In our most recent poll, we asked a simple question: What has helped you most as a church communicator? It was prompted by Tim Schraeder commenting on how much relationships helped him. We know for each of us on the team, it’s been something incredibly different. From times where we were thrown into the thick of a mess to sitting at the feet of a genius, each of our backgrounds are different. Here’s what you had to say:
44% of you have been most helped by on-the-job-training. The age-old adage that experience is the best teacher is as present in the world of church marketing as it is anywhere else. We’d love to see a world where experience comes in a structured environment and mistakes are minimized. Giving experience to the unexperienced is best done with big, fluffy disaster-bumpers.
Another 34% of folks who responded chalk most of their current skill set up to relationships they’ve had. Whether secular friendships, discipling relationships or direct apprenticeship, these relationships with other people have taken you to the next level in your church communication knowledge. We love this approach, and we’d argue that everyone should be in a mentoring relationship, church communicator or not.
Next up, 16% of you feel you owe where you’re at most to resources available to you. We’re at a point now that for some of you, that means blogs and tweets. And for others, it’s books, magazines, videos and talks. And the proliferation of online media is only likely to leave this number rising for the foreseeable future.
Finally, just a handful of our poll respondents find themselves most indebted to events and education. (And to be clear, when we say education here, we mean the formal, go-to-college-for-church-communications kind.) Hopefully you’re still getting a lot out of these two avenues, it’s just that you’re going even deeper through relationships, resources and experience.
This week, we’re turning our poll attention to office hours. Head to the home page and let us know: Would your pastor considering doing online office hours as a way to connect to the community?
Chris Young
January 27, 2011
Having recently taken on the role of Communications Manager at LIFE (Auckland, New Zealand), I couldn’t agree more with the results of the poll.
There is one other thing that is vitally important as a church communicator: Heart.
By ‘heart’, I mean the ability to carry and communicate the heart or vision of the church you work for. Obviously whatever the church is we need to communicate the Good News of Jesus; but each church has a different purpose and calling, and the communicators within each church need to be carriers of that purpose and vision.
I am privileged that our Senior Pastor, Paul de Jong, is a clear communicator of the vision that he has for LIFE. He is also a mentor and imparts that vision to those who work with him.
My hope for other church communicators is that they would carry the vision and communicate it well.