The Main Problem with Church Communications

"There's just such a tension that exists with communications," said Matt Curtis, former Creative Minister and Founder of Lunchtime Heroes. "Communications is an executive-level function in an organization. It's not a service department."

That is the main problem with church communication. In most churches, communication is treated like a service rather than an executive-level function.

"Many communications departments have been really relegated to the service side of the organization," Matt said.

This means creating everything from:

• Social media posts
• Website edits/changes
• Weekly "newsletters"
• Shoot announcement videos
• Banner graphics
• Ministry graphics for every single ministry
• Bulletin design
• Intern-level work

Businesses and corporations have "Chief Marketing Officers" (CMOs) who sit at the table when making decisions. The CMO is not directly responsible for their social media or their advertising. They implement the big strategy by having experts execute the different things needed to meet that goal.

Whether you like it or not, the person with the title "communications" attached to their job has that level of responsibility.

"We're not being invited into the strategic side of [ministry]," said Matt. "Communications is about messaging. If leadership isn't communicating clearly, a natural problem will result from that."

The problem? A dramatic loss of trust.

"I want to help churches communicate clearly, effectively, and with integrity," Matt said. "The problem that we run into is that those three things aren't happening, and that's where trust begins to get eroded."

One of the ways to avoid this is by finding a way to work together.

Pastors Need to Get Out of Their Own Way

If you're a pastor, I'm going to give you some tough love. If you're not a pastor, take these with a grain of salt. Don't attack your pastor with this.

One reason there are few church communications ministries is that the senior leaders will not get out of their own way.

" I think most pastors haven’t been trained to run the operational side of an organization," said Matt. "I don't mean that to be critical. Many pastors just know how to leverage comm strategically."

There is a gap between vision/strategy and creativity. It's not the role of the creative to set the vision, strategy, and mission. It's also not the role of the lead pastor to be the editor-in-chief of everything.

"You cannot scale an organization if everything goes through the senior leader. It's just not possible," Matt said.

I attended a church where tons of talented people kept leaving. Crazy-talented musicians, brilliant tech directors, and friends with other roles were leaving.

Why?

They couldn't exercise their creative muscles because the senior leader had the absolute final say. Everything was filtered through the lead pastor. As a result, we lost lots of great talent and potential creative innovation.

Mental Shift from Communication Department to Ministry

Your communication team shouldn't be treated as a service department. They should be treated and act like a ministry.

"Churches have a potential opportunity to leverage communications to actually drive the church's mission," Matt said.

You have to shift your mindset from "Communication is here to make graphics for my ministry" to "Communication is here to further the mission of the church."

"Communications is about delivering information, answering questions, sometimes in some cases proactively, but it's making sure that the recipient has a clear understanding of what's going on," described Matt.

Sometimes, that's as a graphic. Other times, it's in video. Regardless, when you give communications a seat at the table, you're giving yourself a better chance to execute your church's vision and mission.

But to change that mindset, you must have the right person doing the job.

Characteristics of a Good Communication Ministry Leader

Think of your communication person as an air traffic controller for your church (or like the operations manager of a Chick-fil-A).

"All comm is 'Give us all of the organization's messages, and we will distribute them to the right places.' In some cases, we'll need creative. In some cases, we'll need a written word. In some cases, we'll need video content. But every destination has its own sort of requirements and demands, and you need a person who can air traffic control that," said Matt.

This means your Communication Director (and yes, director. Not a Coordinator) should be like the corporate CMO. They know the general ins and outs of what needs to be done. They know their strong suits. However, they will also rely on other team members or volunteers to nail the specifics, such as social media, video, text, etc.

"My recommendation is to have one person on your staff; that's their job, and then fund them to be able to outsource those remaining efforts," Matt said. "If you reach a point where you grow enough financially and complexity that you need somebody inside, then you start adding based on what you need."

Start with a well-rounded strategist. First, start with someone who is ministry-minded and not necessarily a subject matter expert on one sole area of communication.

Responsibilities of a Communication Ministry

My hope at this point is that you realize that your youth intern, your graphic designer, or your admin is not the communications person you need. The responsibilities and requirements are too vast for them, especially on top of their more urgent responsibilities.

If you want your church to thrive, you need three attributes in your communication ministry director.

1. Audience Research and Understanding

I'll never stop saying this: The Gospel is for everyone, but your church isn't. A Comm ministry director understands that, and they focus on who is right for your church.

"Who is your church best positioned to reach, and how do they consume content?" Matt said. "If none of the people that are in the audience that I'm trying to reach are on TikTok, it doesn't matter if I post there."

Another way to think about this is to ask these questions:

• Who are the people you're trying to reach?
• What language do they speak?

Your comm director is focused on people, not on fads.

They know you want to reach Gen Z, and you need to equip them with the resources they need to do that best, working with the youth pastor.

They know the state of U.S. politics and understand what your people say about it.

However, they focus on the audience and how to speak to them, not on aimlessly blasting information.

2. Creating Content

"If your team isn't allowed to do content, then you're not a ministry or department," said Matt.

As "The Content Pastor," I agree. A comm ministry is tasked with creating meaningful, engaging content—not because you need to, but because they want to meet the needs of a hurting community. They understand your audience's pain, so they have a content strategy in place.



Having a content strategy is crucial. Most churches just post and create because they have to. This is a mistake.

"Our culture increasingly demands, 'What's the purpose? What's the point? Why are we doing that?'" Matt said. "For a church to allocate resources toward content creation, there has to be some degree of a purpose that that we have behind it."

One way to do this is for them to have a volunteer team of content creators. They want to be in ministry, so they should lead others in your church.

Equipping the Saints

"It would be really interesting if churches had some vein of ministry that was equipping people and preparing them to be digital evangelists and to proclaim the message of hope," Matt said.

The responsibility to equip the saints does not fall solely on the pastor. It doesn't fall on any particular person. But your church is responsible for equipping the believers who attend to go and be disciples, to go and make disciples.

A communications director knows how to encourage volunteer team members to share their expertise, knowledge, and testimony. They know how to repurpose this for the digital world, which is struggling, hurting, and desperate for connection.

How Your Comm Ministry Has to Change

How does your Communication team need to change to go from department to ministry? Start with content creation.

"Communications needs to evolve into content," said Matt. "That's what needs to be happening in order for the church to continue to be effective."

When you start doing that, you will be known for something in your community. When you create content that meets the needs of a known audience, they'll think, "Wow, this church is willing to help me before I even think about attending. I've never encountered a church like this before."

"There are many times where we would position content as the strategy to help people outside of the church as a mechanism to basically help first, then encourage to come and join us and to see what this church is about," Matt said.

It's time to change. It's time to give Communications the responsibility it deserves. If you're a communications director or pastor who needs help creating content, I'm here to help.