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Let’s Talk About Talking: Three Surprising Ways to Fulfill Your Mission More Effectively

Everyone knows communication is important. If you look at your bookshelf right now, I’d be willing to guess that you have at least three books on communication. You might have even read at least one of them. There are workshops about communication, blog posts about communication, podcasts about communication, assessments to gauge effective communication, and this list could go on.

The problem with the paragraph above, however, is that communication oftentimes takes second or third (or fourth) place in staff meetings. Rather, we spend more time on assigning tasks, following up on task fulfillment, and calendaring than on improving our internal and external communication. This creates an environment in which people don’t feel heard, good ideas are missed, and mission clarity dissolves into the morass of John Wooden’s axiom, “Never mistake activity for achievement.”

How can communication help us fulfill the mission that God has given to us? Here are three ways focusing on communication in a staff meeting can help you, your staff, and your congregation move past the routine of a weekly church calendar and become a disciple-making juggernaut.

First, the act of having a staff meeting focused on communication conveys to your staff the importance of communication. I’ve had the privilege of helping churches identify issues in their organizational culture that are either helping or hindering them in their Great Commission pursuit. In every church that struggles with a bad staff culture or lack of disciple-making, the issue of poor communication has raised its ugly head. Leaders don’t feel listened to. Staff members don’t feel they have a voice. Congregants have no idea what the church is trying to do, so they insert their own mission and vision. All of these create frustration and burnout, so the cycle continues. A culture is created that is full of resentment, dissatisfaction, and exhaustion. No strategy will be able to overcome that because, as Peter Drucker (or Steve Jobs or Jack Welch—no one’s exactly certain) said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

How can you have a discussion about discussing things? Here are a few thoughts:

  • Begin by acknowledging past communication failures and stating your intent to develop better communication patterns. If you’re the leader of any group, you have the biggest voice in how that group communicates. That also means you have the biggest voice in shaping the culture of that group. Use it!
  • Repeat yourself. Be repetitive. Say the same things over and over. It’s easy to think that once you’ve communicated something, you can move on to the next thing. However, we all have short memories and strong emotions—things we’ve heard fade quickly and the troubles in front of us fill our thoughts. By repeating important communications, you can address short memories and strong emotions.
  • Make sure everyone has a voice. One of my favorite brainstorming exercises is called “Think, Write, Share.” The next time your staff sits down to tackle a problem, try this. Ask everyone to take 1 minute (or five if the issue is big enough) to silently think about the problem: what it is, what it isn’t, and any side issues. Then, have them write their response to the problem on a 3×5 card. Shuffle those cards and distribute them so that people are reading a random card. Take time to discuss each response without knowing who wrote it. The beauty of this is each voice is heard on an equal level from the Youth Pastor to the Administrative Assistant to the Senior Pastor.

Second, having a staff meeting focused on communication ensures that multiple generations have input into the communication strategy of the church. I recently attended the installation service of a new Senior Pastor who said, “We can’t just do the things I like, because we would just go back to my favorite time in church.” That made me happy because that’s when he was in my college group! But it also made me realize that, regardless of how hip and cool I might think I am, the fact that I just wrote “hip and cool” shows how out of touch with current culture I am. You might be, too, so you need someone from a different generation to speak into your communication strategy. The same is true if you lead an older congregation. One last thought—if you don’t have different generations on your team, go out and find someone. Your staff and your church will be better for it.

Third, a staff meeting focused on communication will not just create a better culture, it will also help you align everything you do with your mission and vision. This can happen both internally and externally. With your staff, simple communication exercises can help with mission clarity and fulfillment. A pastoral coach once asked me, “How many people are you praying will attend Easter this year?” I gave my most spiritual answer, “Oh…I just leave numbers like that to God.” He graciously listened to my overly spiritual reasoning and told me that he uses “prayer goals” to clarify the vision and create a sense of urgency. I’ve done that ever since. That communication isn’t made public—in fact I warn staff and leadership to not talk about it outside of our prayer times. However, internally we talk and pray for specifics. Our vision is clarified and we realize that if we want to see that happen, we need to step up.

If you focus on communication in your staff meeting, you can also clarify communication to the congregation so they know what the mission and vision is. However, if we don’t talk about that as a staff, the message gets muddled. I was a part of a congregation that launched a Fall Fun Fest. It could have been a great idea, but no one ever really clarified what it was for. One week the announcement was that it would be a safe place for church kids on Halloween. The next week the announcement was that it was an outreach to the neighborhood. I sat in the pew thinking, “Those two things might not be the same…” When we focus on communication as a staff, we can clearly articulate what an activity should accomplish. That’s a big step toward seeing that actually happen.

Communication can be tough, but not talking about communication makes it tougher. Take the time to focus on communication in a staff meeting and see how it focuses your staff on your congregations on what God has called it to do.

john
Written By:

John Craft

Consultant
John writes and consults in a variety of areas including: Communication Strategy, Church Planting, Ministry Health

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