Communicating Information

On Tuesday our Senior Management Team spent a couple of hours talking about communicating information to the people of Charter Oak Church. We listed all of the ways we currently communicate with people:

• Worship Folder


• Circuit Rider (newsletter)


• Platform/Stage


• Announcement Slides


• Web Sites


• Seed Planters (children's ministry newsletter)


• Blogs


• Email


• Team Meetings


• Phone Calls


• Letters


• Brochures/Pamphlets


• Information Center


• Well-Informed Leaders

We have a variety of ways to communicate information around Charter Oak Church, and yet, often times we hear that people don't know what is going on. I scratch my head and wonder why. I was taught that you have to say something six different times in six different ways for someone to really receive the information.

I am beginning to wonder if we don't have too many lines of communication. What if we really began to narrow our focus of what we are trying to communicate and how we communicate it? If people were not inundated with information and instead given the opportunity to have just a few places to go to get that information and then only the information that is important to them.

I have two places I go to get news - the newspaper and the Internet. And then I narrow it from there. I read the newspaper from cover to cover, but I don't read everything, just that which is important to me. I would not be happy if the newspaper didn't cover all of the news that it does, but I get to choose what I read. The same goes for the Internet. I have a news site I read a couple of time a day and I go to espn.com a few times a day. I don't read everything that is there, I just read what I want.

We need to learn from those who are distributing information as their primary purpose in life. If we can learn from them, I believe we will be able to communicate information in a way that will help the people of Charter Oak Church know what's important to them.