teams in the past where I didn’t buy in to the vision and I regret not getting off of the bus sooner. I was miserable and I was probably making those around me miserable as well.

7. Respect their tension.
You’re not spiritually accountable for leading this flock. They are. They live in that tension all the time. Acknowledge and respect that dynamic.

8. You don’t like it when they backseat drive you, don’t backseat drive them either.
They (likely) have a seminary education and have put a lot of thought, sweat, and prayer in their message and decisions. Do all you can to support them. Offer suggestions that you think will be helpful. But don’t backseat drive and don’t be an armchair quarterback.

9. Be loyal.
Don’t ever put them down behind their back or in public. Ever. As Andy Stanley says, “Be a raving fan publicly but an honest critic privately.”

10. Don’t suggest change too often.
People are much less exposed to the workings of your church than you are so what feels like a slow change to you might be too quick for the congregation. The top leaders probably have a better pulse on the pace in this area than you do.

11. Take work and stress off of your Pastor’s plate instead of adding to it.
Too often we get focused on our needs instead of serving our leaders. We come across as needy and not very helpful. Instead of making your pastor wonder why he/she hired you, make yourself indispensable because of how helpful you are. Anticipate their needs before they even have a chance to mention them.

12. Don’t let compliments from your senior pastor be the source of fulfillment in your job.
Let the fact that you are serving the bride of Christ be your reward. If you’re waiting on the next “attaboy” from your boss, you might just end up dry and empty.

What did I overlook? Leave a comment and add to the list!

I’ve been running a survey (it’s not too late to participate) asking you (church communications folks) about the most frustrating part of your job. All of the surveys came in with one remarkably similar theme: frustrations with others on staff – all of which can be attributed to relationship issues.

Some examples include…

Last Minute Requests

One frustration is last minute requests which demonstrate a lack of respect for the communication team’s time. It is frustrating when you are asked to “drop everything” to put out someone’s communication fire. Often this comes from the requester not realizing the time implications in the request they are making.

Lack of Voice

Often, major communications events are planned without the primary person (you) being invited to into the conversation. Whether this occurs out of a lack of trust or from apathy, it is really difficult to do a good job as a communications director when you receive directives from meetings where you didn’t have a seat at the table. It results in a strategy that is reactionary instead of proactive and ultimately hurts the church and causes relational conflict.

Backseat Driving

It is not unusual for fellow leaders to like to tightly control the area they’re called to lead. The programming team wants to give input on the series branding. The senior pastor wants to make sure every element of his message support is just right. The discipleship pastor wants to make sure you’re communicating her upcoming event in just the way she wants. In being passionate about their area, it’s easy for your fellow-staffers to second guess you and your expertise. To add to this annoyance, it seems that nobody questions the youth pastor about his location choice for summer camp or the financial secretary about the account method he uses…so why does everyone feel the need to backseat drive you?

Shiftyness

I don’t know if ‘shiftyness’ is a word, but it does describe those on staff who tend to change plans a lot. This is especially frustrating when you come up with a plan to support the leadership’s vision and the next thing you know, everything has changed. Or, how about when the executive pastor agrees to help you enforce your new communications deadlines, then changes his mind as soon as the next staff person comes in with a “good excuse?”

Lack of Interest

Communications professionals are often artists and change agents which means you can immediately spot an area for improvement and you can become passionate about pushing that change through. It is difficult when others around you don’t share your passion and seem disinterested in helping you improving things (or, in just getting out of the way and letting you improve things yourself).

Lack of Skill

Many expressed frustration with the lack of skill of fellow staffers in matters of communications (social media, design, etc.) and an unwillingness to learn. That last phrase is the key because most folks don’t mind helping those who have a hunger to learn, but are frustrated by those who just seem not to care.

Misplaced Blame

One of the biggest frustrations is with fellow staffers mis-evaluating the success of event or ministry participation based on faulty expectations of communications & publicity efforts. We know that it is tough to deal with someone who blames poor communications when in reality it was an unattractive event, poorly timed event or some other reason that the event was doomed from the start. Yes, a poor communication strategy might be to blame, but there are plenty of other factors to consider as well.

There are plenty of things to make any of us frustrated and things to make others frustrated with us. My aim here was to point out some of the frustrations so we can begin working through them together with our fellow staffers. Most have much more to do with our relational skills than with the circumstances surrounding our frustrations. If we can create a relationship-driven strategy for working with fellow staffers we can alleviate some of our conflict (from both within ourselves and from others).

I intend, in some upcoming posts, to help look for  practical solutions for some of the frustrations above, to give some views from those outside of the communications team, and to help give us some perspective that might make the job of communications director a little less frustrating.

Image Credit

This is a graphic I’ve been tinkering with lately. It is a work in progress. (Click to enlarge it)

Sales Funnel

Seth Godin (and many other experts) say we get a better ROI when we focus on making better products for and on better marketing to our tribe – that is, the group of people who are already committed to our product or our cause.

People & Events

The Willow Creek Reveal Study said that churches get a better “Kingdom ROI” when they seek to provide growth mechanisms to the fully-committed Christ-centered people in the church (that they invest more monetarily, share their faith more, and lead more than those on the other end of the spectrum). If the Reveal Study is correct, it makes sense that there would be a higher ROI on programming for the Christ-centered group.

Communications

In my experience, the only way to have a successful and sustainable communications ministry is to focus on casting a small net and leveraging personal networks to “spread the word” about church programming. This seems consistent with the other funnels, particularly the Events and People funnels…and is at the heart of what I like to call Relationship-Driven Church Communications. More to come on that topic.

What are your thoughts?

My initial take-away from last night’s presidential election: People resist change.

Even when things are not going well, people tend to choose the known instead of the unknown. Whichever side of the aisle you tend to land on this fact is true. I’m generally an early adopter but when presented with change I often find myself resistant to new things.

The irony is the only thing that remains constant is transition. Even in reelecting the incumbent, things will inevitably change. The question is, how will we respond to the change and how will we work to make it positive even if the catalyst for the change isn’t what we hoped for.

What are your thoughts? Do you agree that in general, people resist change? What were your take-aways from the election.

In user interface design, there is a process we use called progressive disclosure. To quote Wikipedia,

Progressive disclosure is an interaction design technique often used in human computer interaction to help maintain the focus of a user’s attention by reducing clutter, confusion, and cognitive workload.

In other words, only show users the part of the design interface that they need to see and hide the parts that they don’t need to see until they need to see it.

There is a direct correlation between this user interface design technique and an effective church communication strategy. Only communicate what is necessary for people to take the strategic next step in their faith journey. Hide the rest (or get rid of it all together) until it is needed.

Most churches have a lot of programs, initiatives, and ministry opportunities going on. Instead of producing a document that gives people a full menu of every potential possible next step that they might take, identify a couple of options for people at 3 or 4 different “forks in the road” along the  spiritual path.

For example, instead of asking newcomers to the church to attend a membership class, join a small group with their spouse, attend a weekly men’s small group, and serve in the youth ministry; pick one or two areas where they are likely to grow the most and reveal those (progressive disclosure!) as their best next step.

The same goes for the person who is a committed Christ-follower: progressively disclose the best next step for maximum spiritual growth.

By offering a “limited menu” of growth opportunities instead of a catalog of every possibility you can help people maintain focus, reduce clutter and confusion, and ultimately reduce some of the stress involved with church.

A Warning

The push-back to this type of approach is that less-essential ministries will feel neglected in the overall communication strategy. They will probably see a drop in attendance and participation and you (and perhaps your supervisor) will probably hear a lot of “feedback.” The question to ask is “are we producing a clear path for people to MOST EASILY take the next step in their faith journey” or “are we doing a good job at having mediocre participation in a lot of ministries because we’re guilting people into busyness?” I think the latter, if we are honest as ministry leaders, makes us feel good about ourselves but is ultimately doing a big disservice to those in our congregations.

Recently, I completed working on a website redesign for the Church Technical Leaders group and through the design process I came to the realization that communication folks have a lot in common with tech folks in the church. In a lot of churches they are even the same person. Here are a few commonalities…

1. Vision Really Matters

The overall church leadership’s view of communication and tech will determine the success or failure of the communications / tech director. It’s of vital importance for the leadership and the comm / tech director to be on the same page.

2. Vision Really Matters

Not only does the vision of the church-leadership for these ministries matter, the vision that the communications director and the tech director has for how their ministries function is also important. These ministries can hobble along from day to day bending to the whim of the latest fire that comes along or they can exist with a strong strategic direction and not let anything distract from that mission. Do we, as communications director or tech director, have an idea of where we’re headed? Do our volunteers know? Do other ministry leaders know? Without a vision, our ministry’s success will perish.

3. Undervalued

As an advocate for communications and tech directors I see far too often communications and tech directors can feel undervalued simply due to the fact that we’re mostly “behind-the-scenes”. What we do is so essential to the advancement of the gospel and to the success of the church. Please know that when no one else is giving us love, God sees what we are doing and is honored by it.

4. Essential For Growth

Strong communications and tech ministries are essential for growth. God hasn’t called every church to be a mega-church, but he has called each church to reach out to the community and to experience growth. I can’t think of many churches who have a good growth strategy that doesn’t also have a well-oiled communications and tech ministry. On the flip side, I know of many churches where communication and tech are afterthoughts that are not experiencing growth. Coincidence? I doubt it.

5. Growth Is Essential

Just as our ministries are essential for growth, it’s essential that we continue to grow – both in our craft – and spiritually. It seems like this should go without saying, but it’s easy for us to get caught up in our task lists and forget to sharpen the saw.

6. Relationships First

I strongly believe that a optimally functioning tech or communications ministry puts relationships first. People over publications. People over production. As I mention in my book, the ministry leader needs to know that we are an advocate of their ministry before we approach them about redesigning their brochure. They need to completely trust that we want their event to succeed before they’ll accept the idea that they need to move from an overhead projector to a 5,000 lumen video projector. If we invest in the people around us we will be much more successful.

7. It’s All In The Details

These are two (of many) ministries in the church where God is at work in the details. There are quite a few references in the bible where we are told that God shows up when we do our part (2 Corinthians 6 and Colossians 3 to name a few).

8. Getting Started Can Be Hard

There are technical aspects to learn. There are relational aspects to master. There are vendors to contact. There are colleagues to network with. There are systems and processes to create. Getting started can be hard. That’s why I wrote this eBook (shameless plug).

9. Lots of Resources and Support

There are lots of resources available to help…whether you’re just getting started or have been going at it for a long time.

Communications folks can check out The Center for Church Communication, Echo Hub, and MediaSaltBLEEP to name a few. 

Tech directors should check out the Church Technical Leaders network. 

Occasionally on Tuesdays I give you my thoughts, unfiltered and off the top of my head. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week.

• I ran across this post last week and have been trying some of the tools there. Some of them are really good. My favorite so far: TotalFinder
• Lots of churches are looking for communications help. Here are a few:
• Potential Church in Ft. Lauderdale is looking for a web designer and a lead designer.
• Highland Park in Dallas is looking for a web administrator.
• If you’re looking, be sure to check out the CFCC Job Boards!
• I’ve been asked by the fine folks at The Crossing church to help lead part of their multi-site video broadcast area. I’m pretty excited about that!
• Does your church or small business need a custom-designed motion graphics video? Be sure to hit me up. Or, check out some that I’ve posted to my producer page on Sermonspice.
• I’m getting more and more excited about our Creative Missions trip this year. Would you consider supporting us / me?
• I’m giving away a copy of Outspoken Book. Be sure to see my previous post about it.