The first time I worked at a church, I was part of launching both a newsletter and web site, two of the most powerful communication tools available. If you wanted to find anything about our church, you could find it online provided you had a good scrolling wheel on your mouse and you had the persistence of a Sudoku champion.
We focused on making as much information available with many pages crammed with text and links, trying to assure our congregation that they were well within the loop. Unfortunately, we viewed our communication as too much of a one-way act.
We dumped information.
The congregation received it.
End of communication.
In her book Less Clutter, Less Noise, communications pro and author Kem Meyer reminds her readers in chapter one that they are not in control. In fact, she says, “Good communication is not so much about sending the right message as it is releasing the right response” (17).
This is something I’ve been forced to consider as a book author, blogger, and now communications volunteer at a different church. We want our readers to take some kind of action or arrive at a certain understanding, and it’s vital to remember that something will happen after we communicate.
There may be a response, uneasiness, or confidence. The hard thing for leaders and communications staff to understand is it’s quite hard to control that response. Good communication requires carefully evaluating the goal for communication, the anticipated audience response, and then the means of communicating in light of the two.
While working at a museum/gallery a few years ago I began to feature top volunteers in our newsletter, however, that “human interest” section of the newsletter only made those not featured feel inadequate. We therefore changed the newsletter to feature new opportunities, celebrating group accomplishments, and giving special previews of upcoming shows—all of which were more effective in making volunteers feel appreciated and in the loop.
Meyer offers several examples in this chapter from large businesses such as Legos and Google that demonstrate how any company can lose sight of an audience and blunder into controlling errors. She encourages readers to seek outside perspectives when evaluating the possible outcome of certain pieces of communication.
Most simply, communication is about sharing information in order to arrive at specific results. In Less Clutter, Less Noise, Meyer does a masterful job in assembling simple, readable chapters that help communications professionals, administrators, and pastors take leaps forward.
Questions to consider:
- When can we become too controlling with our communication?
- How do we evaluate the effectiveness of our communication goals?
- Where can we find outside perspectives for our communication?
Less Clutter, Less Noise project –> 2) Is it always better to have more choices?
Ed Cyzewski (MDiv Biblical Theological Seminary) works as a freelance writer in Eastern Connecticut. He is the author of Coffeehouse Theology: Reflecting on God in Everyday Life, an introduction to contextual theology as well as the Coffeehouse Theology Bible Study Guide and a Coffeehouse Theology Discussion Guide.
Ed writes regularly for a number of magazines and web sites. He blogs on freelance writing at: www.edcyz.com and on theology at www.inamirrordimly.com.
24 Comments
I think Christians need to really take this chapter to heart not just with out communications within a church on a larger scale- when they are in the world. They get in the habit of using Christian-ese (words only Christian's know the definition/context of …i.e. fellowship) when trying to evangelize to non-believers, or even just in their daily lives. They are focusing too much on the message, and what they understand it as, and not how the person who they are evangelizing too is going to take it. If someone started spewing technical jargon at you from a field you know nothing about- you are going to be confused and probably not want to talk to that person again. It's vital to Christianity that Christians start taking a serious look at how their message is received and not just what they want to say about the gospel. I think it's important to run new-outreach materials and public communications by non-Christians and/or new Christians who have not been in the Christian bubble too long, they can give you a real objective look at how your message is received.
1. We become too controlling with our communication when we don't look for a response, just try to, as you say, dump the information out there. With print publications it's harder to get communication back and forth, but with digital it should be much easier. Things like don't auto feed your church website info to facebook. Instead of sharing a verse, ask for members to share their favorite verses. This is a conversation we've been having at another site.
2.Right now I'd say we don't evaluate our effectiveness very well, or at all. Somethings are hard to evaluate. For instance we spent several months running a radio spot for the church. Honestly I do not know a way to measure it's effectiveness. I guess maybe "how did you hear about us?" and make it one of the choices.
3.Someone told me once to gauge the presence of your church in the community, stop at a gas station and ask where it is. We need outside perspectives such as members of the congregation, but also need to find those who don't know about the church, and figure how effective your communication is to them.
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