Running the brand and communications of the church on a weekly basis is similar to running a race. You’re working toward a finish line: Sunday. The congregation is like a home team crowd, and they want you to win. They want to know what’s going on in the church, and how they can be involved. Minus the face paint, your church is looking for a reason to get all fired up and excited.
And when the week is over, you all get up and run the race again. But the track ahead isn’t always entirely smooth.
There are 6 main hurdles that church communicators seem to face every week––and it’s time you learn to run the course without tripping over them. Which of these internal church communications problems can you use some practice to overcome?
Hurdles Every Church Communications Leader Faces
1.) You don't have a seat at the table:
This is the most common problem we hear from church communicators. You have many responsibilities, but it usually feels like this isn’t accurately reflected in the amount of authority you have in decision-making. You know your input is valued, but you may often feel other leaders are making decisions for you, instead of asking you to weigh in on how the decision affects your position.
There is one main topic where we see this problem: the communications budget. Depending on the size of your church, your role might be communicator, assistant, graphic designer, and brand advocate. You're doing a lot, and when you tell leadership you need a great website to help you do your job effectively, they may not understand the benefit of this investment. Because you have a hard time showing the value of a modern, high-quality website within your own church, you don't get to weight in on the amount of budget that goes toward it.
Answer: There isn't one magic answer to this. Every church and internal relationship is set up differently. But to have this conversation and make this change, you need to take a step. You need to arm yourself with case studies, data, and examples of other church communicators who have been able to speak effectively to their leadership and change how the process works.
You need to be included in large ministry decisions because you know the pulse of the church. You keep the message and brand consistent. You communicate with the entire church. But you shouldn't have to fit things into the brand mold. Your messaging should be built around the church's brand, mission, vision, and values. It can all start with these examples, data, and an honest, respectful conversation.
2.) Your workload is underestimated:
I have no idea how long it should take a construction worker (or a team of them) to build a house. Because I don't do parts of that job in my everyday life, I don't have any expectation or estimate of how long it "should" take. Unfortunately, communications are engrained in everyone's lives. Social media, email, newsletters, and event promotion might make up 30 hours of a church communicators' week, but other employees or volunteers might not understand how something so “common” can take that long. This may lead others to underestimate (and disrespect) your capacity for work.
Answer: The only person who can take control of this process is you. You need to raise and set the new standard for how others can request help from you. The best way to do this is using internal request forms. These life-savers are like hiring a personal trainer. Internal request forms will save you time, energy, and allow you to set realistic expectations for when requesters will receive promotion packages and communications from you. You may ruffle some feathers initially, but once the rest of your team realizes that this is now the system for working together, things will smooth out. And they will even run better.
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Perhaps the most important point you can use to your advantage is that quality is at stake if you must rush through a project. Your church communications should be something your leadership can be proud of. Don't be afraid to push back against those who need fast work. This will mean setting boundaries and putting quality over speed. We encourage you to be internally transparent about how long high-quality communications take to plan, develop, and share. |
3.) You speak to different audiences:
With many age groups and varying life stages in your church, this hurdle is certainly a difficult one. Some of your congregation might be tech-savvy, which means you can talk to them in very different ways than you speak to an older generation. We call this the struggle to find the balance between digital natives and digital laggards.
Answer: Truly examine your audience before you speak. As you type an email, think about the different types of people it is going to. Is your church mostly digital natives? Or the digital laggards? A blend somewhere in between? Use vocabulary that is easily understood by everyone in that audience, even if it means using parentheses to explain a concept or linking out to a blog post explaining something. Unless you are speaking to a specific person, you should always assume there is at least one person in the “room” who needs a little more explanation than others. This is also true when using acronyms, like VBS. When possible, segment your messages in a way that lets you meet people where they are. For example, if you have the resources, you can create two different newsletters. They would contain the same types of information, but one is tailored to those who want to subscribe to children and family ministries, while the other is sent to those more interested in senior activities and groups.
4.) You don't always have time to learn:
Communications workers aren’t just running a race, you are competing in the office decathlon: design, writing, promotion, project management, software, social media, shot put... the list goes on. To stay up-to-date and relevant in all of these aspects of communications, your church needs to support you in continuous learning in these different industries. If you don’t have the time to learn, you’ll fall behind. A few minutes on your lunch break isn’t enough time to master a new software feature or read about how other churches are seeing success in their social media campaigns.
Answer: You need to budget time to learn and keep up with industry trends. You need to build learning time into your schedule so that you always have a chance to get better at what you do. After all, your success in this role will directly help grow and build the mission of your church. Some simple ways to start this are with your routine. Subscribe to an RSS feed or specific blogs that provide a lot of value, and make reading them a part of your morning habit. Ten or 15 minutes of inspiration each morning will set the stage for a more ambitious, motivated work day. If something comes directly to your email inbox, you're much more likely to read it than if you need to go out and find new content each day during this time. Brands like TED Talks can be particularly inspiring, and content curation apps, like Prismatic, allow you to select the topics you want to read about while they bring the information to you.
5.) You have to set user permissions:
When using content tools (like blogs or social media accounts) or project management software, it can be difficult to know which team members should be “allowed” to do what. For example, who on your internal church staff should be able to edit pages of the website? Or change photos on the homepage? As the church communications leader, you’ll need to keep reins on who can get to what. You want a CMS that allows you to have unlimited contributors because you want to delegate tasks––but you also want to enforce that system in a way that everyone understands and respects.
Answer: Be strict and specific about who is (and isn’t) responsible for what and how they should follow brand standards. This isn’t about your ego or their ego. It’s about making the user experience of your church website consistent and easy to use. Your congregation should be excited and proud to use the amazing portal you’ve spent so much time developing, and they should want to engage with it every day. In order to keep the branding, formatting, and messaging clear across all aspects of your church brand, you need to be able to set user permissions so that only people who need access can have it. After all, if someone really does need to access a tool or platform, you can work together as they earn your trust.
6.) You need software and learning opportunities tailored to ministry professionals:
There are communicators in every industry. From retail and media to healthcare and government––everyone needs a brand manager. Being in this ever-present role can make it harder for church communicators to find systems that not only work, but are tailored to the ministry work you do. You don’t want to scour a general stock photo website for a photo of a bible study that isn’t cheesy. You want something that works for your unique needs. And ideologically, you want to work with service providers with values in alignment with yours. There's comfort in knowing that you can work with trustworthy, responsible companies––who understand what you’re trying to do.
Answer: These answers will continue to change as new tools and systems are built specifically for churches. But there are already some great resources that you can turn to now: Lightstock is a “faith-focused, cheesy-free” stock photo, footage, and vector image site. Proclaim and EasyWorship are both presentation tools and resources that can help you display an engaging, intriguing message. Flocknote is a free email and text messaging service (similar to Constant Contact or MailChimp) designed just for churches. Planning Center is a ministry-focused company that has products like church donation management, simple event registration, and membership management. These tools are a great place to start when searching for systems tailored to your tasks.
