There is a great 2 part series of posts by Tim Schraeder overviewing what a Church Communications Director is. I’m not going to spend time quoting them since you should just go read them in full yourself:
- Part 1 – What is a Church Communications Director?
- Part 2 – The Call to Communicate
A great series that was extremely helpful to me, but I’d love to hear more about how the CCD engages with online, and how, specifically, that roll is evolving as online is fast-becoming more and more used day-to-day.
And, perhaps, is it even a relevant and worthwhile position (anymore?)? One voice seems to bring up the question of whether or not it’s needed. Has the democratic revolution of the internets been drawn far into the other expanses of roles and responsibilities of other church staffers? In other words, is the youth pastor a CCD for his particular ministry segment?
I think it’s possible. I think that it gets darn-near impossible to manage the varying needs of ministries at the ministry level for one com director. Perhaps a centralized team? Is that redundant?
What do you think?
[Image from Nite_Owl]
Joshua Skogerboe says
Hey John. Thanks for posting this. Our church has been playinbg with the idea of a communications director for awhile now. Either staffed or volunteer. The truth is, as Executive Pastor, this has been a part of MY role for the church. But as the church expands, and ministries grow, so do the communication needs. At some point, the tension of balancing the rest of my workload with the communication needs will bee rtoo much to maintain.
The links to these articles are much appreciated.
human3rror says
Joshua,
Hope they help! Let us know how it all goes down… love to hear.
@StephenAU says
Great topic! I strongly believe in the importance of the CCD. It’s important in any organization to maintain a cingular vision/message/image through it’s branding. When individual staff members begin managing the communications of their own area they begin to change the brand of the church into the brand they want for their own ministry area… ie music minister may be overly focused on music ministry and so he views the church from a different perspective than someone who can be objective like a CCD. It’s not so much the job of the CCD to dictate what all the ministries in the church are doing but to manage the consistency levels throughout the church regarding its overall brand/message.
DavidEOsborne says
Online trends has definitely changed the function of the traditional church Com Director or in my case, our Director of Marketing/PR. I serve in a 8k church & we’ve definitely run into constraints as result of high departmental demand (web.video etc).
I’ve found the relationship between Dept Heads/Directors & the Marketing PR Director can often be tense because of high demands & slow responses to what’s happening in web 2.0.
I think much depends the role the CCD plays. In most cases the CCD is the “clearing house” for branding etc. This is great but when the demand is high & morphs so fast, depending on the pace of your church or org, constraints (style, imaging, design representation) are always issues that need to be carefully navigated.
Great Post!!!!!!!
Matt Harrell says
Well many tools help facilitate a de-centralized model in the sense that each ministry has it's own communication channel. Using technology like MemberHub.com you empower each ministry to get organized and communicate among themselves. I believe this is important for church staff to understand. Online tools really help enhance communication and collaboration and can really save time and money if processes are put into place to take advantage of these tools to their full potential. Let the internet and technology do what it does well…speed things up and connect people. This really allows the BODY to work the right way. As always John, thanks for making the conversation available.
Jim says
wow…great post…I love Tim's blog
Mary says
I think every church needs a CCD . As the body of Christ grows we need to get connected not only within the Church but with other churches who are moving in the same or different directions to fulfil God's purpose. One church may have something that another church needs etc…
John L says
John… the problem IS centralization. "Centralizing" communications, in light of virtual connectivity, is backwards. We're entering into an age of distributed community, with largely self-organizing (vs. centralized) coordination and control.
I'm sorry to be the party pooper here but I find this trajectory misaligned from way communication is unfolding in our broader communities. Religious communciation centralization (or even "coordination") perpetuates the "us/them" – "in/out" – "lay/clergy" dualities. We need to be moving towards distributed, not centralized. Participatory, not stage-centric. Creative-class, not clergy-class. Unpaid servant-ship, not salaried leadership.All-body participation rather than a perpetuation of 3c religious dualisms.
Sandy says
How about a "both-and" viewpoint? i.e. An internal+external coordinator ("CCD" person, whether "paid staff" or "volunteer") who understands branding (a consistent quality message), but is one who empowers staff and members alike to freely handle ministry area communications/connections. It's really all about relationships, not power.
A CCD should especially oversee the all-church-oriented print media (newsletter, bulletin, welcome/overview pieces), web, rss/twitter/facebook, ads, etc. while empowering ministries to communicate in their area, perhaps with a basic "style" guide.
I personally think the trickiest part of this in a larger church is what Kem Meyer and other experts call "clutter" and "noise". People start tuning out if they get too many disjointed, random, contradictory, visually-different, incoherent communications. Therefore, I vote for a CCD that doesn't control, but facilitates and watches out for the "target audience" as well. 🙂
Bill Whitt says
I’ve been a communications director before. Now, I’m quickly moving into the role of communications “consultant.” In other words, I help ministry leaders where I work do communications. I train on proper maintenance of blogs, myspace pages, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, etc… as well as the traditional flyers, community calendars, radio ads, press releases, etc. We have so many departments that I can’t do it all myself. And I think it’s more authentic if the youth leader is the one managing the youth myspace page anyway.
Tim Schraeder says
John, I think that's a great question… just posted my response!
http://www.timschraeder.com/2009/09/23/the-web-is…
human3rror says
word.
klreed189 says
That was a great two part post. Funny story about church communication….
The church I attend just hired a new Senior Pastor (the church runs about 3,000 to give a little context). He has been there a month and decided to send out an all church email. He talked about strategy and moving forward, ways to get involved and then a renewed vision of communicating and technology. It was a good email and he outlined things well, there was just one problem that went unnoticed.
In the "from" category of the email it said his name "John Smith" (not his actual name) but next to his name there was an email address, but it had nothing to do with him or his name. The email address was from a past minister who was fired by the church in a pretty big ordeal. This email went out to thousands of people, trying to communicate the vision of the church, but the only thing I took away from it was that they sent it from a past minister and how the heck did that happen.
I think this story goes to show the importance of someone who can use communication to advance the vision and mission of the church in a professional and strategic way. The church missed out on an opportunity to move forward, and because of poor communication the message could have gotten lost.