Our_Communicating_God.pdf

Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God, and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.
—Psalm 62:11–12

God values and demonstrates community. It’s true within the triune Godhead of Father, Son, and Spirit, and it’s true between God and man, God having sent his only begotten Son as Emmanuel—God with us.

God also values and demonstrates communication. As the God who is not silent, he gave us the Bible, he gave us prayer, and he gave us each other.

God is honored when his Son’s bride is in happy fellowship in a community that reflects his happy fellowship within the Godhead.

The bride of Christ won’t be in happy fellowship without communication.

Communication is powerful—for good or for evil. And communication is vast in its diverse array of media—as unique as each individual “user.”

Accordingly, we value communication as a good gift from a good Father, and we desire to honor God in our communication as well as in everything else we do.

We want to use communication to strengthen our community and relationships with each other, to be creative not only in the media through which we communicate (spoken, electronic, paper), and creative in the content (poetry, song lyrics, personal letters), but be creative in assessing how effective our communication is. We want to take into account our audience and be creative in our effort to best reach each one.

Ultimately, it’s our delight in a creative Father—who loves us and is in relationship with us and who communicates with us in unique and powerful ways—that grows each time we strive to imitate him by maximizing our message and leveraging the tools he’s given us to reach most powerfully the most we can reach.

Meanwhile, we’re limited in resources—we only have so much time and manpower to get the word out, and communication costs money, too.

So, we want to find out what people appreciate and find helpful, and use those means of communication more than/over other means.

The Bethlehem Communications Team has put together a survey to help the church better communicate with the Bethlehem family. The whole survey should take about 5 minutes to complete.

If you are in our church database as a member or an active attender, you have received an email with a link to the survey. Please help us help you by filling it out. We are working with a strategic communications consultant who will help us interpret the results of the survey and recommend areas for change.

Survey Goal: To communicate better—what our people want, when they want it, and how they would like to receive it. Here’s a sampling of the types of questions were asking:

Here’s a sampling of the types of questions were asking:

• How you prefer to receive communication from us?
• What do you want to hear more about? Less about?
• Should we be notifying you earlier or later about events?
• How is our online presence?
• Are you using Twitter? Should we?
• What about our “special” pieces of communication—like the Summer Magazine, Ministry Opportunities Handbook, and small group directories?
• Are these helpful to you? Would a different type of publication be more helpful?

In addition to filling out easy check format, you have the opportunity to write out responses and be specific.

If you are not in our database and have not received an email from us with a link to the survey, contact us. If you would like a hard copy of the survey, pick one up at your campus Information Booth.

The deadline for taking the survey is Sunday, March 27. (Monday, March 28, is the online survey deadline.)

Tell us how we’re doing and what you would like to see. We are eager to be better communicators with our Bethlehem family, this local manifestation of Christ’s Bride!

Sam Crabtree,
Executive Pastor/Lead Pastor for Life Training
With the Communications Team