Virtual Grapevine

Communication in church travels along many paths, not all of which can be controlled by the church itself, one of the newest aspects to this is updating a status on facebook, if say 50% of the church are on facebook, then news will travel at a broadband pace. This is good, as news can travel fast when needed such as: ‘bring a plate to church Sunday for the monthly lunch’ – a notice or more personal: ‘please pray for a sick member of the church, just been to see her, asks for prayer.’ This is good and beneficial. It can also be negative as everyone wants to feel included in the church and its life, so hearing of news second hand or after everyone else can lead to feelings of being undervalued, there could also be unclear communication and a Chinese whispers affect. However, leaders can embrace and shape this virtual grapevine by having good communication strategies in place and have limits on what information can be shared by staff on line via facebook and other such tools like twitter. In doing this, a congregation can communicate 24/7 and increase church community the other 6 days of the week.

Vision leaks

Myth 1 – page 32: “Weve got a mission statement so we have figured out who we are.”

The youth ministry I was a part of in Wellington had a mission statement that was used really for the leaders and sent to parents too on letterheads from the head youth worker (me). I then decided as a mission statement it was too long and no one really knew it. At the heart of it should be, what a church aspires to be in the community and what they do as a result of that. But I heard a great saying once, that: “vision leaks.” I might talk about it and preach it Sunday, but 3-4 weeks later it has gone from most peoples radar. So I changed it to something much shorter and clearer. So even the youth knew what we met for, the logo we had reflected it as did all our activites. Still that is not enough upon relfection, so I think congregations need to remember that vision and mission leak and so thereofre does passion for the vision and the mission so the church mision always needs to be before peopels eyes in some way, shape or form, to remind the church what they are there for and why they exist. We might call this holistic communication, which is vital to every church and ministry.

Hi, how are you?

Im Pete, 29, A husband , a dad, a bible college student @ St johns, Auckland, a deacon training to be a priest ! Sheesh, long sentance. I currently am majoring in Pastoral through Otago, this is my first year of study, should be done by the end of next. I hope to gain more skills for preaching and communicating and reflecting Jesus to other people by doing this paper! I am at church at St. Aidens in Remuera at the moment and am dreaming of what church could be and should be as I study. I love preaching and sharing with people,but in all humilty, I have heaps to learn, so am looking forward to this paper...