We’ve finally redesigned the Center for Church Communication site, and with the new look comes a new RSS feed. We hope you’ll check out the site and update your RSS feed:

New feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/cfcclabs

While you’re checking out the new site, be sure to check out our Echo Ticket Giveaway.

Thanks,
The Center for Church Communication Team

“We’ve gone from the Gutenberg generation of the church to the Google generation of the church,” Ware says. “For 500 years, things have been one way. And now, in five years’ time, almost everything has changed. The gospel message doesn’t change, but the presentation of it and the accessibility of it and everything in the culture around it has changed.”

We've released an official job description for the Regional Network Coordinators to make that a little more specific. In a nutshell, the Regional Network Coordinators serve as reporters, promoters and representatives.

Check out their detailed job description and connect with one today:

RNC Job Description (PDF, 832 KB, 8 pages)

What's your role as executive director? What do you actually do?

In the simplest terms, I act as the coordinator for our experiments/initiatives/projects. I help turn ideas into proposals for our board of directors so that the initiatives we want to launch get put into motion. Our board of directors is made up of many of my closest colleagues and working with them is a complete joy. They are an absolutely stellar group of church communication professionals.

Additionally, I've gotten to work hand in hand with the CFCC team including Joshua Cody, Michael Buckingham and Kevin Hendricks. This has been great for me, because I learn from each of them, since each has their own area of expertise. I'm also learning a lot about leading a nonprofit from those that have been involved for a lot longer than I have. Once you've served on church staffs for a couple of decades, it can give you a ministry model mindset. But leading a nonprofit requires some additional tools and the whole team has been graciously accommodating me as I learn some of the new skills my role requires.

Also, our team is growing and we've just added 19 Regional Network Coordinators. They are a diverse group of supporters from across the United States, each of whom has a unique view of the church/communication intersection. The coordinators are like our eyes on the ground alerting us to churches who are communicating with excellence. Besides our coordinators, we're expanding in other ways as well. We're going to establish a brand new role, project catalyst, designed as a right arm for me when we launch some of the new projects we're planning. The Church Marketing Lab is also defining its leadership team and we've added project leaders to help support our moderators there in the labs.

Basically, if you look at any one part of our organization, you'll see either growth or planned growth so we're in the middle of a wonderful season of transition.

I'm in a "crow's nest" position so I have a bird's eye view of both our ship and the horizon. I get the privilege of connecting with the people on the deck and getting to peer into the future, helping chart what's up ahead.

Well, it's full time in my heart since it's just a perfect role fit for me. But, the reality is that I am on staff at a local church in an associate pastoral role with my husband. Between my church staff commitments, caring for my family, traveling and speaking, I am only able to devote about 12-15 hours a week to the Center for Church Communication. I spend the rest of my time burning dinner while creating 404 errors on my web site. I'd like to see my time commitment to the organization grow and that's one of the things I'll be working on over the next two months. It's also a one-year appointment and the board will re-evaluate in October.

What are you most excited about in your role as executive director?

Throughout my ministry I have been passionately drawn to the next generation. The beauty of our organization is that it's a wonderful mix of those who we would consider seasoned veterans in church communications and those who are just getting started. We identify, resource, celebrate and champion the next generation of church communicators, so it's just a brilliant tailor-made fit for my personal ministry passion. This part is really quite effortless since I'm constantly interfacing with next gen communicators.

Tell us a little about yourself.

My husband and I have been in pastoral ministry for quite a while. We've pastored throughout California in many different capacities and love serving the church. Although we've given ourselves to pastoring, I've got a substantial background in communications--so the Center for Church Communication is an excellent bi-vocational fit for me. CFCC founder, Brad Abare, is someone I've interfaced with a lot over the last few years and that relationship is what introduced me to the workings of CFCC.

What is CFCC's mission?

Originally we would have summed up our mission in a tagline like this "we help the church matter." Today, CFCC is in the midst of an organic growth spurt. Due the growth/popularity of some of our initiatives, for example, the Church Marketing Sucks blog, we find ourselves in a unique time of metamorphosis. Historically, CFCC has been somewhat invisible, behind the scenes, like a stage hand behind the scenes. Although our role is not evolving--we identify, resource, celebrate and spotlight excellence in church communication--our visibility is. More people are asking who our organization is and what it does. It's been joked about that we're "taking over the world" but honestly, we only exist to champion others--and will always be a simple nonprofit that exists to resource and support church communication professionals (and volunteers!).

We're in the process of redeveloping two of our web sites. Both Church Marketing Sucks and the Center for Church Communication sites are in the midst of redesigns and we're all very excited about that. It's been a longstanding dream to rebuild both. Another key development is that the CFCC site will contain a new brand narrative. That's just a fancy way of saying that we've clarified who we are and what we're hoping to accomplish. Thanks to the brilliant communicators affiliated with us, our positioning and message have evolved into their clearest iteration yet.

Here's a snippet of the new brand narrative just to get you excited about what's next:

"We are a firebrand of communicators, sparking churches to communicate the gospel clearly, effectively and without compromise. We are made up of passionate change agents, experienced communications professionals and thoughtful instigators; advocating for communicators to find their place in the church—and helping the church find her voice to the community—so that churches know who they are, and are unashamed to tell others. We identify, resource and celebrate the next generation of church communicators, encouraging them to unleash their tenacity and talent for excellent communication, so that churches are sought out by the communities they serve."

I wouldn't necessarily call them "big things" because we relish small beginnings, but there are two experimental projects we're trying to put together currently that are pretty exciting. Shhh, don't tell anyone because this is insider information... one involves spotlighting those who achieve outstanding excellence in a particular communication category and the other involves a collection of church comm experts who provide in depth topical resources for pastors and church staff members.

We just recently launched the Church Marketing Directory. The beauty of the Directory is that it is be a resource for any church looking for communication resources, a yellow pages directory of sorts, if you will. Since no one person could assemble such a resource, we're crowdsourcing entries and hope to keep improving the Directory and adding functionality as we go. Additionally, we're knee deep in the redesigns I mentioned earlier--you can't get much bigger than that.

Church communications is such a big issue--where do you think churches can begin to improve?

I think there are some real basic understandings that all churches could benefit from. If you are a local pastor, it might surprise you to know that you have a "brand." Whether you like it or not, whether you even believe it or not, your church has its own brand. By that I simply mean your own story, your own distinctive, your own calling, function and assignment from God. Some churches are telling their stories magnificently. Others, not so much. If there is not a clear and unique vision being cast--your message is nondescript.

Church communications used to mean your weekend bulletin. Here are some of the things I see it encompassing today (you may produce, some, all, or none of these): your web site, bulletin (electronic or print), graphics, multimedia, campaigns (bumperstickers, t-shirts, swag, billboards, newspaper ads, flyers, cards, mail-outs, etc.) and your building.

And speaking of your facility (if you have one), effective non-verbal communication is a huge passion and emphasis for me personally. I know that swings to the far edge of comm/marketing but I think it's critically important. If your message is that we want to serve the community--but your building is "off-limits" to non-church events, you are communicating a mixed message.

Your message is repeated a thousand different times, non-verbally. As church leaders, we should be thinking about this. For example, if your church says it has a desire to reach young people, but never platforms youth in any roles of leadership training, you've got a problem. If you never let young people lead worship, read scriptures, perform ministry tasks, engage in ownership of projects, etc., your message and your actions create a serious disconnect. And everyone knows it, especially the young people you hope to reach. This same concept is applicable in numerous examples across all facets of church communications.

What's the worst example of church marketing you've ever seen?

Well, I can't give you a worst example--too incriminating for the creator and involving images that shouldn't even be online. But I will say this. If you are confused about who you are as a church--your story will always be confusing, possibly bland and likely impotent. Your message will be like salt that's lost its flavor, is tasteless and will be, for all intents and purposes, worthless. As I said before, some churches are telling their stories magnificently--they are salty and we will be finding ways to spotlight their efforts so we can all learn to communicate with increasing degrees of clarity and effectiveness.

At the Center for Church Communication we strive to provide resources for all church communicators to learn to tell their story better.

What's the best?

Again, without giving out a "best" since that's such a matter of opinion, I'll say this: If you, as a church, have taken the time to evaluate who you are as a church family, taken the time to determine what is your unique calling for the unique community you want to serve, even if that's a non-geographic community, your story (read: church marketing) has every potential to be effective, elegant and engaging to those who hear/see it. In fact, there's little better than a message that speaks so clearly you think it was designed just for you.

"We are a firebrand of communicators, sparking churches to communicate the gospel clearly, effectively and without compromise."

2009 Annual Report (PDF, 2.7 MB, 14 pages)

The 2009 annual report includes an overview of CFCC, the projects we offer, the leadership team and the current financial reports as well as a summary of financial reports since our beginning in 2006.

The Directory is a list of tools, resources and companies that help the church communicate better. Consider it a yellow pages of church marketing. You'll find technology blogs, freelance designers, marketing communities, church management software and more.

The site has a handy 'Suggest a Link' feature where you can add resources we may have missed. We expect the Directory to grow and expand as more resources are suggested.

An important thing to note is that the Directory is focused on church marketing. This is not a list of Christian marketers or a list of companies that could help the church. This list is limited to organizations that specifically cater to the church. That's not to say these are the only organizations that can help the church, just that they specifically cater to the church. It's the difference between Seth Godin's blog and LifeChurch.tv's Swerve blog--both great resources, but only one focuses on the church. That niche focus will keep the list efficient and useful.

So we encourage you to check out the Church Marketing Directory. Help us add links to it and make it a helpful tool for churches.

So if at its core it feels a little Yahoo circa 1996, that's OK. We're starting small and hope to improve it as we go.

History
This project has been a long time coming. You can trace its roots to the original Don't Suck List on Church Marketing Sucks. In fact, we have notes from a 2006 conversation with Tony Morgan and Kem Meyer when we tried to hammer out our ideas for such a Directory (consequently, Tony and Kem shot down our ideas for a paid listing directory--glad we listened to them).

In 2008 we gathered a team to finally improve the Don't Suck List (this Directory is the first step in that effort, but it's not the Don't Suck List). We had lengthy discussions about how to make the site work and generated a lot of great ideas. But eventually the effort collapsed under the weight of so many voices. We were trying to build too much at once and didn't have the right structure in place to make it happen.

In 2009 we resurrected the idea with a smaller team and smaller ambitions. This time around the plan was just to create a structure that could house a Directory and let it grow from there. No frills, just links. The scaled down approach worked and through the fall we were able to fine-tune the site. By January we had a finished product that we began testing with the CFCC board, the Regional Network Coordinators and the Church Marketing Lab. Finally, we gave our e-mail newsletter subscribers a sneak peek last week and officially launched the Directory this week.

Whew.

Thanks
You can't do a project like this without needing to thank a lot of people. Perhaps the biggest thank you goes to Nathan Clark and Matt Kirkland at CityGates who volunteered to design and build the Directory. We also had great support from Paul Steinbrueck of OurChurch.com, who worked with the team in 2008 and came back in 2009 to help us think through a lot of the backend decisions. He's going to stay on as part of our Directory team that will continue to guide this project forward.

We also have to thank the many people who stepped up in 2008 when we first tried to launch this project. While that initial effort ultimately fell apart, we did learn a lot from those discussions and wouldn't be where we are today without those contributions.

Finally, we owe an on-going debt of thanks to the many folks who have and will continue to submit links. A directory like this only works because people share their expertise and make it better.

So thanks for your help and go check out the Church Marketing Directory.

She discussed ministry excellence with skill and poise in a recent piece from the State of Ministry Online. Asked about the definition of excellence in online ministry, Cynthia had this to say:

Excellence used to be about making your blog spectacular, but now we are seeing many more evolutionary and collaborative open source efforts. Sometimes online excellence is seen when someone has taken the initiative and laid the foundation for others to follow.

She was also quoted recently in Faith in San Antonio as well, discussing the delicate challenge of making wise decisions about when to embrace new technologies.

We look forward to Cynthia's continued role in helping the church balance technology and effective communication.

Last year, our newly appointed board of directors gave me the task of acting as hub (read: director) for our communication initiatives in 2010. I realized I would never be able to tap into all the creative communicators serving in churches across the United States (and the world!) without a lot of help. Fortunately, since I’ve worked in churches for so many years, I’ve got a lot of friends.

That’s why I’ve decided to establish a collective of Regional Network Coordinators for CFCC. These are simply friends and colleagues who we feel have something to offer as we identify, celebrate, inspire and resource a growing contingency of church communicators. They are diverse, some are well-known voices, others offer a unique perspective, etc.

What They Do
Our network of coordinators will simply function as eyes and ears on the ground in their respective areas of the country. They will help CFCC with behind the scenes projects and will point us to their favorite/most inspiring communicators and campaigns.

We have carefully selected these 18 individuals to act as local resources so that if anyone in their area needs communication resources they can point to CFCC. Likewise, we can learn from them what’s happening in their area and share those lessons, resources and ideas with the broader community. The goal is to offer some back and forth and ensure that CFCC is better plugged into the church communications community. This isn’t an exclusive club—we hope it will grow (especially in areas where we lack representation) and benefit the entire community.

As we all continue to improve our communication skills, we hope these coordinators will inspire us by pointing us to that which is good, true and beautiful in church communication.

Here is the list of Regional Network Coordinators:

CFCC 2010 Regional Network Coordinators

• Greg Atkinson (Dallas, TX)
  
• Tiffani Barnes (Nashville, TN)
  
• Shelley Chesney (Santa Barbara, CA)
  
• Nathan Davis (Oklahoma City, OK)
  
• Sam DuRegger (Pella, IA)
  
• Danielle Hartland (Erie, PA)
  
• Rich Kirkpatrick (Temecula, CA)
  
• Matt Knisely (Lawton, OK)
  
• Craig Littlejohn (San Jose, CA)
  
• Vince Marotte (Austin, TX)
  
• Crystal Renaud (Kansas City, KS)
  
• John Saddington (Atlanta, GA)
  
• Tim Schraeder (Chicago, IL)
  
• Ryan Spilhaus (McLean, VA)
  
• Vin Thomas (Portland, OR)
  
• Camron Ware (Dallas, TX)
  
• Heather Whittaker (Atlanta, GA)
  
• Brian Wurzell (Chandler, AZ)
  
• Benji Zimmerman (Las Vegas, NV)

We hope you know some of these people and can be a support to us by directing them to examples you may know of that reflect excellence in church communications. If you're part of our community, please visit their sites, familiarize yourself with their work and welcome them with comments.

Brad responds to the fad of Christians making puns or spin-offs of popular culture items, saying:

"The whole claim for Christians in general is that God is the source of all creativity. I think there's something to being original that will speak to people in a way that we don't have to copy."

It's always nice to have an opportunity to point folks looking for a quote from the "Christian perspective" in the right direction. We hope to see more loving and challenging quotes like this come from the church moving forward.

Our own Michael Buckingham is quoted on the issue, saying:

"The Internet isn't powerful because it connects you to information, but because it connects you to people."

And they go on to report our unscientific poll results to help get the pulse on how churches are doing with social media.

We're always humbled and excited to be involved with publications like Leadership Journal. We look forward to continue giving advice and challenges to the church community at large as we all try to communicate the gospel more clearly.

The board members include Brad Abare, Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Phil Cooke, Drew Goodmanson, Scott McClellan, Kem Meyer and Kent Shaffer. They first met in October and appointed Cynthia Ware as our executive director.

That's quite a team of church communicators and we're proud to have them on board. This new executive team will lead us forward, giving us direction, wisdom and guidance as we help the church matter.

The event was a huge success, and CFCC was honored to participate in the forum. It's exciting to see conversations happening about the current role and state of church marketing as well as dreams of what the future holds.

You can view the whole stream online at Vimeo.

He examines the obvious benefits of the technological advance--greater access to biblical texts, great connectivity amongst individuals and improved availability of resources for those seeking to go deeper.

But perhaps more astutely, the article considers the drawbacks of this technological advance. He warns:

A life-giving, biblical church community must understand the difference between using technology to communicate the transforming power of the gospel, and letting the gospel be transformed by technology. We need more thoughtful Christians who are determined to heed Henry David Thoreau's warning against becoming "the tool of our tools."

You can read the entire article on the Christianity Today web site.

On Tuesday, 250 Web-savvy Christians -- from blogging pastors to iPhone programmers -- gathered at Park Community for Cultivate 09, an interactive conference on ministry communication, which includes marketing strategy. More than a third of Americans younger than 50 don't have a religious affiliation, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, but conference organizers say Web-based campaigns help bring younger, "unchurched" people into the Christian community.

The article covers the benefits of connecting via technology as well as the potential pitfalls of bypassing personal relationships in favor of online connectivity. It also includes a mention of Center for Church Communication founder Brad Abare:

The conference's proceeds benefit, in part, the Center for Church Communication, a nonprofit that tries to steer churches away from bad clip art and ineffective marketing. In its online labs, 3,500 people have shared their innovative ideas, said Brad Abare, 30, the center's founder.

Don't hesitate to read the entire article to see their view of churches marketing and communicating online.