Posted by Zack Hubert

There is an arms race going on right now in the church.  The weapons in this arms race are tools of technology and what’s at stake is the reputation of the church.  Sadly, what gets sacrificed along the way is the effectiveness of the church as these decisions are sometimes made based on the newness of technology.  Here’s how the scenario goes:

One church does something “innovative” and this forces the next church to try and do something even more “innovative.”  Nightly news reports cover the new and exciting things that these churches are doing and as a church leader it feels like you’re doing the right thing.  After all, we in the church don’t want to be 5 years behind…we want to be ahead!  In fact, there are magazines that keep track of who is winning this war with their annual lists of innovation. 

The problem is, fragmenting your communication strategy is extremely ineffective!  Rather than being additive, you are cannibalizing the attention of your church as the confusion over where to look for information creates an overwhelming barrier to entry in engagement.  After all, where do I go when I want to spend time engaging in my identity as a church member?  If I have to think through the ten different options you’ve given me, I’m more likely to not do anything at all. How do you avoid making this mistake? 

Focus your efforts, measure everything.

If you are spending hours each week on a new technology strategy then it better be delivering a leveraged value to your church.  If you can’t measure it quantitatively, you’re probably wasting your time.  Of course you have to be extremely smart around the metrics you look at, as a “fan” of your church isn’t the same thing as an engaged, giving, serving, member of your church.  I think we all agree that 10,000 fans that give you fractional attention are far less valuable than 100 members in your church living life together.

In addition, you need to focus your efforts on what you measure as effective.  It just makes sense

The clear message wins over the cool one every day.