If you weren't able to make it to The Table, here are some questions to ask and thoughts to consider when it comes to your church's outreach and communications efforts.

We had an awesome meeting last week at Mount Pleasant Christian Church! It was a great time full of advice, stories, laughter and pumpkin chocolate chip cookies (yum!). I loved it not only because it's fun to attend The Table and connect with church communications leaders, but as a longtime member of Mount Pleasant, it reminded me of some of the many reasons why I love my church and the ways we're impacting lives for Christ. 

Thank you to Johnette Cruz, Communications Director at Mount Pleasant, as well as Matt Goodpaster, Chad Ranson and Heidi Wright for hosting and providing us with insight into the church's community outreach strategy. And thanks to those of you who joined us via Facebook Live as well!

Mount Pleasant is truly impacting their local community and people around the world through a robust outreach ministry. The church's mission is to change the world one life, one family, one opportunity at a time, and their team walked us through some of their outreach initiatives including their IMPACT Center (food and clothing ministries); Community Life Center (community fitness facility); Change the World Week (food packing and homebuilding events); the Tim Tebow Foundation's Night to Shine (special needs prom); Change for a Dollar ($1 collected from each weekend attendee, pooled together to help a person/family in need); and the 12-15 global missions trips they take each year.

If you weren't able to make to The Table, here are some questions to ask and thoughts to consider when it comes to your church's outreach and communications efforts: 

  1. What vision is your church moving toward?
    If you know what vision you're all rallying around, then you can strip away what doesn't help accomplish that vision and avoid having too many outreach opportunities. The team at Mount Pleasant shared how they decided to rename and rebrand the IMPACT Center (formerly the Community Ministry Center). Not only was the former name unclear to those outside of the church, but they also wanted to tie the new name into the IMPACT language from the Vision Statement they've rallied around. Now they've realigned their vision for the IMPACT Center and their whole staff around this change. 

  2. In terms of outreach, who are your audiences? What do you know about their demographics and psychographics?
    This is everything from age, gender, race/ethnicity, marital status, education level and if they have children to habits, hobbies, spending habits and values. If you don't know who you're trying to reach and why, then how are you going to reach them? Consider putting together a few audience personas, so you always have those people in mind when it comes to your outreach (and communications) efforts. 

  3. How do you pair communications channels with audiences?
    Mount Pleasant said because they have a lot of older members, they still rely on print as well as digital tools for communications. When one of the church's ministries has a message to communicate, they complete a form for the Communications Team and then meet together in order to discuss the need and the appropriate channels for disseminating the message. Their channels include the bulletin (or occasionally a bulletin insert), website, social media, MPTV (3 top tier in-service video announcements) or pulpit announcements, emails (all church or targeted demographics), digital screens and banners/posters around the church. They also write press releases for large community events.

    However, because of all the opportunities that Mount Pleasant (and every church) offers, you have to be mindful of messaging overload. That's why it's important to understand your audience, choose the right communications channels to get the word out and communicate clearly and concisely to avoid overwhelming your audience.

  4. If you're not regularly connecting with the community you're in, how could you get started?
    Because each church is uniquely gifted, it's important to pray for God's discernment and wisdom. Be open to whatever opportunities He places on your heart and then consider how you might minister to those needs. Start by looking at your surrounding community and asking, 'Who has the Lord put around us, and how can we minister to them?'

  5. How do you measure success?
    This is one question that the group discussed with passion, and a great quote was shared: "What you measure improves. What you celebrate repeats." It's important to set goals that you'd like to accomplish and then determine what you want to track as part of those goals. You could track attendance, number of church members who volunteered, amount of money donated, number of meals served, number of souls saved ... whatever it is that is meaningful to track for your initiative and your goals. Track it, analyze it and learn from it. Afterward, celebrate the numbers you have, encourage more and seek ways to improve next time. Another great quote shared during our time together: "Nothing you do can be better than your level of commitment to it."

We had a great time at our final 2016 gathering of The Table. We can't wait to kick things off in 2017 with some exciting new offerings!

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