10 Questions for Better Church Communication

By Aubrey Malphurs

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The church in general isn’t doing a very good job in communicating. Just ask their people if they know what is going on. Several churches in Dallas-Ft. Worth have been singled out as good at communicating: Prestonwood, Stonebriar, and Irving Bible. Irving Bible has its own department with a staff that’s responsible for communication.
Spend a day (or at least a few hours) exploring what these churches are doing well. I don’t think churches are completely aware of the importance of good communication as indicated by their lack of doing it well. Number 1 is trust. Good communication engenders trust, poor communication creates distrust. People think you’re hiding something. Some churches can get away with poor communication if their pastor has been with them awhile and has gained respect for his leadership in general. However, it is “getting away” with poor performance should not be the ideal.
Create a church communications team. Then empower them to answer the questions below. The most important step comes next as you empower them to develop and execute a plan for improved congregational communication.
10 Questions to Transform Church Communication:
1) Why is communication important in the church or any ministry for that matter?
2) Why should it even get our attention?
3) What is our definition of communication (to get us on the “same page”).
4) What are the ways that ministries can communicate?
5) What is our plan for communicating well?
6) How are some who’re doing a good job communicating?
7) Who needs to take responstibility in the organization for good communication?
8) What must be communicated to other ministries to generate church-wide communication alignment?
9) How will we evaluate the effectiveness of our communications and communication team? (also who and how often)
10) What is our vision for communication? (paint a written, verbal, visual picture of good communication so that people see what things will look like if we do our jobs well)
What other questions do you believe are essential to congregational communication? What has worked for you and your church? What hasn’t worked?
photo credit: Stuck in Customs