Systems Tell Your Story
The following is reprinted and was originally posted at https://www.onlinegiving.org/support/systems-to-tell-your-story.
“To effectively communicate your message, you’ll need to stop building your strategy exclusively around physical attendance.” Why? As my friend, Dave Anderson, says, “Church attendance is not decreasing. It’s decentralizing.” 1.
In early 2019, Phil Bowdle wrote that in a book named, Rethink Communication: A Playbook to Clarify and Communicate Everything in Your Church. If that was true in 2019, it is even more so today. We now must think not only in terms of attendance but of engagement. Your active members show up twice a month on average. Churches have been forced to find ways to engage with their members wherever they are. But here is a problem.
“People are bombarded with more than 3,000 marketing messages every 24 hours.” 2.
This means you must communicate creatively and consistently to get your story heard. The question is how?
By building systems and stories ensuring support for Kingdom Growth.
Let’s unpack that by first laying out the basics for continued engagement with your congregation. What tools should you have in place? Here is my list of key tools you need in place now.
- Dynamic website – Your website is the first place most people will visit before they ever darken your doors. Your landing page must draw people in with engaging content. Here are two links where we discuss this.
https://www.onlinegiving.org/support/3-keys-to-an-effective-giving-page
https://www.onlinegiving.org/support/guest-friendly-website - Robust online giving platform – Our 15+ different giving methods offer donors amazing convenience. Find out more at (615) 206-4000 or email us at support@onlinegiving.org.
- Social media platform and presence – Today, people are spending hours daily pouring through social media posts.
- Postage-prepaid envelopes – By inserting envelopes in any snail mail appeals you send; members can write a check and send it back to you. Then, you can use our check scanning feature, making it easy to deposit that gift. Find out more in this post:
https://www.onlinegiving.org/support/announcing-our-new-check-scanning-capability. - Extensive database of your donors – Now is the time to clean it up and be prepared for the various mailings, emails, and text messages you will need to send. Our chatbot feature can help with this!
https://www.onlinegiving.org/support/chatbot-for-church-growth - Mass email platform, such as Constant Contact or MailChimp – There are many platforms to help you send out emails in multiple batches. Find the tool that suits your church database best.
Having these basic tools ready and available gives you the platform to tell your story. You will need more than systems to stem the receding tide of giving.
Stories are what touches the heart of a donor. To gain that first gift, you must make the connection of how a dollar given at your church makes the world a better place. One of the best ways to do that is to tell the story of what your church is accomplishing for the Kingdom. Stories illustrate your mission and vision.
Your story is your vision in action. I’ve stopped asking church leaders to tell me about their vision. They typically gave me their pithy vision statement. Instead, I started asking them to tell me about their story. They would share their heart and their dreams. That experience led me to coin one of my key-giving mantras…
Get a story, work your story, tell your story, and people will give to support your story.
Your vision, aka story, better be good to be heard above the roar of everything coming at your members. Why? Because they are receiving 3,000 marketing messages a day!
The good news is that our story is the greatest story ever told. A story of a Savior named Jesus for the world. Before they can hear your story, you must have the systems in place. Without a compelling story, the best systems in the world are worthless. You need both. Let us help you start building your systems and stories!
The Twentieth Century church saw almost 100% of their giving coming through an offering plate in the form of physical cash and checks. The Twenty-First Century church sees the reverse, with almost 100% of their giving coming through digital means. How do we stay engaged with our congregation in this high-tech world of the 21st Century? It starts by realizing you must stop building your strategy exclusively around physical attendance. We know a thing or two about that.
To get started, contact us at (615) 206-4000 or drop us a line at support@onlinegiving.org. We can help build out the systems your stories can be showcased on.
1. Phil Bowdle. Rethink Communication: A Playbook to Clarify and Communicate Everything in Your Church, 2019 Center for Church Communication, page 34.
2. Donald Miller, Building a Storybrand, Harper Collins Leadership, 2017, page 230.