Thread: Communication and your church Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=024513
Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :
 
Following Welease Woderwick's kind advice, I would like to raise a thread on communication and the local church.

Church's communicate to different audiences and in different ways.

Some of the communication - verbal notices, pew sheets, monthly magazines are intended for worshippers.

Some of the communication is intended to reach out to a fringe and beyond - website, Facebook, twitter...

So here, at WW's suggestion a discussion about what works, what doesn't and suggestions.

Could I start off with pew sheets. You see we are looking at ours, not least because they are not well read and often left behind. We wonder if actually there is too much stuffed in them, and too much similar week on week. We also wonder if its worth the effort and time taken to produce, a simpler typed one may suffice.

Thoughts and comments please [Smile]

[ 12. January 2013, 15:48: Message edited by: Percy B ]
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Please do not think of Facebook as fringe.The congregation that I think uses it most successfully puts it somewhere between service sheets and newsletters and personal phone calls and other social contact. It is more personal as the people reading the Facebook group have signed up for it and they know who they are. More informal; "Anyone from church want to go on a picnic this Bank Holiday?" was one post. It is not a top down conversation, anyone can person belonging to the group can post. Photos of church events are shared. This is aimed at the younger members of the church but it is a method that they use to keep in contact with each other and let each other know what is happening at church.

Jengie
 
Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :
 
Good point, and thanks. Interaction is rare with church communication!

I like the idea of different people being able spontaneously to give notice. It makes it more like family notices.

Do you have to have a monitor though for the Facebook group? The danger could be one person dominating the group.
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
I think there is a facility for hosting but...

... as far as I can see, the tendency is for other people to challenge or to ignore. I suspect that hosting facility is there so as to allow a person to remove inappropriate material for the group.

Jengie
 
Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :
 
My church mainly relies on the pew sheets, every other communication medium, FB, email, website is used inconsistently and badly. Nobody ever uses the telephone and I think it would often be helpful if they did.

They often use email, VERY badly. THe email list/s used seem to be entirely random. I get only some of the "all church" emails (you'd think I would do, having been a Parish Councillor and being a Sunday School teacher, on other rosters etc), my sister who attends hardly ever receives an email, she doesn't even get the rosters that she's on emailed to her. It's particularly irritating when people assume that you know about something but you have no idea because you didn't get the email.
 
Posted by Evangeline (# 7002) on :
 
Sorry, I realise you wanted helpful suggestions not just a whinge.

Regarding the pew sheets, at our place the news/events etc go at the front of the service booklet and the repeated stuff goes at the back. I think this works well.

I'd also suggest a decent contact management system for email and that a volunteer or employee manages it.

A website is good, but is best used for outreach not for communicating with the congregation. FB can be good for members if it is managed well to build community-it needs somebody with some skills in social media to subtly take charge of keeping things running smoothly, stopping a couple of people dominating, encouraging input and providing some interesting content.
 
Posted by SyNoddy (# 17009) on :
 
Our local newspaper which covers a small market town and surrounding area has been including our service times plus other parish events in the 'village news' section for the last year or so.
There was a notable upturn in new faces at some of our Christmas Specials which we have attributed to the drip effect of regularly advertising what we are up to, both the formal services and informal community outreach stuff.
FB hasn't proved so successful but the website is checked out by many before they test us out on a Sunday - rather like try before you buy. The parish mag keeps many on the fringe in the loop and the weekly pew sheet is taken home after services as an aide memoir of the date and time of the beetle drive.
But unless the vicar announces a thing from the front then no-one seems to think an event is really going to happen.
 
Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
Pew sheets or newsletters need to be clear and uncluttered - if they are small type and cluttered looking then they will not be read - if they are clear and attractive then they will be - it really is that simple.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
A church I no longer attend lists in the pew sheet calendar everything going on that week with no indication which are closed (staff meetings, Emmaus groups) and which are open to all. They also state "Adult Sunday school 9 AM" with not a clue where.

Seems to me anything listed should include an invitation or specify not, "choir rehearsal, come join us" or "choir rehearsal, for auditions call..." But they said it takes too much space and anyone interested will ask.

One huge problem is the splintering of how people like to get info. Some have no email, others ignore anything not on a web page, still others rely on facebook -- or never use facebook. One friend has to be texted on his phone if you want to reach him.

I don't think in-church announcements are remembered (aren't there studies about low retention of auditory information?) and an announcement misses anyone who wasn't in church that week.

The only solution is lots of simultaneous routes for the same info. But that's work.
 
Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :
 
Our church has pew sheets and the group of churches it is in has a monthly magazine. That's it - no website or even a magazine of our own (although the group magazine does just fine). Now that there are actual young people attending we're trying to get a website together - one of my friends is going to hopefully do some volunteer work with them over the summer and get the website set up, along with plans for reaching out to students come September. Now that there's an obvious need from students for a more diverse range of churches (and not just the CU-approved ones), things like a Facebook page would be really helpful.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
Facebook, website plus pew sheets (the latter are emailed to regulars)
 
Posted by mrs whibley (# 4798) on :
 
As someone about to move house and commence church-hunting again, I can say the following - unfortunately all a bit negative!

If you do not have a website with a location and current service times on it, you are effectively invisible to prospective new members.

If you have, in any material (spoken, web, pewsheet, notice board) the instruction 'for further information, contact Jane' - you need to give some more information. If Jane doesn't want her phone number on the pew sheet for reasons of privacy then find a different way of getting people lifts to the church picnic.

If a service is not happening, for whatever reason, at the time and place specified in your regularly-updated website, a note pinned to the door or noticeboard will alert visitors and less awake members to the fact that this week there is a joint/late/baptism service at St Dunstan's/11:00/the beach and they may even come back next week.

[ 13. January 2013, 16:07: Message edited by: mrs whibley ]
 
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
We have weekly newsletters and the monthly denominational magazine. The church also has a website with a private directory and forum and rotas for things like Sunday school, the website includes important dates, links to blogs, information on groups, etc. I believe we have Facebook too but I don't use that. The church also emails occasionally, usually important updates, urgent prayer requests and social activities.
We regularly use the website to work out what is going on and to co-ordinate our social life.
 
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
In answer to the original question, we usually arrive at church early due to dh being involved in Sunday school so seldom get a notice sheet and even when we do we don't read it. We rely on the verbal notices in the meetings and checking the website if we need to know something.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
The pew sheets and before-service notices are for short-term information and events. Longer-term information is to be found in the monthly parish magazine, excerpts of which are also to be found on the church website.

Major church events of interest to the whole town are published in the weekly newspaper.

If anyone misses something interesting because they haven't bothered to read or listen, then that is their lookout. (Most of our events involve food, so that's all the more for the rest of us....)
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Chorister:
Major church events of interest to the whole town are published in the weekly newspaper.
With what kind of headline?

I see newspaper articles announcing meetings of the retired teachers union, and other meetings that appear to be for group members only, so for several years when I saw headlines about a FUMC event I thought it was some union group event and not being a union member I didn't read the article.

I think church notices intended as open invitations to the public should to avoid in-group language, and near the top of the article to state "open to the public."

In another city I used to enjoy going to the Greek Orthodox fest, the wording of their articles made clear the event was for the purpose of outsiders enjoying an afternoon of Greek culture.
 
Posted by PataLeBon (# 5452) on :
 
Our church uses it's email program which will blast out emails quickly to everyone on it's list.

We do have a sheet that is printed weekly for people who need something printed, as well as for newcomers who aren't on the list.

The church has a Facebook page, a twitter account, and a website, but they are more for newcomers than for spreading information.

Yes, there are actual verbal announcements in church (which are usually what we already know or information that didn't make it into the weekly email blast or sheet.

I once lived in a small town where all of the churches had space in the local newspaper to put their weekly things. Usually they were aimed at getting people to church, not necessarily for people who were already coming regularly.
 
Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 
Weekly bulletin (the "Messenger"), which I type in my capacity as one of the office volunteers. To a certain extent I edit it, as I have to fit everything in, and that sometimes means being a bit ruthless about what gets left out (usually requests from other churches or groups/choirs/whatever wanting publicity).

We're lucky in that our (also voluntary) web-site co-ordinator is very keen, verging on OCD, and the site gets updated on a daily basis. This is a huge improvement on the previous one, who was paid, and seemed only to update it about once a year.

And of course, if you want everyone to know something (or occasionally even if you don't), you just tell ***** or ****** and the entire congregation (if not the entire diocese) will know in a matter of hours ...

[Devil]
 
Posted by Augustine the Aleut (# 1472) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
*snip* One huge problem is the splintering of how people like to get info. Some have no email, others ignore anything not on a web page, still others rely on facebook -- or never use facebook. One friend has to be texted on his phone if you want to reach him.

I don't think in-church announcements are remembered (aren't there studies about low retention of auditory information?) and an announcement misses anyone who wasn't in church that week.

The only solution is lots of simultaneous routes for the same info. But that's work.
One of my preoccupations is to run a small national voluntary organization-- given Canada's size, we have come to rely entirely on electronic communication (our bulletin has a print circulation of 12, and electronic of 2,200). I noticed a demographic split between FB users and website users- 75% of our FB users are under 35, and 80% of our website users are over 50!

As a longtime facebookophobiac, I have come to rely greatly on it as a tool and, as a sort-of leader, appreciate the interactivity. Criticisms (and bitchiness) are useful to me for showing where we need to do better or shift messaging. FB is no longer fringe but has come to be a key communications tool.

My former parish (long story, boring) now uses FB quite a bit, not only for information sharing, but for community-building, and the (snarky if accurate adjectives omitted) rector is on FB frequently, diligently answering queries from parishioners and, it is evident, newbies, some encountering church life for the first time. He adopts the sensible no-question-is-stupid approach and enquirers seem to appreciate it.

My current semi-parish, full of treasures, has not even heard of FB [brick wall] , and its website the cutting edge of 2002. Its service schedule has not been updated since September [brick wall] . As I travel a fair bit, I often check out parish websites to see if there's anywhere interesting to attend services and am befuddled at the inability of many websites to tell you: a) when and what info on services, and b) how to find the place. [brick wall]

As an borderline-doddering retiree, with the attendant deterioration of my capacities, I note that many pew bulletins use the teeniest of fonts and, with poor reading lights in most churches, they come to be useless for folks such as myself. E-mail lists.... o well.... when they're not improperly used by parish councillors for their real estate businesses....

For the time being, churches need to use a wide range of means and, mirabile dictu, none of them cost a lot of money. A cleric needs to keep an eye on the FB page, checking in daily (perhaps a useful routine after saying one's offices, no?), and the website needs weekly updating-- this has come to be basic. They have become our epoch's version of the notice board on the street.
 
Posted by piglet (# 11803) on :
 
Since our web-site was re-jigged a few years ago, we've seen a noticeable increase in the number of enquiries about weddings. We're lucky that if you Google "churches in St. John's" the first one on the list is the Anglican Cathedral, and it's also the prettiest, by a country mile ... [Big Grin]
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Belle Ringer:
With what kind of headline?

Is this 'headline-grabbing' enough for you?

While most aren't given quite this amount of shock-treatment, the headlines and news items make it very clear that these events are 'everyone warmly welcome'.
 
Posted by *Leon* (# 3377) on :
 
I think that really you need to accept that many different means of communication are needed. Your congregation will include probably both young people who will ignore anything not in their twitter feed, and old people who are terrified of computers.

I once spent a bit of time thinking about the ideal way of doing things, but the project to modernize our parish seems to have ground to a halt so I haven't worked out exact details. My approximate plan was a website with a RSS feed, which can be automatically reposted on facebook and twitter, and a pew sheet that should be in snyc with the web site (any information on one is on the other). I suspect that this synchronization would end up being a manual process, but I'm annoyed about that.

One problem that was raised is that there are different privacy requirements online and on the pew sheet; it's OK for the pew sheet to say that the monday home group is at John and Jane Bloggs house, 44 west wallaby street, but not OK to put that on the website.

Just because someone leaves the pew sheet behind doesn't mean it wasn't useful; all the useful information may have been copied into their (electronic) diary before they left church.

Also remember that outsiders are actually very interested in 'insider only' information. Someone considering coming (especially a committed christian moving to the area) could be very interested to know the full range of groups that actually meet, even if some of them are complex to join.
 
Posted by Belle Ringer (# 13379) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by *Leon*:
One problem that was raised is that there are different privacy requirements online and on the pew sheet; it's OK for the pew sheet to say that the monday home group is at John and Jane Bloggs house, 44 west wallaby street, but not OK to put that on the website.
That's a problem affecting everything from prayer requests to directories and photos of the baptisms and parties.

I tend to be surprised when a church puts the prayer request list on the web page, but it does let people keep up with who to pray for even if the praying one missed church that week.
 
Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :
 
What about a blog? Any churches have good blogs that they find are visited or helpful?
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
The vicar's blog and one of the young people who also has a blog. They are updated monthly and are in printed form (in the magazine) and also on the church website.
 
Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :
 
I wonder if anyone can point to a good example of a church blog, its great to share good practice!
 
Posted by The Rogue (# 2275) on :
 
Chorister, was The Baby Jesus ever recovered?
 
Posted by jugular (# 4174) on :
 
There is a certain irony in this, but I just read a great book about church communications called Speaking Faithfully. A thesis of this recent book is that online communication is the priority, with print communication being provided mainly as a courtesy for those who cannot access it.

My communications policy in the parish has two aspects. The first is that the website has the first and best information. The second is a 'funnel' policy, whereby all forms of communication point back to the website.

In practice this means:

All electronic communications are managed by a designated Church Councillor, and there are several others (including me) with administrator access.

You can have a look at our simple but effective website here.

I'm not overly worried about outing myself after ten years on the ship - but I'd appreciate shipmate discretion. Also please note it is Summer here, and the site is not yet fully updated for the new program year about to start.

Our website was built using WordPress, and any half-decent web-designer can build you something similar for a reasonable cost. Don't give it to a parishioner, however zealous, nor to a well-intentioned teenager. My advice is to create a basic mockup of your site in Word, and go looking for a web-designer who respects and will deliver exactly the functionality you need. Ours cost AU$700 for a person who works full-time in IT, and does web design work on the side.

I strongly resisted an attempt by the son of a forceful parishioner, who tried to get us us to accept a website he had designed without consultation. It looked pleasant enough - but it had been built in such a way that only he could easily update it. It used only free software. When I broached the issue of adding certain necessary functionality, he resisted strongly on the basis that he had already designed it and we should be willing to accept his work 'as is'. It was the right decision to decline his 'gift', but also cost me some leadership capital.

IMHO, a clean, attractive, accurate website is the sine qua non of modern church communications. Everything is else is just an invitation to look at it.
 
Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :
 
What a lovely, homely and friendly website. (Could I just say it took quite a while to load for me).

I love the pictures and the feel, and its great that people obviously enjoy themselves at your church. That is such a good thing to communicate in itself.

I see you have a Facebook page, with that lovely picture of your dedicated elderly organist. Do you have a FB group - I ask because the ways of communicating you mention are from church out - what about among church, like a web group?

And a silly point - I look at the photos and wondered if Australian men of a certain age like beards - there seemed more men with beards than proportionally I notice in English Anglican churches! (Not a serious point!)

Thanks for the help and comments jugular.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Percy B:
What a lovely, homely and friendly website. (Could I just say it took quite a while to load for me).
You might want to look at your bandwidth. I found it took about 2 to 3 seconds, which for something in another hemisphere is not unreasonable.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by The Rogue:
Chorister, was The Baby Jesus ever recovered?
Sadly, no. Not yet, anyway.
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
Martha's Blog this month takes the form of an interview with one of the children in the Vestry Group. I enjoy reading what the children and young people think - it's not always what the older church members think that they think!
 
Posted by Percy B (# 17238) on :
 
How lovely to have an interview with a child like that. What a great idea, and how good to let the voice of children be heard like that.

Thank you for sharing it chorister. Lilly seems very knowledgeable about church matters and a young lady with views.

[Smile]
 


© Ship of Fools 2016

Powered by Infopop Corporation
UBB.classicTM 6.5.0