I've been working as a church communications director for more than a year now, and sometimes even people at my church question what exactly I do. It's a great job, allowing me to be creative, so I wanted to share with you what my job actually looks like.
Back in October 2018, after attending my church for about four months, my husband and I went to the New Member Class and officially became a member. After the class, I stopped to talk to the senior pastor, letting him know my skill set with many years of blogging and running an online business, and offered to help if they needed it.
Much to my surprise, he said, “We’re actually looking to hire someone who knows how to do all of those things. Come to my office Monday and let’s talk.”
Funny how God works. I was feeling uncertain about the future of my business at the time, and then God just opens this big ol’ door allowing me to use my skills for His kingdom. Won’t He do it?
Long story short, I got hired, and have been working part-time for my church ever since. I’ve had several projects since that time, but also have specific tasks for which I am responsible on a weekly basis.
Church Communications Director Projects
PROJECT #1: BUILD A NEW WEBSITE
The first project I was responsible for was completely rebuilding our church website from scratch.
Well, let me clarify: I was tasked with making our existing website better, but once I got in there and saw the inner workings, it was pretty crappy, so I suggested we start from scratch.
And the pastoral staff agreed.
So over the course of 4 months, I worked side-by-side with the senior pastor and other staff members to create an entirely new website that we launched in February 2019.
PROJECT #2: UPDATE OUR DATABASE
This was, quite honestly, a nightmare. I’ll keep this brief but essentially, we have been using a system that was created for churches to keep all of their data – members and their information, giving information, deacon lists, etc. It worked, but it was cumbersome, to say the least.
So I researched and found another system that looked amazing. They even had a 3-day training “camp” in Arizona where I could immerse myself in it and come back ready to teach my staff.
I went. I tried. And it was not at all what was advertised on their website. They neglected to tell me (or anyone) that you really need a full-time coder and IT person to run this system, and would have to pay thousands of dollars to transfer the information from one system to another.
NO THANK YOU!
I found another system eventually that is much more user-friendly – Planning Center. I’ve spent the better part of the past six months slowing moving our data over to Planning Center and getting everyone trained. It’s honestly fantastic, and everyone has enjoyed using it. YAY!
SMALLER PROJECTS:
During 2019, I also worked on some smaller projects for our church:
- Set up MailChimp, integrated with Planning Center, and now send weekly newsletters and ministry-specific newsletters
- Redesigned the worship guide
- Launched YouTube channel
UPCOMING PROJECTS:
This year, I have a few projects that I’ll be working on to improve current communications:
- Implement a better workflow for guests and new members that includes automated email sequences
- Create a welcome packet for guests
- Create new back-of-seat cards for giving, contact info, and prayer cards
- Launch and maintain podcast (started this one already!)
Church Communications Tasks
I think “communications” can involve a lot of different things, and will vary depending on the churches specific needs and congregation. Our church is in a small town with an interesting mix of higher-income part-time residents and middle-income full-time residents. We have a multi-generational congregation and we are a very active church with events going on all the time.
Basically that means I have a lot of communicating to do to be sure I reach everyone about everything.
DIGITAL COMMUNICATION
On a weekly basis, I am responsible for:
- Creating and scheduling Facebook and Instagram content
- Editing sermons for podcast, YouTube video, and blog
- Posting sermons to iTunes, YouTube, and our blog with notes
- Creating a weekly church-wide newsletter with the latest news and upcoming events
- Creating occasional ministry-specific newsletters (student ministry, children’s ministry, women’s ministry, men’s ministry, and senior adult ministry)
- Photographing events and sharing photos in online albums
- Updating and maintaining church website
- Adding events to the church website calendar and Facebook events
- Designing graphics and flyers for all of our events
- Maintaining our church staff calendar
PRINT COMMUNICATION
I’m also responsible for:
- Creating and printing our weekly worship guide/bulletin for Sunday services
- Designing and printing event flyers
- Writing press releases for bigger events and submitting them to local publications
We’re a smaller church, averaging 300 between 2 services on Sundays, but we are very active in our community and host events all the time, which keeps me busy! But I love that God has allowed me to use all of the skills I learned in ten years of blogging and running an online business to work for the church.
Here on the blog, I’ll occasionally share tips and tutorials geared toward churches, and things that could also be applied to bloggers and online business owners. I have so much information stored up in my brain, and I need to put it somewhere!
If you have specific questions about building a website, or doing any of the things I do for my job, leave a comment below or send me an email and I’ll try to help!
5 Responses
I loved this! I do a few of these things for our church in Boise, idaho. I love to get new ideas for our church bulletin (which I will now work on changing to our “worship guide” – love it! ). I would love to look at yours. Thanks for all you do!!
Hey Kristi! Thanks so much! Nice to connect with a fellow Church Communicator! I’m actually planning a blog post with a tutorial for how I put our worship guide together. Depending on how many events we have going on, I rotate between a bifold 8.5×11 and a trifold 8.5×14, so I’ll do a tutorial for both. If there’s anything else you’d like to know, just ask!
Yay! I can’t wait to see your post!
I am so happy for you in your new role. It is funny how we have both ended up in similar jobs…me as the Office Manager at church, where I do a lot of the things you do! I need to check out Planning Center because our database software is super outdated. I am here for all your Bible Study resources (something I am working on doing daily) and your church related posts! Hugsxoxox
I love that we both ended up working at church. 🙂 Planning Center is awesome. You can use the “People” portion for free and check out the other parts for free, too. If you have questions about it, let me know!