Your church has a website, a Facebook page, a weekly bulletin, a newsletter and Sunday announcements. There's certainly no shortage of information going out. But how much of it helps someone understand why they might want to be part of your congregation? Too often, we're telling people when something is happening before we've given them a reason to care. We're promoting ministries to people who already know about them, filling our social media with announcements, and expecting newcomers to understand the language and routines of church life.
Through Ministry Forum's Virtual Front Porches initiative, we've been working alongside congregations to look more closely at how churches communicate. Some of what we've learned has confirmed challenges we already suspected. Other conversations have helped us recognize assumptions and habits we hadn't fully considered. This workbook brings together nine practical considerations, organized around three questions:
Who are we talking to? Not every ministry serves the same audience, and not every message belongs in every communication channel.
Why would someone care? How do we show people what makes our congregations worth being part of, rather than simply listing what happens there?
Are we making it easy? How can we communicate more clearly without adding more work for already-busy staff and volunteers?
Each section identifies a common communication challenge, offers some practical ways to approach it differently, and includes questions to wrestle with. Use the space provided to make notes about your context, and then take these questions to your staff, volunteers, committees or session. Some may be easy to answer; others might reveal conversations your congregation hasn't had yet.
The goal is to think more carefully about what we're already communicating, who we're reaching, and what we might do differently.