Church: Communicate With Excellence
Yesterday I was contacted by a new Twitter Associate who asked me a good question:
“Would love to hear how you define excellence. It’s an ongoing conversation at my church”
She was referring to my Twitter bio where I have written that I am “helping churches communicate with excellence“. I gave her a brief Twitter reply, but since time have been thinking about it more and I feel that a discussion of church marketing and communication excellence deserves a little deeper explanation.
In the past week I have defined marketing and talked briefly about where the church and marketing intersect. Much of what a church does in it’s communication internally and externally falls into the category of marketing and the way the church tells its story. One of the reasons I am so passionate about helping churches with their marketing and communications is that for years I have watched churches settle for mediocrity.
Church Mediocrity
Please understand that there are many churches trying their best and doing a good job to communicate the message of Jesus and how that is expressed through their church ministry. However, from my personal experience, probably only 20% of churches would be doing this. I am not sure why or how, but a vast majority of churches accept mediocrity in the way they communicate. They have, under the guise of tight budgets, volunteer help, or tight time-lines, created or accepted a culture that God will bless His work…regardless. And He will. However, this does not mean we can just lethargically throw or slap things together and expect them to miraculously connect with people in our culture in a meaningful way.
In North America, we are bombarded with highly professional and strategically crafted messages in all forms of media – hundreds of times a day. If a church then, has a web site that was designed 10 years ago by some well-meaning volunteer who knew basic HTML but had no graphic design ability then when anyone (churched or non-churched) encounters that type of communication resource it immediately represents God and that church very poorly!
Churches are also notorious for creating ad fliers in MS Word, littering them with cheesy clip art, duplicating them on their 15 year old photocopier in black and white and distributing them around the community to invite people to their “event”. Again, when it looks like it is home made, that type of communication tool does not get taken seriously by anyone in your community.
These are just two common examples. Mediocrity creeps in through the creation of bulletins, church signage, church directories, and a host of other communication tools and resources churches use.
Church Communication Excellence
I am not advocating that churches mortgage the building to hire professional marketing or communications firms to help them create Madison Avenue style advertising. I am however passionately convinced that in today’s culture, most churches can be challenged to strive for excellence and to do the best that they can with the resources they have. They just need to change that mindset of scarcity and mediocrity. A professional-looking church web site does not have to cost thousands of dollars. The cost to have someone design and print four-colour postcards, business card size ads, or posters is far more reasonable today than it has ever been. The process however needs some strategic planning and a commitment of resources to attend to the details in the best way it can possibly be done…so the communication tool(s)represent God with excellence.
I believe God created the earth with a level of excellence that is unsurpassed (just look around you!). His attention to detail is phenomenal. After all He has done for us in creation, after all Jesus did for us on the cross…should we not do everything we can to communicate the message of love, hope, and purpose He offers to the hurting world around us?
I think churches have the best message on the planet to communicate…sadly we have historically been some of the worst communicators I have ever met! I want to see that changed so more people can experience life-change! We (the church) have a big responsibility. I think we should take it very seriously. If we do our very best and are genuine in that process, we will have a bigger impact in our community – God will bless that effort abundantly!
What are your thoughts? Have you seen churches that operate in a mindset of scarcity and mediocrity? How can we help change that?
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