Recall: Your Church's 2021 Strategic Communication Focus unSeminary Podcast

You have no doubt heard all the doomsayers saying that what we’ve experienced in the last year is beckoning a new age of disengagement in your church.







You’ve probably heard people say that somewhere around a third of our people have left the church and won’t be returning.







It seems like for decades, we’ve been talking about the fact that we’re losing a generation, and this past year has accelerated that loss. I do think that we are facing some tough days ahead. However, I’m not content to just sit by and let people slip out the back door because of everything that’s happened in the last 12 months.







Your responsibility and mine is to lean in and to do what we can to raise the value of attending our churches, whether that be online or in person.







It’s always been our responsibility to ensure that the people who are connected with our ministries find what we’re doing to be valuable. It’s our responsibility to communicate with them in such a way as to draw them from the crowd and ultimately get them connected to the core.







Of course, we’ve had significant disruption in the last year, and we need to be laser-focused as we look on how we communicate in this coming year. Your church has an opportunity to recall people and bring them back again, whether that be to in-person services or to engaging online.







I really do believe that the church shines brightest in the darkness.







There’s no doubt that we are in a dark time in many communities across the country. We need your church to shine brightly in order to see the message of Christ connected with people who have been disconnected for a while.







Have you noticed how good your dentist is at recalling you?







Is it just me, or have you noticed that dentists have really stepped up their game on recalling people over the last few years?







I’m not a huge dentist fan. In fact, is anyone really? Is the thought of having someone else’s fingers digging around inside your mouth and scraping whatever has been building up there for the last six months a pleasant idea?







The dentist can teach us a lesson in a recall communications strategy. They do a good job reaching out through texts, email, and other methods to get you to come back on an annual or semi-annual basis. The difficulty they’re faced with is that people resist going to the dentist, and their livelihoods are largely based on getting people to add that as a regular rhythm two or three times a year. Your church and mine need to learn from people & organizations like your dentist, who go out of their way to recall people.







The problem with the “snap back” or “pent-up demand” myth.







Have you noticed that leaders in lots of industries are looking for a “snap back” to normalcy? Or maybe you’ve seen how leaders are referring to the fact that there is a “pent-up demand” for their products and services that will cause people to flood back to them in the future.







Both of those myths are magical thinking. Humans are creatures of habits. The best predictive behavior of tomorrow is what people did yesterday.







People will not simply “snap back” to your church once vaccines are widespread or the government lifts all restrictions. If you are waiting for “pent up demand” to drive people to engage with your church you will lose people.







We have always needed to raise the value of engaging with our church in the minds of our people. It’s our responsibility to own that and not wait for some mythical external forces to align to encourage people to c...