What Your Communication Reveals About Your Priorities

Recently, I was skimming a church’s weekly e-newsletter and noticed they included “Stats” section.

Now, I’ve always been a numbers guy – as a boy one year I cut out and saved the box scores for the Philadelphia Phillies entire 162 game season – so I was interested to know what stats the church wanted to everyone to know about.

Curious?

It was that week’s offering and the weekly budget.

What do you think people are likely to infer is important to the church leadership when the only statistics shared have to do with money?

Most organizations have an official mission/values statement, but what we actually do and say reveals a lot about our true priorities.

For example:

• If you don’t put your contact info prominently on your website or in emails, it indicates you don’t really want to hear from people.
• If everything on your Facebook page is promotional, it indicates you’re not really interested in listening or engaging with people.
• If communication includes a lot of acronyms and insider language, it indicates you’re more concerned about insiders than people who are new to your organization.
• If newsletters and other communication are sent/published at random intervals, it shows either keeping a schedule or communications in general are not a high priority.

While the above are all negative examples, my hope is that your communication reveals good, God-honoring priorities that are consistent with your stated mission and values whatever they may be.

Unfortunately, most of us are blind to what our communication reveals about our priorities. The church that sent the newsletter I mentioned earlier probably doesn’t have any idea the impression they’re giving. That’s why it’s important that we ask for feedback and listen with an open mind.

What do you think your communication reveals about your priorities? What kind of honest feedback have you gotten lately?