Author and church consultant Lyle Schaller states:

People can hear in 15 seconds what it takes us 2 minutes to say. So if we want to effectively communicate to our audience, our preaching and teaching needs to always use multiple channels of communication.

Now 15 seconds is 8 times faster than 2 minutes, and Lyle is only discussing audible communication. Imagine how much more effective your sermon could be by appealing to all five senses. Consider the following:

Sight
Many churches already use a wide variety of visual communications including video, object lessons, and body language.

Sound
Sound is not limited merely to which words are spoken but also the tone and timing in which they are delivered. Learn the art of strategic pauses. Remember that silence can be a powerful thing. Music, as well, has an incredible ability to communicate with impact.

Taste
Yes, there are opportunities to use taste in your sermons. An example is Psalm 119:103 (NLT), “How sweet are your words to my taste; they are sweeter than honey.” This verse can be emphasized by offering the congregation a reminder of just how sweet honey tastes. (Note: Be cautious of allergies.)

Smell
Smell is considered by some to be the most powerful sense, and like taste, it can deliver a long lasting impact when purposefully incorporated into your message. If this interests you, be sure to check out our previous post, Smells Like Atmospherics. (Note: Be cautious of allergies.)

Touch
The sense of touch will also encourage your audience to think much more deeply about a subject. Children’s ministers, think about getting some rabbit furs the next time you plan on teaching about Esau (Genesis 27:11 NIV: “Esau is a hairy man.”). Senior pastors, think about illustrating the price Christ paid for our sins by passing out thorns to cause the congregation to seriously think about what a crown of thorns might feel like.

Of course, don’t get carried away and fill your sermon with things that interrupt or distract from the core principle of the message. Simply, if the opportunity arises to communicate more effectively, use it no matter what sense it appeals to.

Special thanks to Pastor Dave Ferguson of Community Christian Church (Naperville, IL) for sharing Lyle Schaller’s quote.

September 15th through October 15th is recognized as a national month long celebration of Hispanic heritage. It is a time to celebrate the cultures and traditions of the U.S. residents whose heritage came from Spain, Mexico, and the Spanish-speaking nations of Central America, South America, and the Caribbean. But while they are celebrating their culture, how well, if at all, does your church understand it? The Hispanic population may not be a minority for much longer, and it is vital that your church understand their culture if you ever want to reach them.

In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, the U.S. Census Bureau has collected the following Hispanic statistics:

• 42.7 Million - The estimated Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2005, making people of Hispanic origin the nation’s largest ethnic or race minority. Hispanics constituted 14 percent of the nation’s total population.
• 102.6 Million - The projected Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2050. According to this projection, Hispanics will constitute 24 percent of the nation’s total population on that date.
• About 1 of every two people added to the nation’s population between July 1, 2004, and July 1, 2005, were Hispanic.
• 27.2 - Median age, in years, of the Hispanic population in 2005. This compares with 36.2 years for the population as a whole.
• 13 - The number of states with at least half a million Hispanic residents. These states are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Texas and Washington.
• 19 - Number of states in which Hispanics are the largest race or ethnic minority group.
• 1.6 Million - The number of Hispanic-owned businesses in 2002.
• 67% - The percentage of Hispanic families consisting of a married couple.
• 44% -  The percentage of Hispanic families consisting of a married couple with children under the age of 18.
• 22% - Percentage of population under age 5 that is Hispanic, as of July 1, 2005.
• $35,967 - The median income of Hispanic households in 2005, unchanged from the previous year, in real terms.
• 21.8% - The poverty rate among Hispanics in 2005, unchanged from 2004.
• 58% - The percentage of Hispanics age 25 and older who had at least a high school education in 2004.
• 11% - Percentage of all college students in October 2004 who were Hispanic.
• 68% - Percentage of Hispanics age 16 and older who are in the civilian labor force.

The workhorse of any church is the volunteer. In fact, some of the largest churches have thousands of them. As a result, many pastors find themselves asking two questions: “How do we get more volunteers?” and “How can we keep the ones we have?”

I just finished reading Volunteers That Stick by Jim Wideman. Jim oversees the children’s ministry at Church on the Move (Tulsa, OK) which serves over 75 classes for kids each week with the help of more than 900 volunteers. He has harnessed his experience into a comprehensive resource on getting volunteers, keeping them for years of service, and every facet of volunteer management in between. A few nuggets from the book are:

• If you want to volunteers to stick around, you’ve got to create a culture where people like to hang out.
• Slick volunteer recruitment won’t make a bit of difference if once people sign up they don’t like how you do business.
• As a ministry leader, your role is to equip the volunteers in your area to do ministry effectively. You’re to be a coach - not to do all the ministry yourself.
• Your biggest temptation - and it will be your biggest problem if you give in - is to take people who are willing to serve but who haven’t been given the right abilities to work with kids.
• How long someone sticks as a volunteer, and how much that person grows, has a lot to do with you.
• If you get someone into a job where he or she is unhappy and a bad fit, it chases away people who would do a better job. Nobody wins - not you, the volunteers, or the kids you want to serve.
• You can’t pour all kinds of attention on incoming volunteers and then ignore them after they’re signed up. That communicates your ministry is all about getting new volunteers not keeping old ones. [More]
  

Catablog has reported the following great news:

Derek Webb, formerly of Caedmon’s Call, is partnering with blood:water and the International Justice Mission to bring you his newest CD - absolutely free.

Happy Downloading!

Kem Meyer of Granger Community Church (Granger, IN) has been gracious enough to provide samples of Granger’s communication materials for free!

• Big Idea Series Worksheet
• Volunteer Expo Insert
• Staff Blogging Guidelines
• Weekend Program
• Promotion Request Form
• Press Release
• Media Spokesperson Tips
• Promotional Deliverables and Audience Priorities

Thanks Kem!

There is no cure-all solution for church marketing. Because each ministry has its own unique set of variables, a custom approach is the only way to maximize the effectiveness of your church marketing. I do believe, however, that there is much to learn from the principles behind what works for other churches.

Case in point, Ed Young shares in the September issue of his Creative Leader Newsletter what Fellowship Church (Grapevine, TX) has done to market their new Miami campus. Ed offers some valuable ideas and principles to get you thinking about your church’s marketing. Some highlights include:

• And though things are definitely different in a small church, the underlying approach we use for all five of our campuses remains the same. We’re employing creativity and personal interaction to reach out and touch one life at a time.
• We knew that direct mail in Miami would have greater potential impact than in other regions where the church advertising market is more saturated. To coordinate with our Miami campaign of Refuel, Refresh, Redefine, we sent out a direct mail piece that visitors could Redeem at the church for a $5 gas card.
• Banners and signage outside the church are worth every penny. Many visitors have told us that they saw our signs and logged on to our Miami campus website for more information.
• We made sure the front page of [the website] is very easy to navigate with important information prominently displayed, and also included content that would give them a taste of the Fellowship Miami experience.
• Because of a press release we filed two weeks ago with national and local news agencies, the Miami Herald was on site covering our Kickoff Weekend.
• Nothing beats one-on-one dialogue. Whether we are in local stores, restaurants or just waiting in line somewhere, we strike up conversations with the people around us. Building relationships within the community is the most successful form of outreach available.
• Our staff personally calls each first time visitor. And we’re making a special effort to call in the evenings so we can actually talk to the visitors, answer questions and invite them back.
• We’ve used the questions people ask us to guide our marketing. We noticed that many of the people we talked to in Miami asked us, “What kind of church is it?” So in our promotional materials and signage for this campus we’ve added the fact that we are a Christian church.
• We know that our overall vision for this environment will take time to achieve. But we are taking immediate, easy steps (and lots of volunteer elbow grease) to upgrade the campus by planting additional landscaping and applying fresh paint. We’ve brought in some more modern wood tables for hospitality areas. We’re adding music, Cuban coffee and local pastries to create a welcoming atmosphere. And we’re fanatical about keeping the facility sparkling clean!
• A positive attitude and huge smile are tremendous assets in attracting people to any church. We have a team of floaters (greeters) who circulate throughout the entrance and areas outside the worship center, so visitors usually are engaged in several conversations before they sit down. The parking lot entrance is flanked by greeters who wave at passing traffic and incoming cars. In fact, we just talked to some visitors recently who said they turned around and came back because we waved at them!

What has all this done for Fellowship Church Miami? Well, the grand opening had over 600 people in attendance in their two Sunday services. Read back through the highlights and notice the little but important details that show they sought after the best methods to relevantly reach the Miami community without compromising their brand.

For more nuggets of wisdom from Fellowship Church, check out CreativePastors.com. They even have a resource on Launching a Satellite Campus that looks well worth the purchase.

Churches quite often put themselves under unreasonable pressure and expectations. In the pursuit of excellence, they overextend themselves or push themselves to the brink of burnout.

But they don’t have to. They can use Kurt Johnston’s “Cheap and Easy” philosophy. Kurt is the Jr. High Youth Pastor at Saddleback Church (Lake Forest, CA), and his new philosophy is the result of evaluating years of elaborate big events and realizing that what little fruit these events had did not warrant the time, money, and energy used to regularly pull them off. In Kurt’s words, “Cheap and Easy” means:

We still do a big event now and then, but the VAST majority of our events are now what we consider cheap and easy events. By cheap we simply mean low budget activities that cost us little to put together and cost little or nothing for students to attend. By easy we simply mean that they don¹t require a ton of our time to plan and are easy for students to attend (they can just show up instead of signing up ahead of time).

Instead of chartering busses for an Angel’s game, we decided to sell tickets to families and ask the families to meet us at the stadium. An event that used to be a headache (how many busses will we need?) has now become super easy and more affordable.

We created a weekly event called “Meet Us” where students simply meet us at the mall, the skate park, a swimming pool, etc.

Your church can find excellence in simple things. If you lose some valuable volunteers, you do not have to burn yourself out trying to cover the holes they leave. Instead, learn how to simplify things but still maintain excellence. That may mean cutting programs and adding something “Cheap and Easy.” It is a philosophy that will free up your resources for the tasks that really do get results.

You can read more about Kurt’s philosophy at SimplyJuniorHigh.com.

The Favorite Website Awards is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Flash technology by creating a list of the best Flash websites from each year. It is an exciting look at how far the technology and the designers have evolved over the decade.

The overall best of each year are:
1996-7: Gabocorp
1998: NRG.BE
1999: MONO*crafts
2000: John Mark Sorum
2001: 2Advanced Studios v3 Expansions
2002: Neostream Interactive
2003: Road Runner
2004: Vodafone Future Vision
2005: Leo Burnett
2006: In-Synch Challenge