Why Does Communication Matter?

If you use words, you communicate for Life.Church. Emails, social media, conversations…they’re all opportunities
for you to represent our church, our leaders, and ultimately, Christ. Let’s do it well! It’s worth our time and effort
to communicate with excellence.

Good Communication Removes Roadblocks

Whether it’s getting people to take part in an event or just try out Life.Church for the very first time,
communication can help you reach your goals. These values, best practices, and guidelines are here to help you
remove as many obstacles as possible that might get in the way of people taking their next steps with Christ.

Our Communication Values

• We’re advocates for our audience. Our communication makes people’s lives easier, not more difficult. We’re
  on their side and put their interests before our own.
• We’re not sucky. If it’s worth putting into words, it’s worth getting right. We communicate with excellence.
• We’re user-friendly. We answer: who, what, when, where, why, and how? We include easy-to-find information
  for any next steps. Clear beats clever.
• We avoid insider lingo. We won’t use words that are hard to understand. We avoid or explain Life.Church
  terms and any phrases that may be confusing to someone who has never stepped inside a church.
• We say less to communicate more. We keep it brief, knowing people are much more likely to engage with
  concise content.
• We don’t sell. We understand people tune out advertising and manipulation. We inform, cast vision, and share
  experience. We describe real outcomes that can benefit our audience.
• We’ll communicate what we want for people, not what we want from them. We’re not giving people to-dos.
  We’re presenting them with opportunities.
• We’re dependable. We reinforce our brand by being consistent.
• We’ve got personality. We let it shine through in our communication as we’re authentic, informal, sincere,
  positive, and fun.

Communication Best Practices

• Get a second set of eyes on it. Have a qualified proofreader look over your work. Typos and misspelled words
  undermine a beautifully crafted piece. Not only is this a best practice, it’s a must practice.
• Have a goal. For every piece of communication, before you do anything else, determine the goal. Do whatever
  is needed to gain clarity about the desired outcome and keep it in front of you during the entire creation
  process.
• Add an evaluation step. Once the piece goes out, it’s important to look back and ask whether it met its
  intended goal. What can we learn for future pieces?
• Know your audience. The group we’re talking to determines how we approach our communication. What is
  their experience with us? Put yourself into their shoes and communicate based on their perspective.
• Don’t load people down with too much at once. Maybe you need to delay communicating one message so
  another has a better chance of getting through. Or it might mean you only present the first step in a process
  instead of five action items.
• Choose the right channel. Your message and your goal should determine the communication channel you use,
  whether it’s a video, email newsletter, social media post, etc. For example, if people need to take action online,
  an online method of communication might be the best choice.
• Consider context. Where is your content going to live? What else is being talked about there? Does what
  you’re communicating conflict with that? Does it duplicate that? Is it out of place there?
• Lead with the most important thing. Don’t bury key information under several sentences or paragraphs. Use
  an inverted pyramid style, keeping the most important, foundational information at the top.
• Cut, cut, cut! Avoid redundancy and wordiness. Once you write a piece, see how much you can eliminate
  without losing meaning.
• Use an active voice when possible. An active voice gives your words a strength and motion that passive voice
  cannot. In active voice, the subject takes the action. Example: “Thousands attended the event,” rather than
  “The event was attended by thousands.” Or: “Life.Church partners with community organizations,” instead of,
  “Community organizations are being partnered with by Life.Church.”
• Avoid overused words. Tired phrases and words that are used too often fail to communicate anything at all
  since we start tuning them out.