Sewing Up Your Communication

Today, David Drury posted on facebook: "Writing a manuscript is like making a dress, it’s easier to artfully cut than to add scraps to it later."  (He followed this with the comment: "This is gleaned from my extensive dress-making experience. [eyeroll]")

I actually do have dressmaking experience.  As a matter of fact, I was the parliamentarian of the Future Homemakers of America club at Griffin Junior High.  [Until, when in the 8th grade, I attended the joint FHA-FFA (Future Farmers of America) convention in Atlanta, where I learned that shirts under overalls are optional for future farmers, while trucker hats with tractor logos are not, and where I changed my interest in homemaking and became president of the Future Business Leaders of America at Griffin High School.]  But I digress.

Wanna know something about dressmaking? You leave a margin all the way around--more than you think you'll need--and then you stitch the fabric together loosely (that's called basting). Then you see if it fits. You can make adjustments because you left margin for something to be a little bigger here or a little tighter there.  You don't only need a margin of fabric.  You also need a margin of time.  If you watch Project Runway, you know that the contestants always seem to run out of time at the end, and many of the details are missed in trying to meet the deadline.

This is where the worlds of church communication and dressmaking collide.  Church communicators are always writing toward a deadline, and new information is always coming in.  If there is no margin--no time or space--to consider the new information, your communication could be incomplete and ineffective.  We need to leave margin for creativity and inspiration.  We need to read and re-read it and share it with a few trusted others.  We need to see if it fits our audience before we send it down the runway.  I realize that there never seems to be enough margin to make it perfect, but have we allowed the time and resources that we will need to at least make it better?  

Perspective

I can rarely hear the word perspective without hearing it in Anton Ego's voice (from Ratatouille):

Server: Do you know what you'd like this evening, sir?  

Anton Ego: Yes, I think I do. After reading a lot of overheated puffery about your new cook, you know what I'm craving? A little perspective. That's it. I'd like some fresh, clear, well seasoned perspective...

Server: With what, sir?  

Anton Ego: Perspective. Fresh out, I take it?  

Server: I am, uh...  

Anton Ego: Very well. Since you're all out of perspective and no one else seems to have it in this bloody town, I'll make you a deal. You provide the food, I'll provide the perspective...

Ego's response is very enlightening for the church.  We provide the music, the sermon, the environment for worship, the structure, but the people in the pews (or chairs, or online) provide the perspective.

As church communicators, we can try to frame ourselves, our organization, or our mission in the best light, in an effort to alter people's perspectives.  We can show them the best of who we are, who we are trying to be, and what we are trying to become.  But we can also be authentic about who we aren't, what we're not trying to be, and our boundaries.  We just need to present all of these with the understanding that each person brings their own perspective.  

When we have our photo taken, who doesn't want their best side to show?  Sarge prefers his photo taken when he is standing, and from the front, because he looks less 'fluffy'.  Do we only show our best to those with whom we are communicating, or are we real about who we are?

Eventually, people will see us from the back.  They will get out of their seats and volunteer, or join a small group, and really get to know us.  As their perspectives change, will they find us to be even more of what we said we were, or will they see the fluff?

I'm not advocating that we air our dirty laundry, but that we be authentic in our communications.

If we communicate that life's a bowl of cherries, when sometimes, it's the pits, then when people get past the sweet, they might hit something harder than they are able to digest.  We need to assist them in altering their perspective.  Becoming a Christ-follower can be easy, but being a Christ-follower can be hard.  Being part of a body of believers is attractive on the approach, but not-so-pretty in the back.

How can we, as church communicators, present the good news in authentic ways? 

Do you have a Church Communications Plan?

I am helping a church develop a church communications document that would include their communications strategy, goals, and policies.

Here are some examples from denominational, district, and local perspectives:

Denomination: Four Square Church Style Guide

District: Seventh Day Adventist Public Relations Guide

Local Church: St. Matthew Catholic Communications Policies and Procedures

These each make up a part of what I believe a good church communications plan would include.  A complete plan would start with who the church is, why communication/branding is important, who communicates what, and how to communicate through various channels.  

Do you have a church communication plan, or part of one, that you would be willing to share?  Link to it in a comment, or if you're not ready to share it with the blogosphere, send it to my email.

It's Not How It Looks

McDonald's needed a change.  Moms with nugget-fueled preschoolers meeting for playdates used to be their bread and butter, but the butter was now being spread across other venues, especially coffeeshops.  Working professionals were spending their time, and their money, at Starbucks, not McDonald's.  So they added coffeeshop-style drinks, and then invested more than a billion dollars to remodel 14,000 U.S. locations (Details here).  They changed the color of the interiors to the same earth tones you find in Starbucks, bought espresso machines, and began offering free WiFi in all of their restaurants. 


I stopped in to a McDonald's the other day, and was confronted by this sign in the dining area:

McDonald's changed their restaurants to look more like Starbucks, but missed the point.  Starbucks serves caffeinated beverages, is painted in earth tones, and has free WiFi, but that's not why people spend their money and their time there.  Starbucks has a feel, and the feel conveys who they are.  They write your first name on your cup as if you're at a party where everyone has their name written on their solo cup with a sharpie so they don't accidentally sip your Diet Dr. Pepper instead of their super-sweet southern iced tea.  You can sit there for hours writing papers (or blogs, or facebook statuses) and no one will tell you your time is up.  This small sign conveys what McDonald's values: speed.  Buy it, eat it, and get out.

Recently, a friend visited a large church in Atlanta.  When asked to describe it in one word, she would tell you it was "Cold."  One of her comments was, "You'd think with that many people to draw from, they would choose the right people to be out front.  They must have some friendlier people in the church." Another was, "The hallways and common spaces were big and blank."  She contacted the church, let them know she was visiting from another city where she is in ministry, and asked if they could share information about one of their ministries.  She was told no.  The word community is in their purpose/vision statement, but this young lady felt anything but community.

Are your volunteers, physical property, printed collateral, and conversations conveying what you say are your priorities?

Sanctity of Human Life Sunday

As a Christian, I am pro-life.  I believe strongly in the sanctity of human life.

As a realist, I undertand that we cannot focus every message on this topic, and therefore one Sunday per year is set aside to shine light on the issue.  Sanctity of Human Life Sunday is January 20 this year.

But honestly, as a woman, I often wish we wouldn't talk about it at all from the pulpit.  Because every message I've ever heard has centered on the murder of innocent children at the hands of a pregnant woman or abortion doctors.  We are reminded that the fetus is a life, how many of those fetuses are killed each year, and asked to give an offering to a crisis pregnancy center or some other well-deserving ministry that will counter Planned Parenthood's assault on unborn babies. 

The reason I am frustrated by these messages is because there is no message of grace; no offer of redemption; no opportunity for healing.  I am told that, as a female, it is my desire to participate in the sexual revolution without consequences that feeds the abortion machine.  (When Rep. Todd Akin stated that women don't get pregnant if they were legitimately raped, many evangelicals stood by his comments and affirmed his beliefs.)  If you get pregnant, you are a woman with loose morals and no responsibility, and if your loose living results in your decision to have an abortion, you are also a murderer.  Amen.  See you at The Golden Corral.

Here's a creative communication idea for Sanctity of Human Life Sunday: talk about how much God values all human life, including the life of the teenage girls in your community who feel pressure to have sex and don't have the self-confidence to make counter-cultural decisions.  And ask women in the congregation to mentor these teenagers in small groups.  Tell the young women that God loves them more than any man ever could, and that he wants them to be fully devoted to Him and not dependent on affirmation from whomever they are dating at the time.  Tell the divorced woman, the single woman, the widow, that they matter to God.  And tell the woman who sits quietly in the pew feeling guilty for her hidden sin that there is healing; that David was a murderer but we remember him in Scripture as a man after God's own heart.  That they do not have to be remembered for their sin, because forgiveness, healing, and redemption are right there for the asking, and they too will be known for their heart for God.  Demonstrate the sanctity of human life this Sunday by making sure women know that their lives are sacred, too.

There are a lot of great organizations that are in the fight to end abortion (+Paul Tillman is going to write about the March for Life next Monday on his blog: http://www.ingodsway.org/. I encourage you to visit his blog.).  I am not discouraging anyone from highlighting these ministries or taking up offerings for them.  I just pray that your communcation will be grace-filled and makes every person feel that God sees the sanctity of their own life.


 

The [Seemingly] Least Creative Thing About Church Communications

What happens behind the scenes in church offices - the unglamorous administrivial number-crunching that most pastors abhor - does not seem to be a creative communication topic.  The one place you don't want a church to be creative is in its accounting.  However, a book I am reading, William Hoyt's Effectiveness by the Numbers: Counting What Counts in the Church [http://amzn.to/YoOxe9], offers a creative way to think about what missional churches count, and suggests creative ways to start counting those things.  

For example, developing next generation leaders is essential for the church, but how do you create a system for leader development, and how do you measure the effectiveness of that system?  Don't numbers have to be involved?  

Attendance is a number that many argue does not define the impact a church has on its community.  Hoyt states that attendance does not measure importance or success, but it does measure influence, trends, and outward focus.  The more people you communicate the gospel to, the better chance it will be heard by some.  Attendance going up means new people are coming to church.  New people coming to church means the church has a focus on those who aren't there, not just those who are.

Attendance is not the most important number we measure as a church.  But it does matter.  If no one is showing up, then the topic of this blog (Creative Communication in the Church, in case you didn't get it from the overly-long and not very creative title) is unnecessary.  Without people in attendance, we're just talking to ourselves.

Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.  They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily  those who were being saved.

Only One You

What you are writing may have been written before,
but never by your hand.

What you will speak may have been stated before,
but never in your voice.

When you communicate, consider your audience,
consider your topic, but do not forget to consider your self.  

There is only one you, and no one else can communicate what God has given you to say.

"David stepped forward to fight Goliath, the Philistine challenger.  Saul offered him his own armor to give him courage, but no sooner had David put it on than he cast it off again, saying that he could not make use of his own strength with another's armor.  He wanted to face the enemy with his own slingshot and knife.  In short, the arms of another will either fall off your back, weigh you down, or hamper you."

                                                                Niccolo Machiavelli, 1532.

The Communication Marathon: The Big Finish

I think it was around the eighth mile of my marathon that a man started jogging along side me and asked me if I liked my shoes.  I told him that I did, and he told me that he thought his were too small.  He had bought them the day before the marathon and they weren't broken in yet.  I told him that I had been advised to train in my shoes for at least a month.  He thought that was pretty good advice.

He then asked me how many miles I had trained.  I told him that I spent six months building up from two miles to 20.  The week before I had completed one 20 and two 16 mile sessions.  He said that was a good idea, too.  His longest run prior to the marathon was six miles.

When communicating, have you ever felt that you were coming up short?  You know, that feeling that you should have learned more or practiced more?  It can be painful (and not just for you, but for the other participants as well).  So, how does one train for communication?

The communication marathon requires dedicated listening.

The way we train for communication is by listening.  First, of course, we should be listening to God.  Through Scripture, and through prayer and solitude, we are learning what to say by learning what God is saying.  Second, we should be listening to other people.  Listen in conversation and in brainstorming; listen to sermons and lectures (TEDtalks are great - here's one).  The third way to listen is by reading.  It's important that communicators read.  (What comes out of you reflects what goes into you.)  

As a doctoral student, I have been reading about organizational leadership for two solid years.  I am training for comprehensive exams in November, and for my dissertation after that.  I am prepared to communicate about organizational leadership because I've been running in organizational leadership shoes and practicing organizational leadership concepts.  I've listened to lectures and had conversations.  I know what other people think about it, which has helped me form what I think about it, and I can articulate and debate it.  

That's my training, but I'd love to know about yours.  What are you doing to communicate in your context?  What are you watching and what are you reading?  

The Communication Marathon, Part IV of V

I watched Olympic track events this summer, and the ones I watched the most were the shortest ones.  The greatest thing about sprints is that there is a winner seconds after the gun goes off.  The network only shows highlights from the marathon, because no one will sit and watch an entire marathon on television.  Watching an endurance race, you are dependent upon someone else to tell you where the runners are and show you how it all comes out in the end.

It is different for the runner.  The person in the race knows where they are, how they are doing in comparison to their pace, and how much farther they have to go.  They have mile markers to show them how far they've gone and a course map and arrows to show them where they are going.  When I completed my marathon, I always knew where I was.  The implication for communications:

Know where you are going and
how you plan to get there.

My husband was there to cheer me on.  He had the course map and my estimated times.  He showed up at certain checkpoints and waited to cheer for me.  I was at the first few checkpoints early.  I almost didn't make it to the next-to-last checkpoint.  He walked a mile downhill and waited for me, then walked up the hill with me, encouraging me all the way.  He was there at the finish line an hour after he thought I'd get there, weary from waiting but glad to see me finish.

Did I just describe your communication?  Do you know where you have been and where you are going?  Do you know the main points in between?  Have you shared that with your audience?  Are you making them work to keep up with you?  Are they sticking with you to the end, perhaps glad you finally got through it? 

Let the audience know where you are going
and how you plan to get there, and then stick to that plan.

The audience used to watching 15 second commercials and reading 140 character tweets is going to be challenged by a 30-minute sermon or 50-minute lecture.  If you break it up into shorter segments, moving from point to point and highlighting the major milestones, you make it easier for them to stay connected until the end.

The Communication Marathon, Part III

In my last blog post, I teased you with a story I promised to share with you from the motivational speaker before our marathon.  Here it is:

John told us about the importance of finishing strong.  He reminded us that we would be photographed crossing the finish line, and so we should smile through the pain and run it in.  Everyone he has coached has received the same advice.  One marathon, at the 26 mile mark, he called out to his group: "Don't forget to run it in - look good for the picture!"  One woman nodded to him, unzipped her fanny pack, took out a tube of red lipstick and small mirror.  Never in a million years would John have thought to counsel against this, not being one to wear lipstick.  The challenge with applying lipstick at the 26 mile mark is that your motor control is waning around the 20 mile mark, and by 23 your hand-eye coordination is completely gone.  At 26, any available brain capacity that manages physical coordination is focused on keeping your feet going to the finish line.  This woman's shaky hand reached up to her sweaty face and red lipstick went from cheek to cheek, lip to chin.  Her marathon finish picture looked like The Joker.

I remembered this great advice, and did not bring lipstick with me to the marathon.  But I remembered it beyond the marathon experience as a lesson in communications:

Consider the implications.

I realize that you cannot be responsible for everything your audience thinks while you are communicating, but it does not take a lot of extra effort to think through a few of the implications of what you say and write.  Sometimes, it is just helpful to bounce your ideas off of people who are different than you - lipstick-wearers, for example. 

When planning communications, consider the implications of what you are saying to people who don't speak Christianese.  Consider the implications of an older person, a younger person, a person from a different culture, hearing what you are communicating and interpreting it into their world.  To John, "for the picture" means looking strong - to her, it meant looking pretty.  Now, John uses that visual illustration to teach an important lesson about the physicality of the race...something I'll share in my next posting.