It’s a lot to carry
If you’re spending a lot of time preparing for preaching while also sitting with a family on their worst week. On top of all you do as a shepherd, you’re also writing the announcements and posting to Facebook and Instagram, trying to get your community to notice your church. Nobody trained you for the communications part, and it still ends up on your to-do list.
Be encouraged; this is learnable, and most of it only costs a little time and some attention to get everything started.
What a communications strategy is, in plain terms
A strategy is a set of decisions made ahead of time so nobody has to make them under pressure or without you involved in every detail. It should include details around who you’re trying to reach in your community. What your church is known for and how it brings value to the people who are a part. Which communications channels you’ll keep and build to reach your current members and those in your city. How far ahead a ministry leader has to ask for something from creatives. Who decides when two ministries want the same Sunday afternoon for an event.
The first decisions worth writing down
Start with one sentence about who your church is for. Not everyone in your city, and not a slogan or your mission statement. The people you’re actually positioned to reach, in the language a member would use when inviting their neighbor to come to service with them.
Then decide how requests reach whoever handles them, and how far ahead. That one decision removes more Friday emergencies faster than anything else I’ve seen, and you can write it on half a page.
You may already have the person you need
In every church I’ve served, people in the congregation had creative skills nobody had ever asked them about. A photographer who shoots weddings and corporate gigs professionally. Someone who builds websites and apps for a living. A designer who assumed the church already had that covered.
Asking costs nothing. One conversation with the right person in your congregation is often where a communications volunteer team starts.
What that person will need from you
Very little of it is money. They need clarity on what your church is about, decisions earlier than feels necessary, a yes or a no instead of a maybe, and your backing when they tell a ministry leader that the Sunday announcements slot is already full.
They also need a scope. One area they own, with the authority to make calls inside it. Volunteers who are given something real to lead tend to stay connected in those roles longer. The ones treated as a pair of hands with no active authority to make decisions don’t.
When the role outgrows a volunteer
I took one of these jobs. What I wish someone had written down before I started was the scope: what I owned, what I didn’t, who I reported to, and what a good first year looked like serving in and building out the communications ministry.
Why it’s worth the trouble
Plenty of people are introduced to your church long before they meet anyone as a visitor on Sunday morning. They see the website, a post, a sign, a photo, and overhear a conversation about your church from a friend. Being clear in those places is part of loving people well with a goal of invitation, and it’s the part your team can start on this week.
What would someone outside your church have trouble finding this week? Start there.
