Calvary Bible Church is an Evangelical Free church with campuses in Boulder and Erie, Colo., and reaches about 1,500 people.
Struggle:
If you communicate everything, you communicate nothing.
A few months back we were in the middle of our fall launch, where most of our ministry groups were starting up again with online registration for a wide variety of events that will help people get connected. These groups each target specific people in our congregation, whether it’s men who like bike riding or mothers of preschoolers. Although led by passionate leaders and equally important, communication for these groups becomes secondary to where we’re going, what we’re doing and what we’re learning as a wider church.
The struggle is maintaining this balance and managing the expectations of our volunteer leaders.
As the fall got going we were averaging 8-10 announcements in our bulletin on any given week. Several of them were promoting registration for group events. We do have an RSVP landing page, but all of these separate announcements communicate the same thing. So much happens this time of year, but every volunteer is expecting their event and registration to be ready and promoted immediately, even if it’s weeks out.
It’s frustrating, because their expectations are self-developed, but also understandable because they should be excited for their event. To manage, we have to help volunteers see the bigger picture. This involves repeating that our standards for bulletin announcements are a maximum of three weeks in a row, and that we have to prioritize all-church events as well as the timeline of when things are happening.
No one is grumbling to us, thankfully, but I think it’s a natural inclination for people to want their event to be the featured graphic on the website and announced from the platform multiple weeks in a row. I’m assuming most people think that platform and bulletin announcements are the only way to get the word out. There are many other options that people don’t think about initially—email, personal social media, word-of-mouth, etc.
Victory:
The power of telling stories is winning on social media and in our services. We’ve seen the highest interaction we’ve ever had this year on Facebook because we’ve started sharing salvation stories and life-change. These include baptism videos, pictures of kids learning about the love of God, and thank yous to volunteers that are making an impact.
In our services we’ve begun showing monthly testimony videos called “His Story.” We recently brought a group of people on stage, each holding a piece of cardboard showing who they were, and on the opposite side, who they now are in Christ. God uses our unique stories of salvation to bring people to him, so why should we not rely on this as communicators for the church?
Photo by Metro Tiff
