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Discover how to leverage technology in your church

Technology should not transform ministry, but rather do the things that people don’t have to do so they can do what they do best.

How to Add Voice Messages to Your Church Communication Strategy

By Hannah Hansen | Apr 30, 2024 12:00:00 PM

When it comes to your church communication plan, there are many formats to utilize. Most often, people think of email, bulletin announcements, and social media. But Programmable Voice Messages can be an absolutely crucial and necessary addition to your overall communication strategy!

This communication format has many benefits and uses, particularly within the church. Let’s dive into the definition, benefits, and uses of Programmable Voice Messages in your church communication plan!

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Topics: Strategy

Planning Ahead for Advent and Lent

By Katy Crawford | Oct 22, 2021 12:00:00 PM

It’s the time of year when we’ve generally settled into the fall rhythm of life and begin anticipating the next big things coming down the line, namely the Advent and Christmas seasons. Some have decided on a theme/focus for midweek services and at-home devotions. For others, this is the first blip on the radar.

Whether you’re already well on your way to Advent planning success, just starting to think about it, or somewhere in between, Rev. Daniel Ross suggests combining your efforts with Lent planning as well. Not only is the gap between Christmas and Ash Wednesday sometimes small, but planning for these seasons simultaneously helps keep the Gospel story and the anticipation of the resurrection tied together in our minds rather than in isolated events.

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Topics: Strategy

Ingredients of a Detailed Church Communications Strategy

By Peter Frank | Jun 9, 2020 2:00:00 PM

When I was a sophomore in college, I moved into a dormitory that had previously been used as a fraternity house. There were a lot of things that made it different than a typical dorm, but the thing I was most excited about was the large kitchen. 

Over the previous year, I started to become interested in cooking, especially food that was healthy. The prospect of having a full kitchen available made me decide to skip the cafeteria meal plan, plan to go grocery shopping on a regular basis, and cook healthy recipes for most of my meals.

Like many plans, I certainly had good intentions, but I didn't implement it very well. By the end of the school year, I was so busy with homework and finals that the majority of my meals ended up being off-brand mac and cheese bowls heated up in the microwave. It was not really healthy, but it was inexpensive, quick, and easy, and I was at least able to eat.

Church communications can often be like my "cooking" experience: detailed plans created by enthusiastic people with good intentions and an overly-optimistic idea about the available time. There is nothing wrong with any of those things, but that situation can easily lead to incomplete implementation of those plans.
 
Now that I am an adult and a bit more self-aware, I have learned the trick to cooking healthy on a regular basis. I still have good intentions and a detailed plan, but I've learned that it's a lot more likely that I will implement those plans when I have all the ingredients readily available. I make sure to keep a cabinet full of spices and a freezer full of meat. When I go out on my weekly grocery shopping trip, I load up on fruits and vegetables, so I now I have everything I need to make healthy meals.
 
Having all of those ingredients on hand makes it easy to cook healthy on a regular basis, and the same is true for church communications. There are a variety of communications tools (ingredients) that you can prepare in advance so that when the time comes to implement your church's communication plans, you're all ready to go.

 

As you build out your church's communication strategy, consider using any or all of the following tools to help you gain a better understanding of your situation, your audiences, and what you are communicating. A detailed communication strategy should include all of these ingredients in some form, but you don't need to wait to get started until you have all of them in place.

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Setting Ministry Priorities in the Age of Technology

By Peter Frank | Apr 28, 2020 2:00:00 PM

At Concordia Technology Solutions, we hold weekly product meetings with members of our marketing, support, and development teams. We discuss what happened during the week and what tasks will be accomplished in the coming week. This is also a time for us to share feedback we’ve heard from the users of our software.

We get a lot of great ideas on a daily basis, but I’ve learned I have to be careful in how I bring them up. If I say, “What do you think, can we add this new feature?” it’s likely that I will get a tongue-in-cheek response from a developer such as, “Yes, we can do anything ... with time and money.”

I’ll admit I’ve used that phrase in other meetings as well. While there is a certain level of sarcasm to it, the reality is that technology has improved so much over the years that (almost) anything is possible, as long as you have sufficient resources.

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The Importance of a Strategy over Tactics in Church Communications

By Peter Frank | Apr 22, 2020 1:00:00 PM

One of my favorite board games to play when I was a kid was a two-person game called Stratego. The goal of Stratego is to capture the flag of the opposing player while protecting one’s own. Each player starts with a large number of pieces, and each piece has a ranking. The players battle those pieces against each other until one can capture the other’s flag.

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Developing a Post-Easter Strategy for Your Church’s Website

By Stacy Yates | Apr 16, 2019 9:00:00 AM

Spring is in the air, and the church calendar is telling us Easter is almost here. But you’re not worried because you have done all that can possibly be done. The bulletin covers are ready. The Easter egg hunt went off without a hitch. Information about Holy Week has been shared. This year you even coordinated a Lenten video devotional blog for social media followers. You have a strategy for greeters when visitors arrive. Little cards are out to collect visitors’ information. Postcards are ready to be sent out as follow-up. The elders are lined up to make those follow-up calls. And let’s face it—the website was off the charts with all the awesome graphics. YOU KNOCKED IT OUT OF THE PARK! Now it’s time to sit back, pat the team on the back, and watch the strategy unfold. Or is it?

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5 Ways to Implement Agile Methodology in Churches

By Rev. Bill Johnson | Dec 4, 2018 9:00:00 AM

Have you ever worked on a project for a church committee where you’ve spent weeks meeting, planning, studying, and preparing to make a decision, then a few more weeks double-checking some things, and then a handful more weeks waiting for the right people to come back from vacation, and finally after months of delays, preparation, and hard work, discovered that the opportunity had passed or the problem had solved itself?

Nobody likes to waste their time, and sometimes churches move at the speed of committees. (Which is, incidentally, only slightly slower than frozen molasses on a January morning in northern Canada . . . during an ice age.) Speed is not the only virtue, of course, and we want to make wise decisions with limited resources. But in many cases, it would be very helpful if churches were a little more agile.

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Topics: Strategy

6 Steps to a Comprehensive Easter Communications Plan

By Peter Frank | Feb 6, 2018 2:00:00 PM

Ash Wednesday is just about a week away, which means there are less than two months until Easter. Have you started planning your Easter communications yet? I realize for some churches, this started happening before Christmas, but for many of our readers, Ash Wednesday is the day the clock starts ticking.

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Establishing a Communication Hub for Your Church

By Peter Frank | Aug 3, 2017 9:00:00 AM

A couple weeks ago, we talked about how a content framework consists of a home base (your website), a media empire (blogs and emails), and outposts (social media). This week, our focus will be on the media empire, which is the source of all your church’s long-form communication.

Though your media empire may reside on your church’s website, it serves a very different purpose. The purpose of your website should be to encourage people to visit and get involved at your church; the media empire should direct people further into your website. In this blog post, we’ll delve into blogs and emails and learn how they can develop your church’s content framework.

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Defining and Measuring Success In Your Church

By Billy Schultz | Jun 27, 2017 9:00:00 AM

Success is one of those words that people seem to use without giving much thought to what they’re saying. Whether we talk about success in a personal or collective sense, we often times use the word without knowing what we mean by it. Or worse, we know what we mean by it, but when we try to measure it, we fail to look at the right indicators. 

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