Church Communications

Instagram has become the ‘place to be’ for social sharing of images and videos for individuals, businesses, and organizations like churches. With nearly a billion users, it also seems to be the place for fun. Ask any millennial and they will say Instagram is where they spend their time following and catching up on the news of the day and with their own social circles.

Portable music began in the 1950s with handheld devices that simply received and broadcast radio signals. Radio was the first portable musical medium that could be taken with you anywhere. Technically, portable radios were not personal music devices because they only broadcast content that was produced and selected by radio stations. As time and technology evolved, portable musical devices were developed that gave music lovers choice, flexibility, and freedom. 

Despite the wide reports of 40% of people going to church, the actual percentage of regular church attendance is a little less than 18%. Yet, it's very common for pastors to see unfamiliar faces on Sunday morning. New people do come to churches, but they don't seem to come back. While some of them were never going to become regular attendees, some might have returned if they had a good first experience. One way to help stem the tide of lost opportunities is with church connection cards.

Searching online for information about people, places, products, and organizations is commonplace in our digital age. Most of us are doing multiple searches daily or even hourly. Tools like Google Places and Yelp provide valuable information about the establishments we want to visit, like restaurants, stores, schools, and even churches.

If you want to extend your church’s reach, you need to go where people are. In this day and age, that means getting comfortable with the world of social media. Adults spend an average of five-and-a-half hours per week engaging on social media. That number has jumped by 36% since 2015.

Churches are more and more looking for ways to increase productivity. Email can be problematic, and fancy project management software can be expensive. Enter Slack. Limited features are free to groups of any size, which is hard to believe, yet true. Officially launched in February 2014, this messaging platform integrates group chats with dozens of other software services to create a well-rounded communication system.

Planting a church is hard work. In the early stages, a small group of people handles the brunt of the workload. Sunday set-up, child care, budgets, communications, you name it. Resources may be low, but solutions are still necessary. Thankfully, technology can help ease some of the burdens.

As I talk to church leaders, I'm amazed by the consistency of the challenges they face. One of the biggest questions they ask comes down to their church communications. How do we get people to respond to communications and attend events? How do we get people to respond to communications and attend events?