Sunday, December 12, 2010

Managing Change in your Church

What is the biggest fear most people have in their life? Is it death, public speaking, sharks? I think the most common fear for people is the fear of change. People are scared of it. They don’t like it and sometimes will do extraordinary things to avoid it.

But in reality change is inevitable and in fact we face it daily. Just by growing old we face change. I think it is in fact not change we are scared of. People may articulate it as change but it’s not change but loss that people are actually fearful of. Loss of something they once had. It’s not the change of body shape we actually fear as we get older but the loss of our youthful energy, the loss of hair colour or even hair. The loss of normal slimness of youth replaced by middle-aged spread.

Church ministers are people who are constantly challenged with leading congregations through change. Recently I have spoken with several ministers who are currently taking their congregations through the difficult process of change. In these cases it is changing the format of their Sunday service. One of the things that will make it easy for these minsters is the recognition that is not change but loss that these congregation members actually fear. Loss of a familiar worship style, loss of predictability, loss of routine.

Now to some of us these may seem trivial things but to those people they are real losses and they will have real feelings of grief. For most of then they will in fact go through the 7 stages of grief over the loss of service style.

A smart minister will recognise this as loss and they work with those people in a more appropriate manner rather than thinking they are opponents of change. I actually think the oldies in our congregations are some of the biggest accepters of change because in their lifetime they have witnessed huge changes in society and technology. More and bigger changes than our kids have seen.

Why is it then that they seem to struggle then with a change in the church service?

I think Bill Hybels summed it up very well at the recent Global Leadership Summit when he said a good leader moves people from here to there. How does he do it? By making the ‘there’ more attractive than the ‘here’. Help them want to embrace the there by having the current here so unbearable that they will want to run to the there.

The three keys points for us as leaders to recognise in bringing in change is

• Recognise loss is the biggest part of change
• The need to make the end point more exciting than the start point
• Allow open two way communication through the change process

These are just some random thoughts. I would love to get some feedback on your experiences on implementing change in your church.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

More Christmas promotion ideas part 2

Thanks for your comments and thoughts on part 1 on creating a good Christmas carol concert. Further to my first post here are some more things to consider.

Free media exposure

There are some good free strategic media opportunities your church can harness to promote your Christmas carols. Obviously 96five is a good way of getting some free publicity via the 96five Events Calendar and their community service announcements.

The other good free media you can access is the free suburban newspaper delivered to letterboxes around your neighbourhood. These newspapers are a great resource for a church to promote not just your Christmas events but other events you might be running across the year. For your Carol publicity you need to create a simple media release highlighting the important details of where, when and what is on. In the media release you need to have a simple hook like a ‘Christmas carol concert where the whole family can come and sing their favourite Christmas carols.’ I would keep the media release to one paragraph detailing the vent and then in bullet points the details of where and when. Also list the photo opportunity available prior to the event.

This is important because what you actually want in the paper is a big photo with small copy. That will get readers interest. I think your photo opportunity needs to include a couple of kids and maybe a candle with a song sheet. Make sure you include your contact details especially your mobile number.

Using outside groups

Another way of attracting an audience who don’t normally attend your church is to have other community groups part of your onstage audience. Virtually every primary school has a choir and I suggest you contact them 3 months or even 6 months out and invite them to be part of your event. Allow that choir to do 2 items as a group and even include them as a backing choir to other singers. Every choir member will mean at least another two adults plus siblings and maybe even grandparents. It costs you nothing to have them there and will add to the success of your community event.

Even think laterally about this. Why not host a Christmas carol idol at your local school or schools for solo or small groups to be part of the on the night performance. Heats and semi finals can be held at the school to see who wins. This starts to create a free buzz in the school community about your events.

What can you do out of the norm to get some community involvement and publicity for your Christmas Carol event.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Making your Christmas Carols a winner

As I am writing this blog some 6 weeks out from Christmas I am having also sorts of thoughts about Christmas music, Christmas traditions and just quietly Christmas food.
None of these are reasons why I am writing this blog. The intent is to provide some thought, inspiration to those church ministers who are planning their annual Christmas carols concert.

These are my observations from being part of heaps of carol events as a participant in the audience, as an MC, or part of a promotions team. Read this with an open mind. It isn’t a to do list but something to think about in your planning for your event.

You are not Hillsong or Citipointe or a church with a major music team so don’t try and over achieve with your event.

There seems to be a trend for large numbers of unchurched families to attend local community Christmas carols. Why? I think it is because most parents want to have their children experience something they experienced when they were children growing up. Call it nostalgia if you like but I think it is a powerful motivation for going to a church Christmas carol concert. Adults remember what it was like as a child with a candle (or torch) singing traditional Christmas carols on a warm balmy night.

They see a local Christmas carol concert as an opportunity to bring the family together around a candle or glow stick and have a bit of a family sing-along. In fact for some families it is the only time they have a sing-along. So my suggestion is don’t complicate the traditional songs by making them fancy with huge production values. Maybe leave that to the big churches and you concentrate on being traditional. Include the opportunities for candles or glow sticks or torches. Have it outdoors if you trust the weather or indoor at your church.

Nostalgia is a powerful driver in today’s society which is looking for some old fashion values. I also believe it is the thing that will allow their kids to attend Sunday school and youth group as they look for programs with old fashion values they grew up with.

My final couple of points to make your event meaningful.

Make sure everyone leaves your event with an invite brochure/card to your Christmas Eve or Day service. This card should contain the service times (including how long it lasts eg 8am for 1 hour Christmas morning), your church website address and physical address, phone number and church email address plus if you have a Facebook page or twitter account put it on. People love social media and any way you connect them to your church the better. Keep the invite to a size suitable to be stuck on the fridge.

The key is to try and keep your event simple and appropriate to the strengths of your church and engaging to your community. Plenty of community singing to traditional tunes, the odd special item and a short punchy message with an invitation to church on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.

Over to you for your thoughts.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Research is King

When I was an announcer on 96five my Program Director Malcolm Pollard used to drum into me all the time Research is King. What is your audience doing when listening to your show; what did they watch on TV last night; what did they do on the weekend; what sports do their kids play?

It was vital to me as an announcer to be able to connect with my audience. If I didn’t they would turn off. I didn’t need to live their life but I did need to have an understanding of what they did and why. Radio has taught me the ability to walk in someone else’s shoes and be able to ‘connect’ with them in their life.

I believe the same statement Research is King is important for ministers. Ministers need to know what their congregation is doing, watching, reading,. You might like reading the Financial Review or Weekend Australian but the majority of your ‘audience’ is probably reading the free weekly newspaper. You might watch 4 Corners but your ‘audience’ is watching Master Chef.

I am not saying that you need to live their lifestyle or lose your interests but you need to communicate in their lifestyle not yours.

As a coach of a sporting team I have learnt that to get the best out of my kids I need to understand how they think and why they react or respond to my directions. I don’t dress like them or act like them but I know their culture and connect with them on their communication style not mine as an adult.

We know as Christians and especially in church we speak a different language. We know what redemption means to us as Christians, talk to an unchurched person and redemption means getting even for a past wrong.

This week take some time out and hang around a shopping centre, sports field or even read the weekly free newspaper and get a true snapshot of your unchurched audience and see what are the issues in the lives of the ‘lost’.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Why don't people go to church anymore?

Why don’t people go to church anymore?

Wouldn’t I like a dollar for that question being asked at the moment? Even better would be the solution to the trend of dwindling church attendance. In my anecdotal observations of church life in Brisbane there is a disturbing trend of not just dwindling church attendance but regular church attendees are actually attending less services each month.

Currently people who would call themselves regular church attendees are now currently attending twice a month and that is trending down to once a month. That is a disturbing trend that creates a whole lot of problems for church ministers. Why it is that even our loyal people are now becoming infrequent when attending church. Is it a reflection of their personal faith commitment? Is it because church is boring, or are people becoming busier?

Personally I don’t think it is the first answer. I think people are just as committed to Jesus as ever. I think it is a bit of reasons two and three. However I am beginning to think it is more about the way people interact and consume their ‘entertainment’ or information.

Growing up in the 70’s and 80’s people would make a point of being home in time to see a particular TV show. In the morning we would tune into our favourite radio station to hear a particular show that would happen in breakfast at the same time each day. We would go and see a movie at the cinema on Saturday nights or even Saturday afternoon because that was the only time it was on.

Then something happened.

In the late 80’s early 90’s the VCR started arriving in people’s homes. Suddenly people could tape the news, TV show and watch when it suited them. Instead of going to the movies people could hire the movie from the video shop and watch at home when it suited the consumer. Suddenly we started seeing the death of appointment viewing as people now had the opportunity of missing it ‘live’ and still being able to watch or listen to it later.

Even now we see TV stations showing some of their shows on their website, radio stations podcast their programs so people who missed what happened earlier can now listen at a time that suits them.

Where does this leave the church? We are still stuck in the model that church is on at 9am Sunday; come along then or miss out for another week. Why are we surprised that more and more people are missing out. We are conditioned to get our information/entertainment on line via podcasts, iview, online newspapers or even via DVDs. Churches still exist in the old model of expecting them to come when the Senior Minister thinks it is the best time to have Church. Often it is the best time in his frame of reference not necessarily the best time for his congregation or for that matter the community of unbelievers. They are living in the model of a consumer who consumes at a time that suits them not that of the content provider.

So what is the solution? That is the million dollar question. I wonder if the answer to dwindling church attendance lies in not upping the ante of making church services more attractive rather in creating more opportunities for people to attend church. By pod casting the service they know they can skip church because they will hear the sermon on line and certainly they can sing the songs on their ipod or CD player too. But in missing church they miss the opportunity of human connection in their faith journey. But if they can’t make Sunday we need to give them other opportunities for this connection. Maybe those opportunities are Saturday night, Wednesday morning, and Tuesday evening.

Most churches have their own building lying idle Monday to Saturday. Let’s think about using them outside of Sunday. Retailers along time ago learnt the lesson of 7 day week trading. They don’t expect people to consume every day but at least once that week and at a time that suits them the consumer. Church trades once a week and expects everyone to drop everything to attend then.

I know there are other issues that contribute to dwindling church attendance like perceived relevancy of church. But as I talk to more and more people who are unchurched I find that many of them believe there is a God and see church attendance as not important to their life.

Keen to hear your thoughts.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Branding your Church Part 2

Before I start with part 2 let me answer a question that was posed to me off part 1. What is the diference btween a vison statement, mission statement and a postioning statement? Here's my answer. I guess my definations of the three statements are:
Vision statement is what you organisation strives to be;
Mission statement is how you will achieve it;
Positioning statement is how people see you in the marketplace.
For example with 96five:
Vision statement: To be Brisbane's prefered radio staion for families;
Mission statement: Building stronger families, connecting people to Jesus Christ, supporting the Christian community, through excellence in radio broacdcasting;
Positioning statement: Families No. 1

We don't use our vision statement as our branding statement. Our mission statement is an internal organisation message. Our vision statement says that we want to have your family listening to us. Those that already listen to us know that. People who aren't listeners don't know that. Our positioning statement is the brand slogan that helps us achieve our vision statement. Our mission statement then lets our staff now the framework for all programimng decisions.
So in a church context vision statement defines the church's position in the community, the mission statement tells the leadership and congregation how it will be achieved and the positioning statement is short punchy and tells a non member about your church distictive.

Does that help. Your church vision statement should never change - it is timeless. Mission statement may not change either but can be fine tuned to reflect the strengths of the church and the positioning tsatement should rarely change as it always takes a while for the community to actually 'get it'.

Now for Part 2.

Communicating your Distinctives

Just as important as developing your distinctives is to clearly communicate them to your audience. Often a church lets itself down by not clearly articulating what they are doing. Churches have always been guilty of using words that are not readily known by unchurched people. Churches will talk about their contemporary music. There is actually no such music genre at contemporary. Try going to iTunes or a retail music store and asking for the latest contemporary music album. They just don’t exist.
Other use phrases like we are a bible believing church. Well aren’t we all – it is a given not a positioning statement.

Sometimes we will talk about a world famous speaker coming to speak this weekend. I ask the question in whose world are they famous in. Nelson Mandela is world famous but Bill Hybels or even Julia Gillard isn’t world famous, just known in their areas of life.

Also never confuse style with relevance. When communicating you need to communicate from a position of substance not from a position of style. People aren’t looking for something stylish but for something that actually meets their own needs.

Service Delivery

Make sure you can actually deliver your distinctives or promises. Make sure you are actually friendly and engaging. If you call your self a family church do you cater for single parent families? What about singles?

Embrace other churches.

Other denominations are not the enemy or opposition. We are actually on the same team. Notice in your community how all the fast food shops seem to be in one spot. That is because they know that works in a financial sense. So if a church opens up in your area don’t panic. It is actually a good thing. Also there are plenty of unsaved people to share around. The more churches the better. Again embrace your distinctive not the other churchs distinctives and you will be fine. After all didn’t God call you to be there?

Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Developing your Church brand

For awhile I have been doing some research in to marketing and branding and in particular how they can help a church effectively reach their community. In the next couple of blogs I am going to attempt to summarise my thoughts and studies on this topic and hopefully give you something to think about as you see how your unchurch community looks at you.

How is your church perceived by your congregation and by the community who don’t attend. These are two distinct groups of people with different needs and different ways of engaging them. Firstly we will look at how we engage our community.

Your Church Brand or distinctive.

Your church brand is how you are marketed or perceived by all people. Good or strong brands are instantly recognised and should create an emotional connection. When you see the Golden arches logo you don’t think McDonalds but you are automatically thinking about their products and how much you enjoy them. When you see the Nike swoosh you are thinking about how it helps you run, or how comfortable their clothes are. Even the logo CE, you don’t know what it means but you recognise it as some sort of quality control.

So what is your Church brand?

How does your community perceive your church? Do they recognise it they way you do. If you closed tomorrow would anyone notice?

Successful organisations work out firstly what message they want to communicate to their community. They identify that market and then look for what are the hot buttons for that group of people. Churches need to decide if their core market is their existing congregation or is it people who don’t go to church.

When you are developing your church’s distictives (brand) you start with what your audience wants not what you think your audience wants. This would include not only programs but what time the activity or even church service starts. Which day of the week you hold it? The church is really a service organisation. The church is the only community organisation that exists for people who aren’t its members. So when you run an activity make sure the people you are running the activity for actually want it.

You need to make sure you have distinctives that actually engage people. Quick check amongst you current church activities. Who is engaged churched or unchurched?

Well who is my audience?

Our radio station has a specific listener in mind when we create our programming. She is Mary Smith 34 year old lady with two kids, one in grade 4 another in grade 1. She has a significant male partner in her life, doesn’t go to church but is not anti church. She drives a family type car, kids play sport and the daughter does dancing. All our decisions on music selection, announcer breaks, copy writing for ads all come from what engages Mary and her life. Our radio station distinctives come from Mary’s life and what would engage her as a listener and a person.

Churches sometimes make the mistake of not being able to define who their Mary Smith is. Consequently you don’t know who you are targeting in your programs or even sermons. The same for departments such as youth or Sunday school. They all should have a core person in their mind when running their ministry.

Once you know what Mary looks like then you can develop your Church’s distinctives. Also be prepared that you Church’s vision statement may change. My experience is that most church vision statements are for the congregation not the lost. Most business vision statements are for the potential consumer not the existing member. That seems to be an interesting difference. I think a lot of churches get their vision statements mixed up with mission statements. Throw into the mix that many churches even use their vision statement as their branding/positioning statement. In reality you actually should have three different statements.

Next blog will look at how do you communicate your brand/distinctives to your community. I am also keen to hear your thoughts on this topic too.

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Why cliches are like speaking in tongues

The other week I got sent a great link to a you tube clip showing Qld Reds captain Will Genia being interviewed by the Fox Sports commentator. The humorous bit was in the top left corner was a counter that was counting the number of clichés Genia used during the interview.

For a long time people have complained about the way sportsmen and politicians speak in clichés. They roll out the same comments week after week and will actually answer a question without actually giving us a glimpse of what the really think. The winning captain will always say ‘we always knew it would be a hard game’ ‘the opposition never stopped trying’ instead of perhaps saying we were better than they were. They hide their true thoughts and feelings behind clichés.

Well sportsmen and politicians aren’t the only ones. Check out your Ministers sermon next week or what the song leader at church says between songs. We Christians are just as guilty of speaking in clichés. We use phrases and words that are only familiar to fellow believers. Words such as redemption. To a Christian redemption means what Christ did on the cross. To our non Christian audience redemption means getting even.

Now you can start to see why to most non Christians think all churches speak in tongues. Christians use words and phrases which are great if you are already a member of the in crowd. If you aren’t a ‘member’ then sorry you wouldn’t understand.

Other examples of words that only christians know are contemporary music and youth. Go to a record shop and and try and buy a contemporary music album. Cant. That's right because it doesn't exist as a music genre. Only in church do we talk about contemporary music and the non christians wonder what we are talking about. Even the word youth is only talked about in church. What is a youth? Is it a 12 year old? Maybe 15 or is it 20 years old? Not sure.

It’s like we need to introduce a plain speaking language for church. We need to step back look at the words we use and say does the common person actually understand what I just said. Even simple words like sin really aren’t used in every day language.

Let me know your thoughts.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Today's Generation Gap

Is it harder parenting in the 21st Century than the 20th Century? The last couple of months I have been challenged with how little I know about the new technology that is sweeping the planet. At one stage I used to wear with pride the badge that said ‘I have never visited Myspace/Facebook/Youtube’. That was until my kids starting becoming old enough to want to dabble in that part of the web.

Now I’m beginning to understand the generation gap stuff that my parents warned me about. I used to think I was hip enough. Years of working in youth ministry and now over a decade working in the media made me believe that I was up with all the trends and technology. I knew I was relatively ignorant about computers (some would say scared) and my internet ability was limited to what I needed to use for research purposes at work. Recently I have had a cathartic moment that computers and internet are going to last longer than Amco flares or leg warmers.

I was wary because most of this internet stuff seemed to be self focussed. There was Myspace, youtube, iPhone, iTunes. I was fearful that perhaps today’s youth were growing up to be self absorbed. Even what I still call mobile phones really aren’t. They had become electronic communication devices that take photos. A lot of this web2.0 technology is certainly impersonal communication. It is less and less about personal face to face or even ear to ear communicating with people. It’s more about keeping in touch, letting people know you are around without necessarily having a conversation. Sometimes I think its more about leaving an electronic footprint that says I do exist. Prior to that I guess you could be alive on this planet but very few people would know that. Web 2.0 gives people the opportunity to announce via facebook, myspace or now twitter that yes I do exist.

So is it wrong? I’m still not totally convinced that it’s ok. I know it is not legally or perhaps morally wrong. In reality I know that my kids will eagerly embrace this technology while I somewhat unwillingly jump into this cyber maze. I do know that I still need to be vigilant in making sure my kids get enough social contact that is face to face without iPod earphones stuck in their ears. Places like church, sport and school will give them the opportunity to engage with real people away from any cyber personality they or their facebook friends have. I also need to monitor their cyber space stuff, making sure it doesn’t consume them. I also need to ask lots of questions about their cyber world and do my own research e.g. facebook/myspace is ok; MSN is fraught with danger.

And I know realise that today’s generation gap is not a battle over music or clothes like it was for my parents but is over the use of cyber technology.
Now more than ever us parents need to pray.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Just how relevant is your church?

Just how relevant is your church?

One of the biggest focus points on Churches over the last 10 years or so has been the desire to be relevant. Churches and ministers have spent huge amounts of thought, money and resources on their desire to be relevant to their community. What I have learnt is that unfortunately church has misinterpreted relevance as style when in fact relevancy is more about substance. It is not concerned with how you deliver the message but whether the message is pertinent to the target audience in most cases the unchurched.

The dictionary defines relevant as: adj; having direct bearing on the matter in hand; pertinent. It has very little to do with style. A relevant message or statement is about it being appropriate or meaningful to the target audience. It is not about whether the music was this century not last, video projector was used instead of overhead projector. A relevant message is a message that made sense to the listener.

Too often churches let themselves down by putting all their energy into the delivery of its message rather than the appropriateness. It doesn’t matter how comfortable the seats are, how many electric guitars or youtube clips you include in your sermon, if the subject is not helpful to the listener then it is useful. A drowning man is not interested if the ship is the latest or newest model, he is only concerned if it has a life buoy that can be given to him to rescue him.

Focussing on style does not make the message relevant. Focussing on style does not make the message better either. A beautiful photo is still beautiful whether it is in colour or black and white, taken on a digital camera or on a film camera. The relevancy of the photo is not affected by how it was taken but by what it meant to the viewer.

It would be an interesting if you were to survey your unchurched community about what they would think a 'successful' church might look like. Perhaps style of worship might not rate as highly as a perhaps a church that serves it's community.

As you start 2010 and you seek to be a relevant church to your community don’t worry about your style of service just concentrate on whether you are actually helping people find meaning and purpose for their life. Don’t leave them disappointed by with promises or showbiz, just give them hope.

What do you think?