Churches Need Better Online Presence, Says 'Outspoken' Author

By Alex Murashko, CP Contributor Friday, September 16, 2011

For churches to effectively deliver the message of the Gospel in today’s world, they need to have an online presence, says the lead author of the newly released book, Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication.

To help make his point, Tim Schraeder, who is the co-director of the non-profit Center for Church Communication organization, enlisted 60 Christian media and marketing experts to help author his book.

The Internet and social media has been such a game-changer in the last ten years, that Schraeder, 28, said he wrote the book to make sure churches would not be left behind by their inability to communicate their messages.

“It was a frustration that I had because for all the areas of ministry, from preaching to worship, to any area of Christian ministry there is a ton of resources and a wealth of knowledge available,” Schraeder said. “However, for church communication there has just really not been a lot of resources available.”

Published by the Center for Church Communication, Outspoken is comprised of more than 70 short essays covering a variety of topics related to church communication, including branding, design, leadership, technology, creativity, and outreach.

Schraeder said he gravitated towards areas such as graphic design and writing while volunteering for church while in high school, areas which churches sometimes neglected.

“Obviously, Bible college and seminary don’t teach marketing classes or design or anything like that,” he said. “So, I sort of self taught myself. The church that I grew up in hired me on staff right out of high school to start helping them with their communication in 2001. There weren’t many people doing the work that I wanted to be doing, but I could see the way [American] culture was going.”

He could see that the Internet had the potential to help churches and it was something that they needed to be fully active in.

He said that at the time, he considered himself to be on the leading edge of church communication. Schraeder is now called upon as a church communications specialist, working with churches as a partner of the Church Solutions Group and the Center for Church Communications, the parent organization of ChurchMarketingSucks.com.

“Being really engaged in that space I knew it was a legitimate need and knew that churches were asking a lot of questions because people were calling me and my friends and asking, ‘How are you guys communicating, what are you guys doing, what’s working for you?’' he said. “I think [online communication and social media] is something that’s relatively new to the Church, but I think most churches are beginning to realize that more and more people are going online. The Church needs to have a presence there, too, and needs to be communicating more effectively in those spaces.”

Schraeder said he did not want to write the book on his own because he wanted to show that there were several ways to approach church communication.

“Rather than one solitary voice sharing what they thought, I thought it would be better to collaborate with a bunch of people who I felt represented a different variety of churches, different denominational backgrounds, and sizes to all share their different thoughts on church communication and package it together in a holistic resource,” he said.

Schraeder was asked by CP to describe what church communication meant to him.

“Everything that a church does is communicating something. Practically speaking, it’s everything from their bulletin to their website to their sign out on the street,” he explained. “For churches that are a little bit more hip and trendy it could be how they use social media. But it’s primarily the person or persons who really help the church craft and define the message that they are supposed to be communicating to their community.”

Obviously, Schraeder doesn’t want Christians or churches to take his message of the importance of communicating well in today’s Internet age lightly.

“Central to all of our callings as believers and followers of Christ, and people who are ministers in the local church is to be present where people are and to engage people in conversation where conversation is happening,” he said. “Increasingly those conversations are happening online and they are happening through social media channels.”

He said that the Church has a significant opportunity during this time of technological advances.

“We are really more resourced than we’ve ever been to communicate the message of the Gospel and to reach people literally with the click of a mouse,” Schraeder said. “People will visit your church website before they come visit your church.

“This whole shift in how culture and society communicates impacts all of us in our everyday lives. Churches are beginning to see how it is impacting the ministry that they do and how people engage with their church,” he added.

Outspoken is available in print or Kindle format at Amazon.com.