It’s almost time for the next worship service and you’re excited.
You’ve worked hard on a new campaign. That pesky bulletin is done. The new connect cards are printed and ready to be filled out. The announcement video has new graphics. And you’re ready for the whole church to see it.
Lights go down. Video rolls. And you see it. A misspelled word. ‘Their’ instead of ‘There.’ ‘Your’ not ‘You’re.’ Your heart begins to race. Sweat drips.
You look down at the bulletin and notice the wrong date for the Men’s Prayer Breakfast. You almost pass out. Church FAIL.
Failures in communication happen because systems were not in place or not adhered to.
How could this happen? You’ve now gone from excitement to panic—you did everything you could this week to get every bit of communications out. Now you just want to get it all back in your hands.
I’ve found the majority of mistakes or failures in church communications come because systems were not in place or not adhered to.
When communications becomes the catchall for every ministry to bombard the congregation with information they don’t care about, we get overwhelmed.
We get to a place where we no longer worried about pointed communications. We just want to get things done. Get the word out.
Here are some ways to combat that.
Develop a deadline for when ministries must have information to your team so you can decide the best way to communicate that information.
How much time does the communications team need to produce a perfect campaign for the ministry and/or their event? Allow time to design, order and produce whatever the ministry is asking. These expectations and boundaries need to be clear to everyone.
How does a ministry leader or event coordinator get the pertinent information to you? Develop a form you can point ministries to. This form can include the obvious dates, name, etc.
How many are you expecting to attend your event?
What is the goal of the event and how does this fit within the mission of our church?
When do you want to begin promoting?
Do you need any graphics?
A proofing team helps to protect the values of the communications team and the church.
Have two or three people on your team proof everything that is going out. Not only are they looking for misspellings and grammar, but they are also looking at the feel of the piece.
Ask whether this matches our church or the ministry or the event. Ask whether the copy makes sense. Ask if what you are pushing out would make them attend the event.
Your proofing team goes beyond the face value of what you are communicating. They are helping to protect the values of the communications team and the church.
I have found that this is critical to making sure that everything you do—whether it is print, web or video—looks and feels the same according to the agreed upon style of the church.
Are you using approved logos, fonts, colors? Does your copy reflect how your pastor speaks?
You should be looking at both editorial style and visual style.
This is huge! Always try to meet with the person requesting communications. This will ensure you get the heartbeat of the event. You can really work out any misunderstandings or questions that you may have.
Forging relationships is key to avoiding ministry dysfunction.
Evaluation will always lead you and your team toward future success.
At the end of every ministry event or communications campaign, gather around the table and talk through what worked and what did not. Evaluation will always lead you and your team toward future success.
This is also a time for ministry leaders to share with you and help you amend any communication policies or procedures that suited them or not.
Implement some communications systems and you’ll begin to feel the weight of uncertainty lift.
We’ve all walked into the building hoping that just this one Sunday, everything would go according to plan. The bulletin will be free of errors. The video promo will connect. People will sign up. This can happen. I repeat, this can happen.
Implement the above systems and you’ll begin to feel the weight of uncertainty lift from your shoulders.
I really appreciate your article. Great job breaking things down in a systematic approach. What would you say to smaller churches who don’t have a marketing or communications team but see the need to implement some of these processes.
Hey Andrew: A lot of these ideas you can still implement in a small church. Your proofreading team just might be a small group of volunteers (like one or two). A style guide is something you can pretty easily put together yourself, just a shared Google Doc where you collect some standard practices.
It’ll happen on a smaller scale for sure, and it can be tempting to avoid processes because you’re small. But processes and systems are how you can avoid mistakes, make things easier and help everything run more smoothly.
Really DO appreciate the article! Honestly. In this week, when I have dropped so many balls, and when even reading the word FAIL makes me immediately think of myself, it helped to see someone else make a TINY mistake. It helped to hear myself say- “oh, that’s OK…Hmmm… I should be OK when that happens to me too.” The article will help me to do my volunteer thang in a less stressful way. I appreciate you!
Can I tell you something? In our chaotic world of ministry, things happen. It doesn’t mean WE fail. It simply means that there is a problem that has a solution — somewhere. Our job is to find the right solution for our context. Then reboot. Execute. Reevaluate. Then do it again.
We fail when we don’t attempt to get better. I can tell you want to get better — so that makes you a success in my book!