Discover how to leverage technology in your church

Throw out the phrase “bullet journal” in conversation, and you’ll likely get a variety of responses: everything from “Oh, I’m not ‘arsty’ enough for that,” to “This is the single greatest tool I’ve found for organizing my life,” and a lot of reactions in between. While some take a more elaborate approach to bullet journaling, others use their notebook or journal to simplify.

I recently reread Kem Meyer’s book, Less Chaos. Less Noise. As I did, Meyer’s words hit me right between the eyes, as they often do. This time, however, it wasn’t about written communication. What got me was her writing on people skills.

About six weeks into my DCE internship, I was planning to leave town on my day off for the first time. There was an event taking place at the church while I would be gone, and though I had carried out my responsibilities and left the day’s tasks in more-than-capable hands, I felt anxious, almost guilty, about leaving.

One of my greatest struggles working in a communications role for a church is finding the balance between executing existing plans or ideas and finding space for creativity and exploring new possibilities. Church communicators function within a certain tension of straightforward (relatively speaking) administrative tasks and an ever-changing communications landscape that requires awareness, innovation, and a certain amount of “let’s try this and see how it goes!” (See this post on agile failing for a little encouragement.) There are things that simply need to be done, but we can find ourselves so stuck in the maintenance of things that we forget to explore new possibilities.

Happy 149th birthday, Concordia Publishing House! Of course, there’s a bunch of excitement about the big one-five-zero happening a year from now (and rightfully so!), but you only turn 149 once. Whatever the number, birthdays are a great time to remember, reflect, and celebrate—so here we go!

Ben Franklin once said, “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!”

Although I’m one who loves a well thought out plan, I have a lot of growing to do when it comes to having a solid grasp on this. So, I’ve been reading, listening to podcasts, and trying to soak up any wisdom I can from those who do this sort of thing well. One recurring theme I’ve encountered is that of planning rhythms.

Stories are some of the most powerful tools in a church communicator’s belt. They have the power to engage us in something beyond ourselves and pass life-giving faith from one generation to another.

“Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Conforms.” These words were deemed the unofficial motto for the 1933–34 World’s Fair in Chicago. More than eighty years have passed since that grand event, which celebrated great strides in technological innovation. For our culture, the same motto seems to ring a little too true.

In his book Digitized: Spiritual Implications of Technology, Dr. Bernard Bull discusses this pattern of our conforming to, or being shaped by, technology, at times without realizing what is happening. It’s vital we recognize that the solving of one problem generally leads to a slew of new challenges to address. Many of these challenges have significant connection to our spiritual lives and the faith formation of our families.

Oh Canva, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. . . .

Okay, so Elizabeth Barrett Browning I am not. I do, however, have a long list of reasons why Canva is a church communicator’s best friend. Like many, my first introduction to Canva’s superpowers was learning how to create those really beautiful, crisp, professional-looking social media graphics. But there are so many other ways Canva can be used in your congregation’s communication efforts!

The way we use our memory has changed in recent years, and daily tasks that once required us to recall information are now done by accessing digital directories or using voice activation. When I was in grade school, memory tools were of the index-card variety, each holding a different historical fact, spelling word, or basic math equation. Now memory cards hold countless digital images and files, at times doing our remembering for us.