Communicating Information vs. Building Community
I’ve been going through several church clients communications and have noticed a trend: they tell info, but don’t add a lot of value. Even in a relatively small church, multiple ministries are all vying to get the attention of their volunteers and attenders. They all have something to say and, usually have a need which either requires volunteers to fill or people to attend. In both cases, it’s the church that’s trying to leverage communications to create an awareness and, usually, a call-to-action response. Whether it’s print, web, verbal, video or audio, there’s a question that needs to be asked before the communication is sent:
Do your church’s communications give info or build community?
Using the questions “Who?, What?, When?, Where?” we often cover the details sufficiently but sometimes fail to associate value with the information. Asking me to serve during an upcoming church festival? That’s OK. Telling me that by serving ,”x” people will be reached and/or briefly describe the expectations for my volunteer role? That’s much better!
When possible, we need to ask two more questions: “Why?” and “How?”
“Why is this important to our church?”
“How will this impact our community?”
We should be creating communication that is A) consistent between mediums; and B) is spread across mediums (verbal, print, web, email, Facebook, Twitter, video, mail, etc.) In doing so, we will help people remember to invite others and/or remember to serve. Beyond sharing the basic information, our church communications should create an opportunity for conversation. Instead of telling me about something, ask me to provide input or help spread the news. Instead of merely pushing information out, create ways and places for people to comment, add and share in the conversation. You’ve heard of that before: it’s called viral marketing.
Conversation leads to commitment; commitment leads to community.
When we share in a conversation, people buy in to the prospect of something that has value. When they’ve bought in, they’ve taken ownership, which is a commitment. That commitment will provide a chance for those invested to share in a goal, project, task, or need and serve in community together.
Here’s a test: Go look at a recent promotion or request that was sent by your church. Does it provide information or build community?
What were your results?
9 Responses to “Communicating Information vs. Building Community”
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I'm Anthony Coppedge, a follower of Jesus, a husband to my uber-bride and father to four great kids. I help ministries leverage technology and communicate with a digitally-infused culture. I'm passionate about this, so that makes me a Technology & Communications Evangelist. I attend and volunteer at Gateway Church in Southlake, TX and love it! To find out more about me, feel free to download my resumé.
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Great stuff. We actually just discussed this today in staff. Communication is more than information. Love it.
Read today a quote I loved: "Don't mistake legibility for communication" (David Carson) and combine that with Time article on Twitter 15 June and reading: Wikinomics (Tapscott and williams). I have just found your twitter and am encouraged that churches are starting to get some idea that technology isn't killing community but is enhancing community.
Would love to know if you have seen a model of internet 'church' that works. Image the paradigm shift from a sermon being one man's experience of God to a model closer to Paul's where each contributes to the message as they are called too!
? A youtube sermon(best pick out of the fantastic world wide messages – bill hybels one week, andy stanley the next, tim kellor etc) with twitter comments; combine with the music that touches your soul; and a blog expanding and exploring the theme; and prayer partners world wide!
Have you seen this on the web yet?
Not exactly, but LifeChurch.tv is doing both a very compelling Internet Campus and a new service called OPEN (http://open.lifechurch.tv/), which is a free resource for churches. Take a peek and see if that's the direction you're envisioning.
Glenda, we have a church in Florida that uses our product, MemberHub, for "digital discipleship". They have an online "hub" for each group. In each hub they start a new discussion and embed a video for the members to watch. An email gets sent with the video embedded and the members just start replying. The entire discussion gets recorded in the hub. I'd love for you to check it out. http://memberhub.com/
Anthony I love that statement, "Conversation leads to commitment; commitment leads to community." It's really in my opinion the key to some of these online community building tools. It's about empowering your ministries to organize themselves and communicate! So much of the churches communication is one-way. It's a newsletter, it's an email to the entire church. It's amazing how little I know about the people in my church and even right in the ministries that I serve.
Anthony – I love the idea of a church opening the door to dialogue with their attendees and would love to see church websites incorporate fb, twitter, etc. The church would also do well to recognize that the next gens wont appreciate bullhorn announcements, but rather, they desire authentic conversation.
I agree with you that LifeChurch.tv does a great job presenting churchonline. Part of why includes easy to share facebook links and twitter messages they can share with friends.
Let’s keep this conversation going.
Anthony- Great post. I think that, to an extent, much of the lack of community in the church today is essentially a communications issue. To that extent, you have hit the nail right on the head. Our communication strategies must have a higher goal than to just spread information. We must set goals for actually creating community and then find appropriate ways to measure our progress toward those goals.
However, the problem with lack of community is not entirely about communication (in my opinion). At its heart, the problem is Spiritual. And our very best communications strategies will not afford the Spiritual solution we need.
That said, if we focus our communication toward building community, we will have come a long way in most of our churches, don't you think? What a great word. Thank you!
Great post! Church without community isn't church. Everything we do as church leaders should be about facilitating community, especially our comm plan. I would venture to say that most significant growth that takes place in a person's life is due to community and relationship, NOT the sermon or production. However, if we use those things to facilitate growth in the context of community, that's a MAJOR win. Thanks, Anthony!!!
anthony – great info!
one would think this is common sense. i think sometimes we are lacking in "anticipating needs" in our communications (and customer service). we need to anticipate what the people need to know and hear to move them into action. we need to anticipate needs in order to service them. we are, after all, servants.
always love your insight, brother. thank you for sharing!