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How to Connect Your Church Marketing with Oral Communicators Better
By chris | June 29, 2007
Next in our summer blog coaching frenzy is Sheboygan Evangelical Free Church in Wisconsin. SEF Church lay leader, Kelly, filled out the coaching form and is getting a few free ministry marketing suggestions below. You can do the same for your church. No gimmicks. No obligation.
It’s free, so if you don’t like my advice, you get a full refund. 
I will be coaching for free all summer on the MMC blog with church marketing and advertising ideas. Interested too? See more details here.
Now, on to the coaching!
The church in Sheboygan (love saying that name) has the same situation that many churches are facing. They are located in a neighborhood that is changing in demographic characteristics. However, this church has done what many are not doing, they are making changes in their ministry focus and reaching out cross-culturally and responding to the needs of their community. Let’s look at their coaching questionnaire:
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: Does your church have a Vision or Mission Statement?
The purpose of the Sheboygan Evangelical Free Church is to reach our city, our county and the continents for Christ by making disciples who communicate Christ to their world; cultivate personal growth in Christ; celebrate their life in Christ; and care for people in the name of Christ.
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: How would you describe the ministry?
A blend of mature believers with significant growth in young families. Recently (Oct 06) added 3rd service; splitting so one traditional service in sanctuary, two contemporary in gym. Budding Hispanic ministry; strong ABF (Adult Bible Fellowship); Growing Welcome Ministry. We have approximately 900 regularly attending.
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: What are the key strengths of your ministry?
Biblical Literacy - expository preaching… (our five biblical values: worship, community, mission, giving, literacy).
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: What are the weaknesses or challenges of your ministry?
Rooted culture - doesn’t understand need for change; difficult for transients to get involved. Geographical location - space limited; parking/building (Regional church in neighborhood setting).
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: Where would you like to see the ministry in the next 6 months?
We want a stronger presence on the web (not sure how to begin; templates, etc.) - growth but with INVOLVED people, not just more people, expanding our children’s ministry to have options available during our newest 3rd period.
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: What obstacles might be getting in the way of achieving these results?
Possible: facility limitations, need our leadership to rise to next level: Boards still functions relatively tactically instead of strategically; limited pool of successors, etc.
Getting_in_way_of_Prospects: Parking, limited children’s options to bring families to the second service where there is still ample capacity.MMC Coaching Questionnaire: What things are you most passionate about and how are these reflected in your ministry?
Biblical Literacy, missions & outreach, children’s ministry and reaching the Hispanic population in our community.
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: What strategies are you using right now?
We have Good News Clubs meeting at a local public elementary school that has a high Hispanic and Asian population; when parents come, we have a new Hispanic ABF that does have capacity that enables them to attend church during the second period.
Very popular mid-week Awana program with several supporting ministries to reach the parents (Parenting classes, Parent’s Oasis, etc.).
For the past several years we have built a strong men’s ministry -this past year added a special Men’s Fraternity (ABF) that also meets during Awana. Very well received and significant change is observed from most of the men who attended.
Outreach strategy includes an annual Dessert Theater, a Sweetheart Banquet (Valentine’s Day), Easter service at the local Historic Theatre, relational evangelism training through the ABFs.
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: What is the most successful aspect of your church’s ministry?:
Consistent expository teaching, outreach programs and student ministries.
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: What is the least successful aspect of your ministry?
Bringing on new leaders of ministries, Holes in our assimilation strategy (Visitor / Welcome / Connection)
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: Do you have a specific strategy for following up with all prospects?
We have a very proven, repeatable process for following up with visitors; we’re building our Welcome ministry (all personal contact on the premises) and Connections - helping people to serve and be served.
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: Do you have a marketing calendar?
No.
MMC Coaching Questionnaire: What specific results do you want to obtain from working with me as a marketing coach?
We have a lot of the pieces, we need help pulling them together in a concise plan that can be articulated and promoted. We absolutely do not want to get rid (or change) our focus on expository teaching - but we miss out on opportunities to teach some basics and communicate the small stuff from the pulpit. We have some options on Sunday evenings? We look for suggestions.
Ministry Marketing Coaching Suggestion: Connect with your audience by investing in getting a professional artist to develop an integrated design for your church communications collateral
A first suggestion is to look into getting an update to your church’s look by investing in the services of a professional graphic artist. You have a great start in the right direction in parts of your website, but your newsletter and other communication collateral may all be sending different messages through design. I have found sometimes it can be a hard sell to get the church to update by paying for a good designer. Sometimes it is because a volunteer or a valued long-time employee is doing the design work and the church leaders don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. In other cases, the church doesn’t feel justified in “spending” money on design work.
Consider this; a professional artist can give you an integrated look that strengthens the impact of all your communication materials. By having the same look and feel in your marketing collateral you will build momentum. Every time someone in your community sees something from your church, it will remind them of every other time they saw something from your church. When you send strong positive messages, you build awareness, and awareness leads to branding.
A good designer can create an integrated look for your website, brochures, business cards, newsletters, etc, that your church can update using your normal processes. That means beloved church communication people can update custom print and web templates that have your church’s new look. Once your church understands the benefit of integrated communication, they will be able to better understand and justify making the investment of upgrading the design.
Ministry Marketing Coaching Suggestion: Organize your website content by your audience and get your website into a content management system
As you begin working on redesigning your website consider a couple important points. First, your content needs to be organized by audience and from their perspective. Many church websites look more like they have taken their internal organizational charts and used them as the navigation for their website. This doesn’t connect with people who are not already familiar with the church.
Another problem churches often face is what some call the “home page turf war”. There’s a “battle” from within between church ministries that all want their message on the home page of the website. When everything is on the front page, the site becomes cluttered and difficult to surf. If the website surfer has to study the site to find what they are looking for, they may just leave your site altogether and forget about you.
Last, get your design into a content management system that allows you to recruit ministry leaders to keep their section of the website up-do-date and accurate.
Ministry Marketing Coaching Suggestion: Connect with people you want to reach by putting more variety, energy, emotion, action and life application in your ministry marketing
Take a look at how you present your message in the copy on your website and printed materials. All the facts are there, but you need to build more interest by putting more emotional connection in the headlines and first sentences. Some church websites are really dry reading. I don’t have the room to write about (and need to take my own advice, I am sure) how to improve writing skills here, but there are many great books on the subject. This is not about grammar, but about getting attention and building and keeping the interest of your readers.
Going on to your church calendar, I wonder if you may need to introduce a little more variety in the things you do in terms of programming that is relevant for outreach to the community. Your church has a lot of great ongoing programs. But if you are doing the same thing from week to week, year to year, congregants become stagnate, lose their creativity, and neglect outreach.
When a church is in a routine, they often become inwardly focused and lose sight of the vision for reaching people with the good news. Special events bring variety and energy to your church and inspire outreach.
Pay attention also to the way you write sermon titles and introduce sermons in the worship service. I listened to several sermons on your church’s site. Speaking as an outsider, a few of the introductions and titles are about as emotionally connecting as listening the “How to buckle your seatbelt” speech you get on every airplane trip.
Rick Warren gives four ways to improve sermon titles here and suggests ways to bring more life application into sermons here. Also, he has a great Pastoral Helps CD with over 2,300 Action Verbs and more than 240 Category Words for Outlining Sermons you can use too.
Ministry Marketing Coaching Suggestion: Watch out for the missiological blind spot of communication preference bias
You mentioned, ” We absolutely do not want to get rid (or change) our focus on expository teaching.” Okay, I can’t resist commenting when someone tells me there is something they will not change in order to reach people with the gospel. I think this may be one of the things contributing to what you mentioned when you think your church sometimes ”miss out on opportunities to teach some basics and communicate the small stuff from the pulpit” You may be mismatched on the level of your church leader’s communication preferences and the preferences of your target audiences.
I can understand when someone will not adjust a core belief about essential doctrine (like the Trinity or salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone). But expository preaching is not an essential theological belief that should never be compromised.
Actually expository preaching is a communication preference. I know the PR on expository preaching, that it is somehow more biblical. But if it is, why are there no expository sermons in the Bible? There are many equally valid forms of preaching that can be employed in outreach effectively.
As a missionary I learned that not all people are able to understand expository preaching. Some people are oral communicators and their method of communication is story telling, and Chronological Bible Storying (CBS).Oral communication experts who work in the field of CBS say oral communicators don’t have the ability to follow literate communication methods. Oral communication is not mere speech, there are specific traits and approaches needed for it to be effective.
By drawing a line in the sand on expository preaching, you may be limiting the impact of your ministry. Most people these days get their information through oral communication media (radio, TV, telephone, etc). Researchers say people with lower incomes and education levels are even more likely to be functionally illiterate. Add that to the fact that the ease of using oral communication tools has led to the situation that even very educated people are becoming practical post-literates with oral communication preferences.
Expository preaching is a style of preaching that has been developed by highly literate people. This approach to preaching has wrongly been canonized by some as the only acceptable way of preaching. Look closer at the people making the emphasis, and you will see they have literate communication biases.
I understand the issue about Biblical literacy. But keep in mind there is more to being a student of the Bible than listening to the extended commentary of a pastor from the pulpit. Personally, I am not a fan of the style of preaching that makes the sermon feel like a lecture in graduate school. Too many word studies and historical analysis not only puts people to sleep, it leads to less time for talking about applying the word to everyday life.
Don’t fear that not that always preaching with an expositional style will lead to illiteracy. Choose to teach all the word of God, but choose a style that connects with people in a memorable way. It may be an expositional approach is the right thing; then again, it may not be the best.
On the mission field the most illiterate of people have been the people reached through chronological preaching. Missionaries are astounded at their Biblical literacy. Why? Think about it, a completely illiterate person has no way to store information. They have to store everything they know in their mind. As such, an oral communicator can run circles around a literate person when it comes to Bible literacy. While the literate person is still looking for chapter and verse, the oral communicator just remembers the word.
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