5 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tag Archive - communication

5 Articles that will Help Your Church Make Vision Real

Tuesday, August 5, 2014

Thank you for making July a great month here at Helping Churches Make Vision Real! It’s great staying connected with you through social media and hearing about how helpful different articles have been. So, thank you for connecting with me through the content on this blog! You made these the top 5 Posts from this last month. If you missed out on any of them, here they are all in one place for your convenience!

#1 10 Things You Lose When Your Church Grows

It’s impossible for your church to grow and everything to stay the same. I know it would be nice if everything could stay the same as the church grows, but it can’t. And the secret underlying truth is as your church grows you will lose some things along the way. But that’s kind of the point. You simply can’t move from here (current reality) to there (preferred future) and everything stay the way it is. If it did, you’d never get “there,” you’d just stay where you are. Understanding that, here are 10 things you lose when your church grows.

#2 9 Big Decisions that will Change Your Church

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to sit down with a group of Executive Pastors who are serving in churches of 5,000+ and during the conversation I heard them talk about some of the best decisions they’ve made over the recent history of their churches that have made the greatest impact. I thought I’d share some of those thoughts here with you and give you the opportunity to learn from some incredible leaders that are in the trenches! Could it be that one of these decisions is the one that will make all the difference this year at your church?

#3 6 Things Your Church Should Know About Core Values

Left to themselves organizations…including churches, drift. It can happen to the best of us if we’re not careful. As organizations and churches grow they naturally become more complex. There are more assets to allocate, more people to manage, decisions seem to have greater consequences than did when you were smaller and more nimble, and those decisions seem to just keep coming faster and faster. It is easy to become consumed with the business of running the church. But just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you’re taking ground.

#4 10 Findings from New Research on Church Communications

Recently, The Unstuck Group released its latest research report: Say What?! Key Research on Church Communications. We paused to ask 186 churches about the ways in which they communicate. Here are the 10 most interesting findings from that research:

#5 4 Reasons Short-Term Mission Trips Still Work

In recent years many churches have been backing away from sending teams of volunteers on short-term international mission trips. Some argue that such initiatives are ineffective, a waste of resources, and even hurtful to the advancement of the Gospel.

Photo Credit: justin fain via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

10 Findings from New Research on Church Communications

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Smaller churches (1-499 attendees) have significantly higher levels of social media engagement on all major platforms.
Churches are most engaging on Facebook.
Study resources are one of the least offered components online.
More churches communicate their beliefs than their vision online.
Smaller churches (1-499 attendees) engage more volunteers per capita in the area of communications.
Larger churches (500+ attendees) keep communications more focused on church-wide programs than individual ministries.
The average church bulletin includes 7 announcements. (In our experience, that is too many to be effective.)
The average church service includes over 4 stage announcements. (In our experience, 1-2 is most effective.)
Most churches do not have a style guide to communicate with consistency.
Nearly half of churches with a style guide do not use it consistently.

This is definitely the short list of everything contained in this report on church communications. In it, you’ll discover key findings that could enhance the way you communicate in five critical areas. You will also find suggested action steps to get unstuck along with a Communications Scorecard to see how well you’re really doing.

Best of all, this report comes at no cost to you! We simply want to resource your team to get unstuck. So take a moment and download your copy of Say What?! Key Research on Church Communications from The Unstuck Group.

Posted in Creative Arts, Leadership

How Centralizing Ministry is Crippling Your Church

Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Many churches are enamored with the idea of centralization. Internally you’ll even hear churches talk about ideas like efficiencies, being streamlined or getting rid of redundancies.

In many multisite churches it’s even common to hear the term “Central Services” thrown around, a workgroup that is essentially designed to do away with redundancies and duplication of efforts between campuses. For instance, having one business department instead of staffing a business department or function on every campus. Seems smart right?

While at first pass centralization may seem like an efficient approach to greater ministry impact and moving further faster, it’s not always the best thing for the advancement of the mission of the church. In fact here are 6 ways well intentioned churches are unknowingly crippling their ministry impact for the sake of centralization.

1. Slows Decision Making

In a centralized system decisions get pushed up in the organization instead of down. It forces high-level staff members to deal with low-level problems. And it takes decision making away from those on the front line who are closest to the problem and probably know the most about it. Whenever Sr. level leaders are dealing with the wrong issues it slows the pace of any church or organization

2. Makes Communication Cumbersome

When communication has to be filtered through one person (the gatekeeper), or funneled through a chain of people you’ve got problem on your hands. Layers of bureaucracy, policy, and multistep communication chains slow progress towards the mission. And it creates more opportunities for miscommunication, misrepresentation, and misinterpretation of decision-making and actions to be taken.

3. Creates an “Us vs. Them “ Mentality

Whenever “we” have to wait for “them” to make a decision, and “they” don’t understand what “we” are dealing with on the frontline because “they” are somewhere back at a centralized headquarters it creates an “Us vs. Them” mentality.

4. Undermines Innovation

In any organization or church one of the most important sources for innovation and creative problem solving is the frontline employee or volunteer. Centralization takes away power from that individual to creatively solve their own problems and as a result people don’t learn how to think, rather they’re trained to just take orders. As a result creativity and innovation begin to dry up.

5. Requires very little Trust

When someone doesn’t need to be trusted to think and act through the filter of the culture of the church or organization it’s demoralizing. Conversely it’s an empowering thing to know that one is trusted, it boosts one’s spirit and often encourages them to rise to the occasion and actually increase the level of their game. Trust is the fuel that the best leaders and churches run on and if you’re not careful centralization can begin to erode trust and damage your culture.

6. The Gospel was Never meant to be Controlled

Ultimately the dance that church leaders do regarding centralization vs. decentralization comes down to an issue of control. And the Gospel was never meant to be controlled or managed it was meant to be unleashed.

Photo Credit: JustinJensen via Compfight cc

Posted in Leadership

Why Your Church Needs a Mobile App

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Sun Valley Community Church, the church I have the privilege of serving at, recently announced the public launch of a new app for mobile devices. While I know that Sun Valley is by no means the first church to go this route; I also know as a result of my work with churches across the country that there are many churches considering developing an app but still have questions before they jump into this technology and method of engaging with people.

I sat down with Mo Grimm, the Director of Communications at Sun Valley, to ask him about the launch of this app. Here’s what he had to say. Hope it’s helpful to you and your church as you engage your community with the Gospel!

Paul: Does a local church really need an App?

Mo: Every day there are over 1 million smartphones sold. The majority of the people purchasing those smartphones are using their devices to access data. The thought that people are accessing the website through their desktop computers is fleeting. About two-thirds of all Americans have a mobile device that they use for apps and they spend almost an hour and a half every day on those apps. Our desire is to reach people and interact with them in a language and manner that they use most frequently. So we went with an app. It’s actually quite missional in the sense of going to where people are and learning to speak their language.

Paul: You chose to partner with Subsplash on the project? Why this company?

Mo: Subsplash is a leader in app development for churches, and because this was a new endeavor for us a proven track record was important to us on this project. Not only are they developing apps for churches, they are developing apps for Fortune 500 companies. Their platform has been tested and continues to be improved upon. Their goal is to make the Truth of Jesus incredibly accessible to people both inside and outside of the church.

Paul: In designing an App what features should Churches key in on?

Mo: Our goal with the app is to provide people with the content they want most. We are keeping it pretty simple by providing the ability to watch sermons live via Livestream or recorded, notes for the sermons as well as for Small Group Bible Studies. We wanted people to have the ability to see our various campus locations, connect with our website, and give financially to the ministry of Sun Valley in a simple and secure manner.

Interested in downloading the app and checking it out for yourself? Just follow this link.

Posted in Creative Arts, Leadership

How Churches Communicate in 2014

Monday, March 17, 2014

At the Unstuck Group we work with all kinds of churches across America, and one of the common trends we’ve observed is that increasingly church leaders feel stuck when it comes to communicating beyond the pulpit. The options have increased significantly in recent years, giving us both more effective possibilities and more overwhelming decisions. Websites, social media and smartphones have transformed the ways we interact. With these new opportunities, we know it’s tough to stay on top of what your church should be doing to effectively communicate to people.

We want church communications to get unstuck, and we need your help!

Today, we’re asking you to take a short survey–just 7 minutes–that will help us compile communications data from churches across the country. Our team will analyze it to find clear benchmarks for what your digital and print media should actually look like to be most effective.

Every church, every size–your input is valuable to us. The more diversity we have in responses, the more useful our data will be to the Church.

Please consider participating in this brief survey. If you take the time, we’ll send you a free copy of our findings before we make them available to everyone else. We thank you in advance and we look forward to sharing the insights with you to help your church get unstuck!

Church Communications Survey

Posted in Creative Arts