00:00:00:14 – 00:00:11:23
Speaker 1
Welcome to episode number 179 of the Mission Marketing Podcast. My name is Bart Blair Ehm, the brand director for missional marketing, and I’m joined today by the CEO of Missional Marketing, Mr. Jason Hamrick. Hello, Jason.

00:00:11:29 – 00:00:13:26
Speaker 2
Hi, Bart. How’s it going, man?

00:00:13:28 – 00:00:18:25
Speaker 1
I am doing very well. I’m really excited today because we brought on one of our missional marketing personalities.

00:00:18:27 – 00:00:19:11
Speaker 2
We did?

00:00:19:11 – 00:00:44:11
Speaker 1
Yes, Zach. Burn our Zach. Now, if you’ve been around the missional marketing church communications space for a while, you have probably seen Zach’s face or heard Zach’s voice. He’s one of our popular coaches around the missional marketing space and also one of our roadshow trainers. We’ve talked about roadshows here. The last couple of episodes that we’ve recorded, live events that we do around the country where you can come and get a hands on learning training experience.

00:00:44:13 – 00:01:10:25
Speaker 1
And really, it’s the three of us. We kind of rotate in and out. Tag team. We got some roadshows coming up, in 2026 that we’re going to share with you, our audience about as we wrap up this particular podcast. But what I wanted to do today was set up a conversation, really, just to get some insight from the two of you, on some issues and topics, conversations that we often have with church leaders, communications directors and other people that come to our roadshows.

00:01:11:01 – 00:01:28:18
Speaker 1
Some pain points, so to speak. So the working title of this episode is top four Pain Points for Church Communication Directors. I don’t know if we’ll head off for today. If we don’t, then I’ll have to retitle the podcast episode, but I think we’ll get all four of them. But I’m going to set this up and I’m just going to start, you know, kind of tea and you guys up.

00:01:28:21 – 00:01:36:09
Speaker 1
To speak on these particular pain points, how common you think they are and what maybe some of the solutions are to some of these pain points. You guys ready to go?

00:01:36:16 – 00:01:37:24
Speaker 2
Oh that’s good. Yeah.

00:01:37:25 – 00:01:56:00
Speaker 1
All right. Here we go. Here. Here’s the number one pain point that I think is really common amongst church communication directors. And that is that they are the jack of all trades. And they experience all kinds of overload. Have you heard that? Have you experienced that? Have you seen that when we’re working with our church comms directors?

00:01:56:00 – 00:01:58:18
Speaker 2
Well, yes. Yeah. I mean yeah. Go ahead Zach.

00:01:58:18 – 00:02:25:23
Speaker 3
Oh yeah. And but and normally the phrase is the jack of all trades, master of none. But I do want to give common directors bonus that they become the masters of all, too. Interestingly enough, like a probably like two weeks ago, I was on two separate calls and both of those comms directors, two different churches. They said, do you have a templated job description for comms director or comms positions?

00:02:25:25 – 00:03:03:18
Speaker 3
And I actually got excited because I know how overloaded they are. And I said, so, yes, but you’re hiring. And they both went, no, we’re not hiring. I’m just trying to figure out what I’m actually supposed to be doing in my job. And that’s when I knew. That’s when I knew that they’re overloaded, they’re tired. Their were worn out because they are expected to have the 50,000ft view of being able to see the communications and the marketing and the vision and the direction of the church, but they also have to be in the weeds of everything.

00:03:03:24 – 00:03:15:09
Speaker 3
And so they’re balancing the struggle of not being able to cast vision and be strategic, but also having to do all the work. And so they become the jack of all trades and overloaded.

00:03:15:11 – 00:03:42:02
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah. I’ll I’ll expand on that a little bit. It seems like a less you are hired to be only the communications director. Most even, even in that scenario, most of us were multiple hats. And so most you’re probably saying yep, you’re if you’re a comm director listens right now. Yep. I also do, you know, first time guest assimilation or I’m over groups or, you know, something like that.

00:03:42:02 – 00:04:04:21
Speaker 2
You wear lots of hats. And so if you’re wearing lots of hats at the, just like any other ministry position, this is kind of this is even though it might be under operations communications is a is a ministry. And there’s so many layers and it’s so, so deep and so wide. And it doesn’t really matter the size of church if you’re an active church, which you got lot going on there.

00:04:04:22 – 00:04:27:21
Speaker 2
There’s like you said, there’s a ton going on, Zach, but there’s there’s the weeds that you have to get in. And the problem is the problem is week in and week out, you can live in, in those weeds and you don’t really even realize where you’re headed and where you’re going. And it’s very simple to get lost. You guys know this when I talk, when we do this roadshow, what do you remember what I say up front?

00:04:27:24 – 00:04:49:25
Speaker 2
I say a few things, but one of the things I say is, hey, listen, over the next six hours, I want you to work on your business, not in your business. And what I may mean by that is you have to take dedicated time to zoom out and go. What are we doing here as a comms team and as a church?

00:04:49:25 – 00:05:09:00
Speaker 2
Are we even making a difference? Are we moving the needle? How do we know we’re winning? And and you can’t if you if you spend your time just in the emails and in the, well, the trenches of day to day activity, how do you know you’re even winning? So you got to be able to zoom out and go, man, how do I not get overloaded?

00:05:09:00 – 00:05:18:21
Speaker 2
And and what do I do to give myself margin and some, some bandwidth to even move the needle on all this stuff?

00:05:18:24 – 00:05:35:05
Speaker 1
I think one of the things we note when we’re at the roadshows, and I would venture that many of the people listening to this episode would, say that this is true about them. Communications isn’t even their primary responsibility. It’s the end. Right? So we always use that phrase when we’re at the roadshows. You are the communications director.

00:05:35:05 – 00:05:56:09
Speaker 1
And the first impressions team director and the assimilation director and the parking lot coordinator or whatever it is. Right. Or vice versa. You might actually be the worship pastor or the creative director and the communications director. And so we recognize that, you’re spinning a lot of plates, wearing many hats is the phrase that, you know, we often use.

00:05:56:12 – 00:06:22:21
Speaker 1
The challenge is, is that we come into a situation where you are a solo practitioner. You’re the only person in your department managing all of the communications in flow and output. Yet there’s an expectation. It’s more like a corporate expectation that you can actually that you can produce at a level that’s comparable to what an entire team might be producing somewhere else in a, in a more corporate or a business environment.

00:06:22:21 – 00:06:43:06
Speaker 1
So there’s a lot of tension there. And of course, that does lead to, fatigue, exhaustion, burnout. We’ve talked about that a lot. We’ve talked about that on this podcast that, you know, that’s not that. In fact, I think one of the quotes that we quoted you on Jason, in one of our last episodes was the fact that, you know, being burned out is not Jesus’s design for the local church, right?

00:06:43:06 – 00:07:04:27
Speaker 1
Like that shouldn’t be part of the equation. Yet it often is, as you guys are working with different communications directors or people in the communications seats, what’s some of the counsel or the guidance that you might give them as it relates to, setting expectations, creating boundaries in managing the fact that they are wearing multiple hats in their roles.

00:07:05:00 – 00:07:06:23
Speaker 1
Why don’t you talk a little bit to that?

00:07:06:26 – 00:07:36:17
Speaker 3
Yeah, I would lean into the idea of communication. And I think that’s very hard for us, ironically, as communications directors, because we are such high achieving individuals like we are perfectionists, we are type A, we know and want to get everything done. And to be able to say that I physically can’t do that, or in my capacity feels like a defeat and it feels like a loss, and it actually ends up making us feel like we don’t have as much value and worth in that.

00:07:36:19 – 00:08:02:04
Speaker 3
And that tends to be like the biggest reason for burnout, because now you feel like you are isolated and you’re met with expectations, but you haven’t accurately communicated what is on your plate. Sometimes your lead pastor does not know all that you have to do. Sometimes the executive pastor doesn’t know all that you have to do. There was a church I was meeting with two weeks before Easter.

00:08:02:06 – 00:08:21:07
Speaker 3
The expy came and said, we want to do this whole giving initiative, almost like I am second interviews and we want eight of them. And can you get it done by next week? No. And what? She was flustered. She’s like, well, how do I say no? It’s like, well, you’re not saying no because you don’t want to do it.

00:08:21:09 – 00:08:42:24
Speaker 3
You’re saying no and giving context. It’s going to take us two hours to set up the studio. It’s going to take us four hours to record one. We got to coordinate all of these people. You’re looking at 80, 90 hours of manpower here. We want to do that. But how can we do that in a way that is going to be sustainable?

00:08:43:01 – 00:08:59:07
Speaker 3
So some of it is just communicating. It’s not that I don’t want to do it. It’s I want to take the pressure and prioritize how it’s going to make it, how we’re going to be able to make it work for us. So that becomes a big issue. Is communication like number one, talk through it.

00:08:59:10 – 00:09:23:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. Let me add to that. It I had these conversations all the time. And I’ll just tell you straight up, if you’re unhealthy mentally, you will burn out. I have too many conversations where I meet new comm directors, and I’m like, well, are you pioneering this position or did you replace somebody? And the answer is typically, oh yeah, I’m replacing the last person.

00:09:23:09 – 00:09:45:14
Speaker 2
What happened to them? And they burned out. Okay. You what are you going to do different that’s going to not allow you to burn out. And they just go I don’t know. I go, you know, you need a strategy. And so my recommendation, if you’re listening to this and you find yourself going, yeah, I’m on this path towards burnout is get some help, get some coaching.

00:09:45:17 – 00:10:22:14
Speaker 2
And you know, we offer that here’s, you know, a church communications group. We do a ton of coaching for the specific reasons of helping you create a better strategy, a sound strategy that actually builds in margin and helps you lead up. What I mean by that is your your example, Zach, is all too common. And that is not only just from your boss or your boss’s boss, but also other ministries around you, bombarding you with last minute request and and how can you sustain that kind of activity at a high level and think that you’re actually winning?

00:10:22:16 – 00:10:47:24
Speaker 2
You’re not. So my recommendation, my advice is, is get some counseling, some coaching from somebody who’s been in the trenches and who has figured out how to get out of it, and how to actually move to move the needle. So to speak, and get to a spot where it’s possible get to a spot where you are operating on a healthy level that, that helps your church overall.

00:10:47:27 – 00:11:04:06
Speaker 1
I love that, Jason. It’s super practical. I’m going to drill down and get even a little bit more practical in terms of just something that I think every director ought to do or every I think this is just ministry in general. There’s a very good chance that the people that you report to don’t know everything that you do.

00:11:04:10 – 00:11:19:06
Speaker 1
They know a lot of what you do, and they see the results of a lot of the things that you’re doing. So I lead pastors need to do this. Associate pastors need to do this. Comm directors need to do this. Worship directors need to do this. I would say you need to make an inventory of everything. It is that you do.

00:11:19:06 – 00:11:40:25
Speaker 1
Get out a Google sheet and make it. Make a list of everything that you do on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis and a quarterly basis. Okay. Then I challenge you to prioritize those things into three different categories. These are the things that I get to do that give me energy, food, and I want you to take all the things and go, these are the things that I have to do that suck the life out of me.

00:11:40:27 – 00:11:54:21
Speaker 1
And then the third category is these are the things that I do because they need to get done, but they have no emotional toll on take, no emotional toll on me one way or another. They’re just kind of neutral, neutral impact on my job satisfaction. Okay.

00:11:54:24 – 00:11:55:10
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:11:55:13 – 00:12:19:00
Speaker 1
What you’re looking for is you’re looking to see how out of balance you are in terms of your weekly and monthly responsibilities, of the things that suck the life out of you. Because if you’re out of balance and you’re spending more of your time doing the things that you don’t enjoy, that maybe you’re not as gifted in that are harder for you to accomplish with the same level of of energy, enthusiasm, and maybe creativity as the things in the other quadrants.

00:12:19:03 – 00:12:48:02
Speaker 1
You’ve got to figure out how to find the balance in that. Sometimes it might be recruiting some volunteers to do the things that you’re not as gifted at, or you’re not as joyful in doing, but you can’t live in that red line space for a long time and maintain effective ministry fruitfulness. You’re you’re going to burn out. And so I think as a, you know, in a healthy church leadership environment, healthy church staff culture, you should be able to say, hey, here’s the 48 things that I’m doing on a weekly and a monthly basis.

00:12:48:09 – 00:13:04:28
Speaker 1
And here’s the 20 that, man, these are the things that I that make my feet hit the floor running every day. These are the 7 or 10 things that I’m doing that if I never had to do these things again, I would be jumping for joy. And here’s the other things that I’ll continue doing because I’m good with it.

00:13:04:28 – 00:13:24:00
Speaker 1
It’s okay. Right? I think all of us have those things. And I would say, do that inventory, sit down with your leadership team and and ask for help. Hey, how can how can I find better balance in this? I know that in every situation, there’s no job that’s perfect. There’s no job where you get to do only the fun things that you like to do all the time.

00:13:24:05 – 00:13:39:05
Speaker 1
But at the same time, from a sustainability standpoint, you can’t live in that place where the majority of what you’re doing, the majority of your time, is being spent living in a space where you’re just you’re unhappy all the time. Be honest with your leadership team on that. And he comments about that. Guys, that idea, you like that idea?

00:13:39:06 – 00:13:59:22
Speaker 2
I like that idea a lot. I mean, it goes to the towards the coaching. Sometimes you need somebody else, a partner to help you navigate all that. It’s it’s sometimes very tough to do it on your own. So again, you know, if it’s paid coaching, go get it. If you can’t afford that, find a peer, another comms director that you can lean on and you can lean on each other.

00:13:59:24 – 00:14:09:21
Speaker 2
And, you know, if you go to connect to our new app, you’ll find people like that and connects. But I’d recommend you, you you take that that approach. It’s a good one part.

00:14:09:23 – 00:14:29:07
Speaker 1
Yeah. Let’s move on to pain point number two. Okay. This this is one we we we talked about this one all the time. It’s it’s this is a pain point. And it is bridging the generational communication divide bridging the generational communication gap. If you are whether you’re in a small church, midsize church, large church, you’ve got people of all generations in your church.

00:14:29:10 – 00:14:46:12
Speaker 1
Some of you have been some of you you killed your bulletin in 2020 during the pandemic days, and you haven’t brought it back and you haven’t even thought about it. Some of you are spending too many hours every single week doing a bulletin every single week, because there’s a generation of people in your church that absolutely need the bulletin.

00:14:46:12 – 00:14:59:08
Speaker 1
We’ve got every, you know, we’ve got bulletin readers, we got TikTok users, we got everything in between. So let’s talk a little bit about what some of the challenges are in bridging that generational communication gap. Jason, you want to lead off on this one?

00:14:59:11 – 00:15:16:18
Speaker 2
Oh this is such a fun one okay. So so I’ll typically when I work with churches, especially when we’re kind of building a new website because we build a lot of church websites, I start with asking really important questions like, who’s your target audience? Who, who are you trying to reach? And then I compare that to who you are.

00:15:16:23 – 00:15:38:11
Speaker 2
Who are you right now? If I looked at across the, you know, the the worship center, who I probably see lots of generations and different cultural backgrounds of people, nationalities, all that kind of stuff. Right? I probably maybe you see all that. And so I kind of start there to go, okay, well, if you’re trying to communicate, you first have to understand the audience you’re trying to communicate to.

00:15:38:13 – 00:16:04:09
Speaker 2
And so your website specifically is should be geared towards people who are not yet a part of your congregation. Right. So we get into this deeper conversation about structuring the right, the right communication to the right audience and then understanding that particular audience, how they like to receive information and how they use information. Right. And absolutely gets into the well, you’re not probably trying to grow older as a church.

00:16:04:11 – 00:16:17:21
Speaker 2
I very rarely have those conversations. Yeah, Jason, we have too many 20 year olds and 30 year olds in our church. We’re trying to reach the 4050s and 60s. No one is saying that. And if that’s your church, wow, I’d love to talk with you because.

00:16:17:21 – 00:16:24:23
Speaker 1
I know, I do know of one church that is in a retirement community and that is their target. Their target is 55 plus because their community is 55.

00:16:24:24 – 00:16:45:08
Speaker 2
That’s what they have. Those people I don’t know any church that has like a whole bunch of like 90%, 20 and 30 year olds and they’re trying to reach older people. Okay. So yeah, most churches in general, they’re they’re older and they’re trying to grow younger and less that, like you just said, they’re in a in a zone in a geographical area that it’s like, no, this is like retirement community village where you’re in Florida.

00:16:45:10 – 00:17:05:16
Speaker 2
Okay. That’s a whole different thing. But I think your your point is really, really good. It’s like, how do you, as a director, how how do you communicate to those specific audiences? You can’t alienate, especially the older generation. Duh. Because those are usually the people that are really committed to your church. They give they have a lot more disposable income.

00:17:05:16 – 00:17:32:12
Speaker 2
They give very regularly. Like that’s their that’s part of their DNA. And so you want to help them continue to be a disciple of Jesus. So you in my opinion, you got to really you can’t just go. Yeah, we’re trying to phase out the bulletin. Well be careful about that, because if you phase out that bowl, turn you better or supplement with something that they can relate to because that audience is incredibly important.

00:17:32:17 – 00:17:36:04
Speaker 2
I’m thinking of Linda Zaks.

00:17:36:07 – 00:17:38:07
Speaker 3
She’s a bulletin for sure.

00:17:38:10 – 00:17:59:19
Speaker 2
That’s how she that’s all she communicates. So, you know, it’s not like you’re trying to you’re not trying to get rid of stuff. You’re trying to say, how do I help the people in our church understanding who they are and making sure that they get what they need without causing too much craziness? For me, it’s like I’d be careful with that as well.

00:17:59:21 – 00:18:10:02
Speaker 2
Do you need to print 1500 bulletins for the 50 people? No, no, no. So there’s some common sense in all that, but I think it’s a pain point for a lot of com directors.

00:18:10:05 – 00:18:33:14
Speaker 3
Yeah. And what I like, what you’re saying is, like you said, figuring out what that generation or that audience wants and needs a lot of times we don’t even ask them, like, we begin to, like, make assumptions and assessments. It’s like, you know, ten young adults in your church. Why are we not asking them? Hey, what’s your thoughts on the emails?

00:18:33:14 – 00:18:55:24
Speaker 3
Did you open it? Did you like it? Do you not like it? What about this post? What about bulletins like what about the signage you have access to? Ask them there. We are intentionally trying to communicate to them, so it’s easy enough to ask them what they want. And with the bulletin, maybe we can figure out more creative and strategic ways.

00:18:55:24 – 00:19:13:01
Speaker 3
So that way it cuts down work on us, but still supplies it instead of a weekly bulletin. Can we give you a monthly bulletin? Because most of that stuff stays on there for a month anyway, instead of us having to work every week to do it, can we work once a month and give you what you need in that?

00:19:13:04 – 00:19:30:12
Speaker 3
So I always encourage ask their feedback like do your research. Yes, data shows us and helps us understand an audience, but if we have direct access to them, we should be able to ask them and be able to figure out how can I bridge and reach your specific generation too?

00:19:30:14 – 00:19:31:19
Speaker 2
Yeah, it’s good we.

00:19:31:24 – 00:19:47:08
Speaker 1
We came out a bit here on the, on the bulletin and I do want to I’m going to come back to that in just a moment. But I think that, you know, one of the things that is a reality is that even beyond the bulletin, there are different means or mechanisms by which we can be communicating to people.

00:19:47:13 – 00:20:09:09
Speaker 1
When you start talking about email, text messages, your social media strategies and the like. I was on a call just this morning with a church that is on a university campus. Everybody you know in their church is a university student or somewhere in that age range. Few faculty members, mostly university students. And we were talking about their social media strategy and what they’re using social for.

00:20:09:09 – 00:20:36:27
Speaker 1
And I, I asked the pastor, I said, have you ever asked these young people in your church what would be most helpful for them, for you to be posting on Facebook and Instagram? And she said, no, I have never actually done that. And I thought she said, I think that’s probably a good idea. I said, before you continue wasting and not say that you’re wasting your time, but you’re spinning your wheels, creating content or posting things on the social channels which you’re not even 100% sure is.

00:20:36:27 – 00:21:01:03
Speaker 1
You know, there’s a return on that investment. Start asking the question. It’s not a large church, it’s a smaller congregation. You just ask the people what they’re looking for, what will be most helpful for them. I’ll come back to the bulletin. You know, you guys are aware that outside of my work with missional marketing, I do some church revitalization coaching and all these churches that I’m working with in the church revitalization space, tend to be very small, aging congregations.

00:21:01:06 – 00:21:21:12
Speaker 1
I visit them from time to time. They always have a bulletin. The bulletin always has a detailed service order written in it. What you know, what prayers were saying, what scriptures were reading. You know, it’s very, very detailed. It’s always got the birthday and the anniversary list in it. It’s always got the the food items needed for the food pantry or whatever it is.

00:21:21:12 – 00:21:51:13
Speaker 1
It’s got all those details in it. And when I’m working with those churches, one of the things that I challenge them to do is not replace the bulletin, but to ask themselves if new people were coming on Sunday mornings and you put a bulletin in their hand, what is that bulletin communicating to them? I’m actually a bulletin fan, and the reason I’m a bulletin fan is that as a pastor and a church planter, I know that sometimes new people come to my church and they’re looking for something to do that’s not talking to people that they don’t know there.

00:21:51:14 – 00:22:09:00
Speaker 1
There are some of those people that I’d rather have a good church experience, but I’m not really an extroverted person and I’m not here to meet everybody. So what can I do? Well, those are the people that will take your bulletin and they’ll go sit down on the second to the back row and try to hide before the service starts, and they will read the bulletin from cover to cover.

00:22:09:08 – 00:22:32:08
Speaker 1
So the question is what’s in the bulletin? And does it help them? So I’m thinking about the bulletin from both angles. Says, okay, let’s continue to honor the tradition of the past, of having a bulletin for the generation of people that need that tangible piece of paper in their hand on Sundays, but also, what kind of content that can we supplement or add into that bulletin that makes it, you know, that makes it helpful for the new people?

00:22:32:08 – 00:22:45:18
Speaker 1
I, I went to see a musical, this weekend, and I took a picture of the playbill, and I, I texted it to Zach because Zach likes to Zach likes to go to musicals, and I go to musicals from time to time. So I want him to know that I’m I’m doing his act thing and go and see a musical.

00:22:45:21 – 00:23:12:00
Speaker 1
But what did I do while I was waiting for the show to start? I’m reading through the bios of the actors, the performers, the, you know, the the whole I’m trying to learn about what’s about to happen, what I’m about to see. And I think that that Playbill, so to speak, quote unquote bulletin is something that can be useful both for that demographic and your congregation that needs the piece of paper, but also for new people are coming in to church that need to learn something about your church and the experience they’re going to have.

00:23:12:02 – 00:23:13:06
Speaker 1
Here’s my $0.10 worth there.

00:23:13:13 – 00:23:21:20
Speaker 3
What I’m hearing is that churches need to bring in playbills, so we need headshots and bios of the worship team, the the lead pastor.

00:23:21:22 – 00:23:27:23
Speaker 1
I’m inside, you know. Oh, that’s a terrible idea. You have a lot of good ideas. That one.

00:23:27:26 – 00:23:28:03
Speaker 2
Let’s.

00:23:28:03 – 00:23:34:12
Speaker 1
No, no, not no bios of the worship team that might get us in trouble more often than it helps, actually. Yes.

00:23:34:12 – 00:23:35:09
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:23:35:12 – 00:24:04:01
Speaker 1
Yeah. Okay. Let’s go to praying point number three. You’re ready. We’ve talked about this one on this podcast often, and this is also something that we address from time to time in our roadshow. And that is the approval bottleneck. Too many people who have too much say in what gets communicated in the church, like who’s who gets the final say on what announcements get made on the platform on Sunday, who makes the final decision about what gets printed in the bulletin or what gets sent out in the newsletter, or what gets posted on social media?

00:24:04:08 – 00:24:11:27
Speaker 1
Let’s, let’s, let’s talk about sort of the, designed by committee frustrations or the communication by committee frustrations that com directors often face.

00:24:12:04 – 00:24:33:11
Speaker 2
Well, we we first have to know a little, you know, we first have to know who we are. And we’re not the decision makers often on some things and some things we we are. If you’re not sure you need to find out. How do you do that? Ask your boss and I would start to define. You just said something that I always give this advice.

00:24:33:11 – 00:24:57:17
Speaker 2
Whatever happens on stage is not my decision. That’s the worship team with the lead pastor. What announcements are going to get communicated? That’s for them to decide. What I want to do is influence that. Right? Because I’m not there. I mean, you all have your order of worship and it probably doesn’t. It probably stays the same every single time.

00:24:57:19 – 00:25:23:12
Speaker 2
And so like at my church, they do a video announcement. Now I’m, I’m guessing in that video announcement, the comms director has some authority on we’re going to communicate this, this and this. But that’s typically decided typically by the leadership team okay. So it depends on the medium. What goes into social media. That’s that’s pretty much my job.

00:25:23:12 – 00:25:44:26
Speaker 2
I’m going to determine what I’m going to promote or what how I’m going to promote it in social media or on our website, in our e-newsletter, the weekly email newsletter, that kind of a thing. But I think you first have to ask your boss who’s who makes these decisions. So if you haven’t had that conversation, you need to under, you need to go get that figured out.

00:25:44:29 – 00:26:13:00
Speaker 2
Certainly, you know, you know, if you’re if you’re the contractor, I’m guessing you’re not telling the lead pastor. Okay, pastor, I need you to make these two announcements. Here’s what you’re going to say. Bullet points. Go ahead and do that. If that’s you. Awesome. I mean, that’s pretty cool. It’s usually not that way. And, and so I think it’s first understanding who the, who’s making these approvals and what space do you live in that probably comes with some experience.

00:26:13:00 – 00:26:33:18
Speaker 2
If you’re a contractor that’s been in this position for 15 years and you’re on the leadership team, you probably have more clout and more decision making than if you’re brand new. You know, you’re a couple of years on the job type of thing and you’re learning the ropes a little bit. But I think all of the all of it, if you’re if it’s hazy, you’re not quite sure you get it.

00:26:33:20 – 00:26:53:17
Speaker 2
You got to go get some clarity and you got to have that conversation figure out on these different platforms, either website, social media, on stage, email, newsletter, who has the decision making authority, and of course, what does that look like in my lead pastor always come down in Trump and say, I’m going to I want this, of course, probably, but have that conversation.

00:26:53:17 – 00:26:54:29
Speaker 2
Oh, Zach, what do you think?

00:26:55:01 – 00:27:20:12
Speaker 3
Yeah. And the question I would always ask there is, is this information documented? Because in the church world we don’t really document flowcharts. We don’t document structure in order there. So there I was on a call with, a comms director and the kid’s ministry pastor didn’t like something that was going on social media. I don’t care, like you’re the kid’s pastor.

00:27:20:12 – 00:27:39:10
Speaker 3
Like, what do you have to do with any of this? But they have created a culture where there were no boundaries in regards to what you get to speak into. We need to make sure, as lead pastors and experts, that we do have a flow chart of exactly what you’re saying. This is what’s who’s responsible for on stage.

00:27:39:10 – 00:27:59:27
Speaker 3
This is who gets to speak into that. That’s the hardest part for us as comms directors, because sometimes we do inherit a culture where people get to make all the decisions that have no space into that. And this is where we get to lead up, is making sure that we’re connecting and helping people see their part in the mission.

00:28:00:04 – 00:28:24:07
Speaker 3
I want them to tie their identity into the mission of the church, not necessarily the decisions that they make or even what they produce, because the the kids pastor, she or he might feel that like, oh, I’m always making this decision, but your mission in this church and your purpose here is to minister to children and to create a safe environment for them in their families.

00:28:24:09 – 00:28:48:09
Speaker 3
That is not correlated to what’s being posted on social media. So in order for us to all be cohesive and working towards the goal, I need you to stay with inside that lean. And sometimes this this stuff is not documented. And we need to have honest conversations as leadership of how do we create those boundaries and how do we attach people to their mission rather than the things that they’re doing, the decisions that they make?

00:28:48:11 – 00:29:11:21
Speaker 2
Yeah. And I think, I’m going to give a little plug here. There’s a new tool that my friend Cameron created called, communicate Dot app. So go to communicate Dot app. He created a calendar system where you can, you know, the staff can see it, but not everybody can edit it. But you can see what’s going to get communicated and what platform and what day.

00:29:11:21 – 00:29:27:06
Speaker 2
And you want to check that out, because I think half of it is just letting the the staff know, hey, here’s what’s happening in social this week and here’s what’s going in the newsletter. Here’s what’s going going to be announced on the stage this week and that type of thing. And so making sure everybody can see that is is pretty darn important.

00:29:27:09 – 00:29:33:29
Speaker 2
But who can edit that and actually get approval for that? You need to have those conversations.

00:29:34:01 – 00:29:57:13
Speaker 1
One of the things I would emphasize at this point is that as the comms director, you may not have authority over the decisions in all of those places, but one thing that you have to, I would fight for is the authority to guard the brand and guard the messaging. So somebody on the staff has to be the keeper of the church culture.

00:29:57:13 – 00:30:20:06
Speaker 1
And the culture is disseminated through what you say, the way you say it, visual identity, the words that you use. And so I would say is that comms director, you really want to have ownership of that. You may not have ownership over everything that gets said or everything that gets published or everything that gets emailed or distributed, but you want to have the final say in the way that it gets communicated.

00:30:20:09 – 00:30:50:00
Speaker 1
At the end of the day, we as church ministers, whether we’re in comms or we’re preaching or we’re leading worship or doing kids or family ministry, whatever it is, we have a limited amount of people’s time and attention because there’s so many other things vying for their time and their attention. Attention span is super, super short, so we need to become experts in saying what we need to say and making sure that people hear what we want them to hear with a little bit of time and attention that we get from them.

00:30:50:00 – 00:31:19:01
Speaker 1
And so as the the comms director, you’ve got to be an expert in that. How do we say what we need to say in the timing and on the platforms with the right words that communicate our culture, the expectations, uphold our values and, and get people to respond the way that we want them to respond. So the end of the day, you know, the buck does stop with you, the comms director, if the buck is going to stop with you to make sure that people know what they’re supposed to know, when they’re supposed to know it, then you’ve got to have some level of ownership there.

00:31:19:01 – 00:31:35:11
Speaker 1
And those are the things that I would probably fight for in those situations. You can’t you can’t fight for everything. You can’t win everything. But the guarding, the messaging is what I would, what I would be fighting for. I’m watching the clock here. We’re going to get through all four of these top four pain points. Okay.

00:31:35:12 – 00:31:59:04
Speaker 1
The fourth one, this one is when again, this is probably not as verbalized a pain point as some of the others are, but I think it’s it’s a felt pain point. And that is measuring my impact in my ministry. How do I, as a communications director, know that what I’m doing is actually making a difference in people’s spiritual lives?

00:31:59:06 – 00:32:19:03
Speaker 1
The the, the success metrics for communications are kind of fuzzy other than likes on Facebook. How do I know if what I’m doing is actually mattering? Jason, you on one of our recent podcast episodes, you were sharing about the fact that you took blame from ministries, when you were a comms director, when they didn’t have enough people show up to do their thing?

00:32:19:03 – 00:32:33:02
Speaker 1
Well, that was the communication director’s fault. No, it wasn’t the communication director. But you’re being measured by those metrics. Jason, why don’t you speak a little bit to that? Just that measuring ministry impact from a comms perspective.

00:32:33:04 – 00:32:56:22
Speaker 2
Well, I said earlier, this is a ministry. You know, you’re not just somebody in a cubicle that’s told to do this or do that. I think you need to if that’s if that’s your that’s where you actually sit, you know, work to get out of that because you have an important, really, really important ministry. And so, I, I tend to break it down into layers.

00:32:56:24 – 00:33:20:07
Speaker 2
So maybe at the, the very first layer is things that you can control. So what are you measuring? Let’s talk about your analytics on your website. Is your website visitors you know up over last year. Is the conversions up over last year. Let’s look at your email open rates. Are they consistently going up. Is it going down. What’s going on there.

00:33:20:10 – 00:33:40:11
Speaker 2
Social media. Let’s look at the metrics. So you have tools that you can look at the metrics to see if you’re winning or not, just from the standpoint of a number okay. So I first want to wrap my arms around that layer of going, what is it that I control that I can I can look at. So if my lead pastor comes and says, how are we doing on our emails last couple of years?

00:33:40:11 – 00:34:00:29
Speaker 2
You have that right. You don’t want to just sit there and go, I don’t know. It’s a good question. You’re not doing your job, you know, so make sure you understand what that is. The second layer would be from a ministry point of view, right. So kids ministry, young adults, adults. What metrics are you guys measuring and how can I play a role in that?

00:34:00:29 – 00:34:31:16
Speaker 2
As a comms director, I want to help you win. Right. So I want to I want to be in tune with that layer of, of of numbers. And that may be pushing them. Maybe they have no clue. Well, how can I help you track your numbers? Not that we’re just always dialed by a number, but I’ll tell you what you want to be moving the needle on getting more numbers, because every number represents a person that represents a story that God loves and has changed once to change.

00:34:31:18 – 00:34:50:23
Speaker 2
So even though we get wrapped up in, sometimes wrapped up in, we want to have more numbers. Well, that it’s the people, that’s the number. So that’s the third. The top one would be as a church. I was just on a call because we, you know, we build websites. So I was talking to this leadership team about their website, and I was asking some basic questions.

00:34:50:25 – 00:35:29:24
Speaker 2
How many baptisms did you have last year compared to the year before? They didn’t know how many people said yes to Jesus this last year from the year before, they didn’t know how many people are in groups. Because you told me groups is an important component of your church. How many people are in groups this year compared to last year, and you know, and we didn’t I don’t really push hard, but I kind of planted the seeds to go, you know, it would be good to know that because that is the stuff that we can help move the needle on, because it’s important to make sure that, you know, we’re winning more people to Jesus.

00:35:29:24 – 00:35:54:23
Speaker 2
This is what we’re called to do love God, love people, make disciples. And so if you don’t really know your numbers, how do you know your how do you know if you’re winning? And as a director, your job is to support the goals and the direction of the leadership of your lead pastor? You’re not setting those goals. Maybe you’re part of the conversation, but they’re the ones that are that should be setting those goals.

00:35:54:26 – 00:36:12:09
Speaker 2
And so, I always look at that because I’m going, okay. We want to have more. We want to have a baptism weekend. What kind of story can I go get that’s going to communicate that baptism helps a lot with life change. So instead of just saying, hey, we’re having a baptism weekend, we’re actually telling the story.

00:36:12:09 – 00:36:32:14
Speaker 2
That’s the director’s job. I can play a role in getting more people to say yes to Jesus, get baptized because of stories. Oh that’s me. I’ll go. I’ll go find some stories or ask the ministries about people they know, and I’ll run with that. Right? That that’s a way that you can play in to helping your team, your your staff, your church, win.

00:36:32:20 – 00:36:37:20
Speaker 2
And that that there is the ROI. At least there’s a lot more to that. But, Zach, what do you think?

00:36:37:23 – 00:37:07:16
Speaker 3
Yeah. And what you brought up is like. Yes. Like we want pastor comes to you, we want baptisms. And so, yes, we’re using stories. We’re able to get that. But something that we have to train ourselves and our leadership to recognize is that numerical impact on different platforms does not equal the same output. So if I’m only pushing baptism stories on social media, I know 95% of the people that see my content do not go to my church.

00:37:07:18 – 00:37:32:06
Speaker 3
So if I’m saying baptism was not successful because of our social media numbers, that is an unrealistic expectation that we just set and then everybody feels defeated. But if I want baptisms to be successful, I need to story tell where in my emails because email are people that are bought into what we’re doing. They’re wanting to take the next step in their faith.

00:37:32:06 – 00:37:52:06
Speaker 3
They’re wanting to go deeper in their relationship with God and in their church. So that’s where I’m storytelling. So part of the issue is making sure that we’re setting realistic expectations based on the numbers. A high engagement rate on social media does not always correlate to numerical growth in house. So making sure that we’re setting expectation.

00:37:52:08 – 00:37:53:07
Speaker 2
Love that.

00:37:53:08 – 00:38:17:19
Speaker 1
Yeah I’m a I’m a next steps guy. So and not just for comms people but for everybody in in church in ministry. And I think, you know, I think it was I think it was actually Brady Shearer that was riffing on this like, I don’t know, ten years ago. And he was talking about, you know, the metrics that churches tend to to measure are, you know, we we have to, you know, we, we measure butts in seats and bucks in the bucket.

00:38:17:19 – 00:38:41:28
Speaker 1
Right. Like what? How was the offering and what was the weekend attendance, both of which are lag measures not lead measures. Now if I’m going to use this term lead and lag measure, this is something we use internally here at missional marketing. If you’re not familiar with that, and you get on ChatGPT and the ask ChatGPT or claw or perplexity, whatever your favorite AI tool is to explain to you what lead measures and lag measures are, the short version is lead measures are things that you can control.

00:38:41:28 – 00:38:59:05
Speaker 1
Lag measures are things that you can’t. You can’t control. How many people show up on a Sunday morning, what you can control. And so therefore that’s a lag measure. What you can control from a lead measure is how many people you invite to church on Sunday morning, and how frequently you’re inviting them and by what methods you’re inviting them.

00:38:59:11 – 00:39:26:11
Speaker 1
And so, you know, I had a call with the church recently that, set a pretty hefty goal for themselves for their Christmas Eve service attendance. And the they missed their mark. No, their numbers were up year over year from 2020 for Christmas Eve to 2025, but they didn’t hit the number that they set in. Their first instinct was, well, the communications director didn’t do a good marketing campaign like that was that was almost the knee jerk reaction.

00:39:26:11 – 00:39:47:08
Speaker 1
And so she asked me, she’s like, can can you pull some data I need to I need to show that the ad campaigns that we ran actually work them, like the ad campaigns that we ran worked really, really well. Now, your budget was exactly the same for 2025 as it had been for 2024. So to expect a different set of results based on the same input, I think is a little presumptuous.

00:39:47:08 – 00:40:10:18
Speaker 1
Like, I don’t know why you’d expect we’ll have more people when we do the exact same thing. That doesn’t make any sense. But hey, that’s a different conversation for a different day. But when I think about events and activities, I find the comms director. I’m going to say, if we’re going to announce this or we’re going to promote this, or we’re trying to engage people in this process, what’s the one thing that we want everybody to do as their next step?

00:40:10:21 – 00:40:35:29
Speaker 1
Because if I know what that measurable is, and I’m now effectively communicating to everyone what their next step is, I can now actually see the ROI on my work based on how many people respond. And take that next step. They take they they join a group or they attend the, the ministry fair or whatever it is that we have this going on that we’re supposed to be measuring.

00:40:36:03 – 00:40:53:26
Speaker 1
It’s not just the output or the number of people that show up, it’s the number of people that show up and then actually take a next step. And I think that if we can figure out how to be more next step centric, it actually helps us know whether or not we’re winning. People are moving along a pathway of discipleship or whatever it is that you have in your church.

00:40:53:29 – 00:41:18:09
Speaker 2
Well, and I also look at I kind of related to, visually related to a scale. So if you got a scale and you’re like, okay, we want to have more baptisms, well, you’re going to put some more stuff on that scale to move that. Yeah. Who has the most weight? Does social media have the most weight? Do paid ads have the most weight newsletter have the most weight, or does your lead pastor have the most weight?

00:41:18:11 – 00:41:38:12
Speaker 2
Okay, so we would probably safe to say that you’re lead pastor by getting up and hammering home baptisms. Or maybe it’s groups or whatever it is. You know, that’s going to carry the most weight. Now, will the the lead pastor carry the most weight in getting attendance for Christmas? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably. You know, he’s going to have definitely.

00:41:38:12 – 00:41:57:29
Speaker 2
He’s a he’s a he’s 100 pound gorilla weight. Right. So he needs to talk about that. But you might want to use some paid ads because that’s going to that’s going to he can’t go out and reach 10,000 people. But you can through a paid ad campaign. So you I think yes, I’ll have to understand the, the weight of the weights, if you will.

00:41:58:01 – 00:42:07:00
Speaker 2
When you pull that trigger to say, okay, pastor, for the next few weeks, I need you to hammer this home, because that’s an internal thing we’re trying to move versus trying to reach more people outside.

00:42:07:03 – 00:42:10:20
Speaker 1
Yeah. Any party thoughts? There’s at.

00:42:10:23 – 00:42:11:28
Speaker 3
No. I like the next steps.

00:42:11:28 – 00:42:12:29
Speaker 1
Yeah. Like next steps.

00:42:13:04 – 00:42:24:02
Speaker 3
Expectations. All of this is commun. As communication directors your communicate maybe that’s our deficiency is our pain points are in us not communicating.

00:42:24:04 – 00:42:44:19
Speaker 1
Yeah absolutely. Well let’s call this one done. I’m going to wrap this up. Thank you guys for hanging out with me today. And I hope our audience has found this to be helpful. You know, one of the things that we do, at Missional Marketing and Church Communications Group is we provide, a lot of free resources through, through this podcast, through blog posts, on our articles, on our website.

00:42:44:21 – 00:43:08:17
Speaker 1
There’s a Facebook group you can join called the Church Communications Group, where there’s all kinds of helpful stuff there. Jason mentioned our app connects, link to the connects app. We haven’t really been promoting that a whole lot publicly, but, there is a growing audience on the connects to app, which is specifically designed for for church communications, people’s, a growing community there and more resources that we’re going to be loading there so that, you can be better equipped, to do your role.

00:43:08:20 – 00:43:24:04
Speaker 1
We produced this podcast because we want to help churches grow by leveraging digital marketing and effective communications. And we just want to be an advocate for you. Those of you who are in the trenches doing the work, ministry, work week in, week out. So we appreciate you hanging out with us and making it all the way to the end of this episode.

00:43:24:07 – 00:43:38:00
Speaker 1
And if you haven’t yet, subscribe. Wherever you listen to your favorite podcast, make sure that you do that so that you don’t miss any future episodes. And if you’re watching on our YouTube channel, make sure that you give us a like. Leave a comment. I’d love to engage with you there. Let us know if there’s anything more that we can do for you.

00:43:38:00 – 00:43:43:16
Speaker 1
On behalf of Jason and Zach, I’m Bart, and thanks again for tuning in to the Missional Marketing Podcast.