Communicate!

One of the complaints I have heard most often in my work with churches is that the church does not do a good job of communicating. We don’t communicate vision, events, programs, etc well. This has always amazed me since, 1. We are in the communication business (Matthew 28:18) and 2. Most places I’ve seen try to communicate well.
We live in an age of an explosion of communication. If anything we are “too in touch”. But just because something is said doesn’t mean the message got out. I’ve always been amazed when a church will announce an event, put it in the bulletin and on PowerPoint for weeks and then someone says they didn’t hear about it!
We attempt to communicate in numerous ways at Spring Meadows. Of course we use the traditional ways, announcements (rarely are these effective) and our newsletter. We also use what seems to have become more normal - PowerPoint slides. But we use a large number of means that some of you might want to know about:
Facebook: Social networking has taken off. With over 150 million subscribers and 600,000 new people signing up every day it is hard to call it a fad anymore. I have not been a fan of facebook but I am amazed at the number of young adults who “live” there. Some of your folks use it as their primary mode of communication. So you should probably be on facebook and using it to communicate! “saintsmeet.org” founded by our own Trent Wheeler has skyrocketed to over 2500 members in less than two months.
e-mail groups: Nearly 85% of Americans use email! I’m confident that a higher percentage of your congregation than that uses email. Here at Spring Meadows it is right at 100% - I only know of one member who does not have email. So we use it. Some studies are showing that most Americans check their email at least once every hour. What does all that mean? USE EMAIL to communicate. We use it pretty much constantly to stay in contact. We have one group set up called “members@smcoc.net” our members@ group allows any MEMBER to send a message to every member in a matter of moments. It could be abused, yes, but in over three years I only know of one time that there was any problem and that was a mistake. We also have smaller groups like women@smcoc.net, deacons@smcoc.net, youth@smcoc.net, etc. I’m also trying to use it to allow people to know I am praying for them and also allowing people to let me know what their prayer concerns are.
Constant Contact: I have fallen in love with this little program. It is a beautiful interface and really simple to use. There is a small charge for the service but I believe it is worth it - by the way if you were to sign up use my name and I’ll get a small break on our next bill. Note, the charge is to the person designing the email not to the people receiving them. This program allows you to send out “designer e-mails”. You get them all the time from Starbucks, American Family Association and hundreds of other marketers but this can be a super tool. I use it to send out four or five mass communication pieces each week to the people on my list. It is like mini bulletins during the week. It allows people to communicate back with you in multiple ways too. I use it to give people a way to let us know of guests names each week (quickly), to single people out to be honored, and a multiple of other things. There is a free three month trial version - go to www.constantcontact.com. You’ll love this one. IF YOU WANT ME TO FORWARD SOME OF WHAT WE DO SO YOU CAN SEE WHAT IT IS LIKE WRITE ME AT dale@edge.net
Send Out Cards: I don’t use this one nearly as much as I wish I did. Go to sendoutcards.com. The ability to send out pre-designed cards with your own handwriting or using a font you chose, to design your own cards or use a pre-designed one, to select groups to target or send out individual cards is outstanding. Again, tell them I send you, I’m not sure how it might help us but surely they’d smile on us somehow. This tool is super easy to use. I know of people who send birthday cards to every member using this. It’s great stuff.
Then there’s Twitter: Do you twit? You should look into it. 2.4 BILLION people in the world use text messages (3.3 BILLION have cell phones, can you believe that?!). Twitter allows you to get a message via text messages to anyone “following” you on twitter, or to multiple persons. I use it personally, “follow” me at www.twitter.com under dalejenkins. But we are now also using it as a church. If everyone would sign up for this (it’s free) we could communicate important or urgent news in a matter of seconds to all of our members at any time! WOW! So follow us at springmeadows. And we want every man, woman and child to do this. If they have a cell phone, they ought to look at it.
Of course there is www.smcoc.net our website that serves as sort of a gateway. I’d venture to say that 75% of the people who visit us for the first time have already visited our website. Hey, if you have a website keep it up to date (that’s the biggest turnoff for people who go to church websites) or strip it of dates and make it just basic unchanging information.
You already know about www.dalejenkins.com or you wouldn’t be reading this but you may not know that to receive news anytime we upload info on this page you can send me an email and I’ll notify you. Over 1,000 of you read this blog and page and I’m thankful for you. I invite you to invite others to join this journey.

Communicate! Get into the technology God has allowed mankind to find and capture it for the glory of His Kingdom!

So what are you using that we haven’t found yet? What ideas do you have for some of these tools that we aren’t using? Let’s communicate - start now by posting below! :)