The ethical dilemma of stock imagery and artificial intelligence

by Ashley Graham-Wilcox

Finding images to support our church communications can feel overwhelming – and repetitive. Stock imagery is often the solution. Some of our go-to resources for stock images and videos are Shutterstock, Unsplash, Pexels, Shot Stash, Pixabay, Adobe Stock, and we’ve even been occasionally persuaded to pay for a Getty image for a true centerpiece graphic. We’ve also just learned about Nappy.co in the article linked below, specifically for more representative and diverse photos.

Now, imagine instead of finding a stock photo and making it work, you could tell a computer exactly what image fits your content and audience. That’s where AI comes in.

Generated by Ideogram.ai, “young family in the third row of a Christmas service at an urban, Protestant church”

“Show me a young family in the third row of a Christmas service at an urban, Protestant church.”

As AI becomes more prevalent every day, the stories around its shortcomings are, too. As with stock imagery, when using artificial intelligence, you need to pair the tool with human oversight, ensuring alignment with your organization's mission, branding, and ethical guidelines, as well as potential licensing and copyright issues.

This story on Marketplace this week has me thinking about the moral and ethical implications of creating/marketing an image of something that may not exist for my own communication goals.

Take a listen, and let us know how you’re finding stock images or considering using AI in your church communications in the comments.

The Future of the Church is Bright

by Canon Mike Orr

What will Church look like in 20 years? Will we continue seeing church attendance decline? How will engagement and discipleship continue to move beyond Sunday mornings in both digital and physical spaces? Will churches be liberated from the maintenance of their buildings, letting them go to pursue different missional opportunities that don’t require a consistent physical space? How will online gatherings continue to evolve and be a place of worship, engagement, and discipleship?

Depending on your own experience and context, our predictions will vary widely in answering these questions. As you think about the future of the Church, do you start from a place of fear or curiosity?

In our church circles and denominations, we tend to ask these important questions in our holy huddles and, therefore, in our echo chambers. We need to learn from other institutions, organizations, and business models to see how they’ve either sunk or swam, pivoted and changed, and embraced death to celebrate new life.

Imagine if Blockbuster Video had shifted towards digital streaming. Instead, they failed to see the changing landscape of the world around them and refused to adapt, ultimately leading to their downfall. On the other hand, companies like Netflix and Amazon have successfully pivoted and adapted their business models in response to changing consumer demands and technological advancements. They embraced innovation, took risks, and constantly evolved to stay relevant and competitive.

After the internet was born and began to take root in our daily lives, libraries began to embrace the possibilities of how computing and a vast network of information could support their overall mission: to provide for the intellectual, educational, and cultural needs of its community, and to empower individuals to explore and discover new ideas and perspectives.

Libraries provided Wi-Fi and workstations to visitors as well as integrated technology into their services, offering e-books, online databases, and other digital resources. They shifted their focus to community engagement by offering programs and events, such as author talks, book clubs, and workshops on a variety of topics. Libraries expanded their services to include job search assistance, language classes, and access to specialized equipment such as 3D printers. They focused on being a learning hub, offering online courses, tutoring, and educational materials to all ages.

Libraries could have spent their energy bemoaning the tsunami of change that the internet brought to our information landscape and been in a state of paralysis as the world changed around them. Instead, they adapted and evolved to continue to fulfill their mission of providing access to information and resources.

Rather than resisting change, libraries transformed and innovated, creating new ways to serve their communities and fulfill their mission. In doing so, they have continued to be an essential and valuable resource for access to information and knowledge, even in the digital age.

Have we, as the Church, resisted change in the past 20 years? Have we been reticent in embracing social media as a tool for communication or, dare I say, the e-word, evangelism? Have we been late adopters of technology like websites and apps, waiting to see how new tools were going to pan out and be accepted more widely? Have we focused too much or too little, rightly or wrongly, on privacy and security? Have we clung too tightly to traditional methods of communication and outreach? Have we been ambitious in trying new things, taking risks, and embracing new trends and tools?

Regardless of our technology journeys over the past 20 years, we were all forced by COVID to adapt and change. If we hadn’t been doing it before COVID, we would have been quick to offer online worship and digital resources, utilize social media and other online platforms to share life together, and collaborate in new ways across geographic distances.

How will AI impact the future of the Church? AI can look to the past and recognize patterns that we may not be able to grasp that can help inform our future. It can identify trends and correlations in large datasets that may not be immediately apparent to human observers. This can be particularly useful in fields like medicine, finance, and climate science, where large amounts of data can be difficult to analyze using traditional methods.

In our context in the church, it can help inform how we approach certain issues and challenges. AI can be used to analyze data patterns in attendance and giving data, which can help churches understand the needs and wants of their members, as well as inform more effective outreach and engagement strategies. AI can provide insights and perspectives on scripture that can inform theological discussions and debates. Some researchers have used natural language processing to analyze the language and themes in different translations of the Bible, helping to shed light on the ways in which language and translation shape our understanding of scripture. AI can also help automate administrative tasks in the church, such as managing databases and tracking finances.

AI is a tool for our use. AI can help us address the what and how of our ministry contexts… what information we need to make informed leadership decisions, and how we can better serve and care for one another. The why, however, is the heart, gut, and soul of ministry, which requires Spirit-inspired human intuition, creativity, empathy, and discernment. The why of being Church involves our individual human experiences and transformation in Christ, to be a connected community in a shared mission to repair and reconcile a broken world to God.

To face the future boldly, we must strike a balance between preserving our church traditions and embracing innovation. We must be open to new ideas and lean on the Holy Spirit to challenge and guide us. In prayerful consideration, we must take risks while honoring our shared core values and principles. I believe the Church can continue to evolve and thrive in our rapidly changing world. The future is bright.

***

Mike Orr is the Canon for Communications & Evangelism for the Episcopal Church in Colorado. He may be reached at mike@episcopalcolorado.org.

Team Building and Focus Groups

by Ret David North

You don’t have to be the only one behind the scenes. No matter what you’re tackling, having a team, a committee, or even just a partner to help strategize and get the job done is a total lifesaver. As you may have seen, recently we talked about gathering members for a communications committee by hosting focus groups on specific issues. (If you haven’t seen this post yet, you can go check it out here.) But one of the biggest issues we often run into, as always, is stepping outside of the job description and getting to know our teammates (or better yet, ourselves) as people.

Many of us are still remote, or at least a great deal of what we do is online from home. In many cases, this can be emotionally and socially draining. Aside from the blurry line between relaxation space and work space, we do not often see those we work with face-to-face, which eliminates much room for casual social interaction or relationship development. Focus groups can also be a bit difficult this way if you are working together for longer than one meeting.

Team-building or ice-breaker activities can be a great way to start a new group off right, to take a break from the grind, or to celebrate an achievement. Below you can find some activities that can be done both virtually and in-person to help your group step away from your job descriptions and come closer together as human beings.

1. Book Club
   Having your group come together as a book club, even reading a book somehow related to your work, enables you to come together over time by learning about each other through discussion of perspectives, jokes about characters and story arcs, and even time reading the book aloud together. This activity can take place over a much longer period, in some cases longer than the actual lifetime of your group. You can factor Book Club into your regular meetings or into separate meetings solely for that purpose. While reading the book itself can take some additional time to your existing commitments to group work, if done well, Book Club can be a very rewarding activity for your whole group and for each individual member as well.

2. Game Night
   Game Night is a great way to celebrate achievements or to start groups off as an ice-breaker. If you are the organizer of the group, watching how your teammates interact with one another playing various games can also give you some insight as to how your group may interact in work mode. Game Night can also become a regular occurrence separated into themes based on game type, such as card games, improv/social games, and even video games. Playing games of any kind is also a casual, relaxing, and fun way to interact with members of your group while taking your minds fully off your work and job descriptions.

3. Show and Tell
   Equally impactful between young children or adults, Show and Tell can be a brief, but effective break in your group’s regular meetings that enables group members to get to know each other personally. Over Zoom, Show and Tell is commonly done (if unintentionally) with pets who often wander into frame asking for attention. You can suggest a theme for group members to go by, or choose specific group members to do one Show and Tell per meeting.

4. Dance Break
   A dance break or a “silly break” can also be an effective break in the middle of your group’s regular meetings. Sometimes, the work we do is mentally exhausting, and working with each other trying to accomplish goals can be equally aggravating on complex issues. Embracing silliness and dancing, even for one or two minutes, requires that you and your teammates relax, smile, and bring down social and emotional boundaries around each other. This can also be a great trust-building exercise—if you can trust your teammates with your ridiculous moves, you can trust them with important work.

5. Mad Libs/Improv Exercises
   This is an activity that can take any amount of time and can be equally effective for your group’s work, beginning-middle-end. In activities like Mad Libs or other improv exercises (for ideas, watch scenes from Whose Line Is It Anyway?) guide you and your teammates through the creative process without any pressure to create an absolute masterpiece. Thus, this activity is a great team-building exercise and, given the right amount of comedy, can be a relaxing break from work.

Another important (while sometimes less fun) team-building activity is periodic reflection on how well you and your group work together. This can be written down and conducted anonymously, done in partnerships or small groups, or you could even broaden this activity out into a group retreat. Overall, your group should be well in touch with the goals and ambitions of the whole group but also with each individual member’s goals for, needs from, and contributions to the group.

And as always, remember to bring enough coffee for everyone!

Behind the Mask: What Communicators Can Learn From Pandemic Isolation

By Ret David North

I have good news and bad news; take it how you will. The good news is that we are starting to see the opportunity to come back to in-person worship again. The bad news is that we are starting to see the opportunity to come back to in-person worship again, and your entire community’s means and interpretation of communication has changed.

We have more learning to do, which can feel exhausting when you already work in what is already an ever-evolving ministry of life.

Let us openly confess what has happened to change communication over the past year and a half. We started with months of near-total isolation, which, for some of us, was indeed total isolation. One’s ability to connect with other human beings and the world around them depended on access to technology, particularly access to high-speed internet. This was an immediate shift in communication. The way you talk with people on phone calls, though you carry the same conversations on the same topics that you did before, have their own subtle differences. The greetings and farewells you use are different, dynamics like confrontation, interruption, and continuity are often different, and the timbre of the voice you hear is altered by the tiny microphone contained in your phone. Video call technology had to heavily adapt to catch up with the skyrocketing demand, and even then, most of us recall various forms of interference due to the constraints of so much global use of this kind of software. Which side did you take in the argument of looking into the camera versus making “eye contact?”

In a general sense, our tolerance for verbal conversations experienced a steep decrease. The thousands of memes about how this conversation or that “could have been an email [or better yet, a text message]” flooded the internet with sudden relevance to nearly everyone. When previously you would berate your child for texting you from the other room, you may now prefer it so that neither of you needs to yell. As you may already know, the way we put together what we have to say via text or email is very different from how we organize our thoughts verbally in the moment and depending on how practiced you are in textual communication, it may be quicker or far too tedious for you to communicate via email or text. Some of us became so engrossed in textual communication that our thoughts started to organize themselves that way, rather than the way we would typically follow them in verbal conversations. Some of us even began to use emojis as their own language, thereby establishing a strange language barrier over social media between ourselves and our peers based on emoji usage.

There were pros and cons for everyone, varying from person-to-person, but the swift change in communication that occurred when everything suddenly needed to move to virtual means immediately made some permanent changes. We cannot simply jump back to pre-pandemic culture; as we have already, we must evolve, and take our social isolation as a learning experience for how communication may have been deficient before such sudden change.

Each method of communicating serves its own purpose. Use each method with consideration to what you need to communicate and what you need to gain from your audience in this endeavor. 

In-Person Meetings

Verbal in-person conversations have many moving pieces to them. A study by Albert Mehrabian found that when the message you are trying to communicate pertains to opinions and emotions, only 7% of your message is directly contained in the words you speak. More of your message (about 38%) is paralinguistic, or contained in the way you say the words (what tone you choose, which part of your vocal register you stay around, the speed at which you speak, and the words you choose to use). Your audience gathers most of your message (over 55%) from facial and body expression(s).

The way you listen to others also communicates a great deal of your own message without you having said anything. Active listening is an important skill which, done effectively, demonstrates to the speaker that you not only understand, but respect, what they are trying to say. Most responses in active listening are physical, rather than verbal, but the subtlety to this facet of in-person communication is the basis for trust and respect, and further, for the efficiency of the whole conversation.

It is important to keep this in mind from a relative standpoint because of what we lose and gain with each other form of communication. Handled consciously, verbal communication enables the clearest and most centralized amount of empathy and authenticity in a conversation.

In-Person, Call, Email, or Text?

In-person conversations are effective in building trusting, respectful, and empathetic relationships, which can be important for first meetings and for communicating and discussing topics that are especially emotionally charged. Do not, however, overuse in-person communication: if there is one thing the pandemic has taught us, it is that much communication, especially for short and/or “emotionless” (logistical) topics and messages, must be efficient and not so tedious that the message itself immediately becomes misinterpreted or ignored entirely.

Video calls already provide you with fewer moving pieces, which can be a little bit easier to tackle. However, when your audience only sees you basically from the neck up, your facial expressions immediately have more weight on what you are trying to say because your audience has a smaller area to focus on and interpret. In the same way, tone becomes equally more important in audio-only phone calls. Calls should be leveraged for messages seeking mutual understanding. The topics of conversation are typically less emotionally charged, so you don’t need such intimacy as is provided in-person, and phone calls become more intimate the longer they go on, which can quickly become uncomfortable in a work-based relationship. One big key in call-based communication is convenience, for you and for your audience. You do not have to go anywhere to get everyone you need to speak with on the same page, and all of you can dial into a call while doing other things for efficiency’s sake.

Emails are best for rhetorical topics (in other words, you don’t need to expect a response other than perhaps questions). Using calls or meetings for these topics feels tedious to your audience, but a sense of formality is still necessary here. Continue to be mindful of the limitations of textual communication, which lacks tone, facial/physical expression, and any guarantee of active listening from your audience.

If you need a quick response on a quick topic from a small group of people (which seems more specific than it actually is), text messages are the way to go. Text messages are also great for less formal topics and less time-sensitive topics. The same limitations apply, but it is also easy to set your own communication norms via text based on how the other person(s) choose to text.

Above all else, be patient with anyone and everyone on the receiving end of communication from you. Some of us greatly benefited from being isolated from others at the beginning of the pandemic, and so coming back in-person after being graciously required to be left alone is difficult for us. Listening is as important as speaking, especially in how you choose to do so, and as a leading figure in your community, one of the most important things you can do is to make yourself someone who is easy to talk to, no matter the method.

Bright-Eyed and Bushy-Tailed

by Ret David North

You wake up groggily on a Sunday morning, the sun peeking dimly through the curtains that have been mostly shut since last Wednesday—remember? When your uncle on Facebook got to be a little too much to handle and you just had to shut out the world for a while? You pull the curtain open just a bit more to light up the space, but instantly regret it and shut the curtain the rest of the way. Too bright. Not today. You haul yourself out of bed, throw on your bathrobe, and head barefoot to the kitchen to get the coffee maker going. It’s quite possible that your kids are up already, but you’re not sure, since they basically haven’t left their rooms since Monday. For a moment, you’re almost relieved to not be rushing around, shoving yourself into nice clothes while trying to make a “nice” breakfast. Instead of trying to book it out the door to get to church on time, you mosey back to wake up the family before pulling up a Facebook livestream and setting your laptop on the coffee table.

The introductory music is so familiar that it’s easy to tune out as you survey the room. The kids have already poured their bowls of cereal and curled up on the floor, leaning against the couch with cereal bowls sitting atop their pajama’d laps. You’ve said it so many times that it goes without saying: “I’ll make an exception today because I know we’re all tired, but remember, we dress nice for church.” At this point, you and your family are content praying in your pajamas; at least you showered yesterday.

As the livestream continues, your kids are whispering to each other placing bets as to how long the stream will go before latency causes a glitch, and whether this time will be video, audio, or both. “How much of it can we skip this time?” While typically you’d scold them, at least they understand the concept of reverence. Besides, you can’t even remember what half the sermon was about because as soon as the pandemic came up in the conversation, you automatically retreated inside your head, alone with your thoughts. The words “Peace be with you” vaguely float in one ear and out the other, and a small voice in the back of your head mutters, “Gee, I wish.”

Sound familiar? While everyone’s experiences were different, and everyone developed their own consistency in some form or another, worship during the pandemic was and remains an ever-evolving practice. Many of us may not have expected to be continuing the learning process, even while back in-person.

At the beginning of the pandemic, I was working at an Episcopal church with a focused calling in online communications, which at the time involved a great deal of configuring (and frequently troubleshooting) a hasty livestream setup. Without fail, the livestream would glitch every week, and the only question was whether we’d be able to get it back up and running in time for everyone to still be watching. I was deeply involved in the community, constantly texting, and calling back and forth with at least 50 community members a week.

The pandemic may be far from ending, but time has brought many changes. On the weekends, I have now found myself working at a Lutheran church with a focused calling in audio/visual work during services and on behalf of the music program. Services are not livestreamed; they haven’t ever been. Rather, my predecessor recorded services ahead of time and posted them on the website, which most parishioners didn’t (and still don’t) know how to access. As this church returns to in-person services, the physically attending population has decimated, down to only a handful of people in-person on Saturday evenings. This could be for any number of reasons, but it’s certainly on everyone’s minds. I’m not very involved in this community yet but I’m not the only one hesitating, because those who are coming back are still having trouble reconnecting with each other, much less with a brand-new staff member who is a quarter their age.

Communicators, no matter how technologically literate we were at the time, became doubly vital when COVID-19 first struck. Some of us watched as clergy and church administrators got into theological battles over how appropriate it was to hold and broadcast church services online. There was talk of how cheap and shallow we all were, becoming televangelists begging for money on social media and “dumbing down” prayer to the comment section. Meanwhile, parishioners told me how nice it was to see each other in the comment section and how fun it was to incorporate emojis into prayer. One family worked to translate the Lord’s Prayer into emojis to the disgust of several other parishioners watching (most of them over the age of 70). Some were yelling in the comment section about how we should not be talking in church, as if we were gossiping and sinning directly in the Lord’s presence.

With the pressure of these debates came the new critical nature of technology within these services. Those of us putting each livestream or recording together suddenly had a lot more to be concerned about. Aside from how much liturgical silence is poignant enough, which candles to light, or who would read which reading, we had to be concerned about who needed microphones, how to balance the sound going into the camera (and whether we had overloaded the sound input). The musicians had to be placed within the camera’s frame of view, but also had to be far enough apart from each other to be considered safe.

All too familiar for church communications is the plague of numbers, which began to make every service an anxious nightmare. How many people are watching the stream when it happens versus whenever they get to it during the week? Is everyone who used to be in person watching every service? Where were people attending from? Are they actively participating according to the liturgy’s indications and tradition? Is everyone receiving notifications? Is there anyone who doesn’t have access to a device or to internet? What about hearing impairments? Why are livestreams doing better or worse than other social media posts? Are people getting ads during services, and if so, can we control them or eliminate them entirely? How long will it take during a glitch or a crash for people to lose their patience and leave?

For some of us, the experience of “Zoom church” may be a distant memory, as churches across the United States are gradually moving in-person once again. Returning to in-person worship may be a relief: it provides some long-lost consistency, especially in reconnecting with community. It’s nice to see those who don’t have access to a computer, let alone social media, and watch as they rejoice in being able to worship again. The return of structure and predictability is a breath of fresh air.

At the same time, being back in the physical church might feel foreign. Perhaps you feel that your calling has changed, or parts of online worship made it easier for you to feel connected to God, especially in the safety of your own home. On the contrary, some of us may be feeling a total loss of connection to God both at home and in the church; if that’s you, you may be wondering where to turn, or how you ever coped before. If new exploration of spirituality were not enough to worry about, every community is very suddenly grieving the loss of people who died during the virtual times and were never properly mourned.

To make a long story short, coming back is either the release of a burning deep breath or a new challenge entirely. It is important to note, we are either relaxing or recovering, and for the latter, we may not be healed through self-care. In fact, self-care as it is regularly marketed to us as workers can feel trivial and pointless. So how do we return?

Caffeinated Church has always been a platform which aims to enable church communicators and administrators to see themselves as more than the job description, and even more than the church. We feel obligated to tell you that returning in-person, while it comes with its own work from new commitments to reviving old practices, is also first and foremost a time for us to reflect on an individual basis in each of the facets of personability and self-care. Check in with yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and socially. Spend time reflecting on your relationship with your work, with your calling(s), and with God. Spend time reflecting on your personal life. Returning to in-person functionally does not have to be the ultimate relief, as we might all like to see it, but it also does not have to be an uphill battle.

Things have changed. In many ways, the church has been forced to make technological, logistical, and perhaps even liturgical progress. This may be progress we are currently making or that we have set as a goal. This does not exclude personal progress. It does not have to feel as if you are carrying the church on your shoulders. While we admit it is easy to glamourize, the rush to return fully in-person should not have you so over-caffeinated that your work is done on half the necessary amount of sleep. Give yourself space for prayer and reflection, and most of all, give everything some time to breathe.

Using Insights and Focus Goals Without Burnout

by Ret David North

Social interaction is constantly evolving, especially as our phones and electronics develop new ways for us to connect with one another. For most of us, it feels disingenuous, awkward, and even rude for us to quantify social interaction and community dynamics, because it takes our mindsets away from the people involved. As communicators, this can lead to frustration and burnout as we are led away from our big-picture goal of bringing people together, or worse, away from ourselves.

As communicators, our biggest strengths and our greatest weakness is remembering that we are people, too; we are more than our job descriptions, more than our accomplishments, and more than any amount of work we put in. This can be hard to grapple with when social media comes into play, because those metrics and insights which quantify your community’s engagement with your work and with each other can make us feel like we are not doing enough.

Today, let’s talk about how we can use metrics and insights in a way that helps us focus on our goals without falling into burnout.

What are insights? What do I need to know?

The best insights to use are the ones that will most directly tell you how well and how often you are connecting with their community, what content your community engages with the most, and what you can do to get your content to as many people in your community as possible. Most platforms, FaceBook and Instagram especially, can show you an overwhelming number of metrics in way too many misleading categories. Here are the metrics you should monitor regularly:

1. Number of followers and/or likes over time
   While this number has the potential to be stressful, most of what you need to know comes either when you are first starting or when you are preparing your annual report. Understanding your community’s congregation/member numbers, visitor numbers, and more is important so that you have a number to compare to.

   Depending on the circumstances, this insight does not necessarily need to worry you. In many communities, the primary demographic is people over the age of 65, many of whom might not have device/internet access or, if they do, they might not fully understand how it works or why it could be useful to them. This is okay! While there is increasing pressure for anyone and everyone to have social media presence, it is not necessary to maintain a thriving and loving community.

2. Reach (number of viewers reached, reactions/engagements/shares)
   Understanding who (in a general sense) your content is reaching and what types of content receive the best and/or most responses from your community can help to ease your burden, rather than making social media work more stressful for you.

   • Overview
     Your reach overview can give you an idea of how many of your community members are seeing your posts, how people tend to engage with your posts (or, in some cases, with social media in general), and how often people outside of your community and their following get to see your content.

     It is important to pay attention to this insight on algorithm-based platforms, like FaceBook and Instagram, because that can show you how well the algorithm is working for you. This gives you the opportunity not only to determine how better to reach your community, but also how better to engage with these platforms so that they work for you. In this way, it is also important to note that not every platform works for every community! Some communities may do better on Instagram than they do on FaceBook, or vice versa, and some may do better sticking with just a website. Understood correctly, your general reach insights can help you to eliminate unnecessary work with platforms that will not accomplish what you need.

   • Posts (itemized)
     This insight is a more detailed understanding of your reach and can be used to help you determine what content your community prefers to engage with. This can be a tricky insight to appreciate because of how most people interact with social media today. Social media is what app developers like to call “idle entertainment,” meaning we engage with it most when we have a few minutes in between where we are “bored” and looking for stimulation. The important thing to understand from there is that there will always be viewers who just scroll. Your engagement and reaction metrics will most likely be lower than your total reach, since there will always be viewers who see your posts but do not interact with them. Do not let this frustrate you! We would all love for every single person who sees our posts to put a reaction, put a comment, and share, but everyone interacts with social media in their own ways; all you can control is the content that gets put out.

   • When your “fans” are online
     All you really need to know from here is when to post content so that people will see it! Remember that you have the option on most platforms to schedule posts ahead of time, so take advantage of this insight (as we try with other insights) to minimize your workload and any stress that comes with it.

Focus Goals

Whether you are establishing and developing new platform presence for your community, or you are taking over a pre-established platform, it is important to set goals so social media work is not overwhelming for you or your viewers. This can be a stressful process before you even get started, but with the right mindset, setting three specific, realistic, and foreseeable goals can be the first step to successful platform presence.

Some things to consider when setting goals, especially with insights and metrics in mind:

1. (repeat after us) I cannot control the exact numbers in my insight reports, nor can my community. Therefore, these numbers do not define the success, affinity, or depth of my work or my community.

2. Consider three things this platform has the potential to do that could benefit your community.

3. Consider three things this platform has the potential to do that could negatively affect your community.

4. Qualify (do not quantify): What would you like to achieve with this presence in the next three months? Six months? Year?

5. How does this platform need to represent my community? Are there ministries or subgroups that need presence on this platform? If so, how often? What would they like to achieve with this presence?

6. Write down a tentative list of five goals for your work on this platform, then share the list with a colleague or friend outside of your community. This can help you to understand how achievable and/or productive these goals are for you and your community.

This work gets stressful, and it is important to remember the tools we have available to us to minimize this stress by easing our workload and reevaluating as needed. If something is causing you and/or your community excessive stress, it might be a good time to step back and reassess how well that part of your work is serving you, and what you can do to make things a little easier. You’ve got this!

Communications Committees: Making Collaborative Work Manageable

by Ret David North

Having a committee for communications can be a great thing: you can divide up work, give people the opportunity to focus on something they may specialize in, and you may be able to accomplish more in the time you have available to you. Being part of and/or leading a communications committee can make your job easier to engage with, until it doesn’t. But then what? 

Here we’ll be exploring about how you can effectively manage your committee, responsibilities, expectations, and projects: what works, what does not work, and what tools you have available to you for more effective committee member management.

Why start a committee?

Communications is a broad and sometimes tedious ministry in church administrative work, and all of that can be overwhelming for one person to tackle. A committee can be a great resource when you have so much to do that you feel like you need to clone yourself. Need more work done than you have time for, or don’t know where to start with certain parts of your work? Starting a committee with specific needs for them to target can be a great way to make all methods of communicating with your committee effective, efficient, and current.

But, as many of us are aware, it takes a lot of time on the front end to start and maintain a committee that works productively, and it can be difficult to figure out the right routine, strategies, and personalities to bring in so that the committee does not turn into an uncontrollable monster. Lack of planning ahead can result in a lot of people who do not want or know how to be present. If you get too far in, none of these people know how to get off the committee, and in many cases, they certainly do not want to say no to you because they know you have a need.

At the same time, it can also be very easy to run into people you have no need for, people who actually slow down or complicate your work more than they contribute. Some people have lots of ideas, but no capacity or motivation to execute those ideas themselves. These people then, more often than not, come in with the expectation that you will execute all of their ideas. This does not work; rather, it defeats the purpose of the committee in the first place. It can be difficult to draw the boundary line to help you avoid these people, but it is okay and valid to acknowledge that there is a difference between people with ideas, who think they are qualified to help, and people with experience, who are qualified, able, and willing to do the work.

It is also important to acknowledge in your efforts that the communications you need to accomplish must be current according to the way your community expects you to communicate with them, especially in this time of transition where people expect information to be not only available to them quickly, but also quick to absorb. A wordy writer may not be the best asset to you when most of your community will only scroll through the first page of your newsletter before clicking away. Someone with lots of ideas for things to print out may not be a great asset to you when most of your community is more responsive to online communication and social media. Those who do not know exactly what they can or want to contribute may not be helpful to you at first if you are not able to provide a focused and engaging contribution for them to make.

Who am I looking for and how do I find them?

What we all look for in a communications committee is people who can meaningfully contribute, both in planning and in actual content production, especially in a way that responds to an increasing demand for evolved, strategic communication in greater frequency. You need the people who know how to engage your community enough to scroll past the first page.

Whether you are trying to resurrect a previous committee or starting fresh to help accomplish more tasks more effectively, a great way to start is by setting up focus groups. Put out a call for feedback on specific things, ideally things that you dread doing or things that you feel out of touch doing: whether you’re asking for feedback on your website and social media platforms, your newsletter, your service bulletin, or anything else, people with ideas may come out of the woodwork, whether they have been part of your community for years or if they are just starting to come more frequently. Often, these may be people who are retired or stay-at-home parents looking for something to do. Sometimes, they could be people who typically complain about your work; if these people have ideas and expertise, you might be able to turn them around from thorns in your side to resources and champion contributors. Throw out your net to see what fish you catch, and find the biggest, fattest fish to see if they can become a resource to you.

This open call should be specific. Prepare the job descriptions you need before even putting out the call, so the people you find who might be able to contribute know exactly what is being asked of them in terms of time commitment, frequency, and skill set. Something as broad as “Please join our communications committee” will not attract the people you are looking for, and it may not attract anyone at all. Rather, a focus group on a specific topic, especially as a one-time commitment, can be a very good first step for people who are not very involved but want to be and have not yet found something they feel capable and motivated of helping with.

For example, you could set up a one-time focus group event and gather 10 people in attendance. Focus groups often have the potential to let some things to bubble to the surface that you might not have seen or understood before, especially when you recruit people who are not already heavily involved in something else. These people have more time and more of an open mind and perspective to give, rather than coming from one focused perspective or needing their own help in another area or ministry. In this way, you might find one or two people whose hearts are in the right place.

When you do find the individuals that you are looking for, have that talk with them and figure out a trial period to start them out and see how well the commitment works for them and for you. If it is not working, for whatever reason, a trial period provides you with the wiggle room to reevaluate and figure out how to improve the situation, or, if necessary, show them the door.

You should go into focus group events like this with a focus on the need(s) you are trying to target so that you know and the people you are gathering know that you have planned ahead. However, it is also important for you to keep an open mind in focus group events like this because you may find people willing to get their foot in the door and help you accomplish other needs. For example, you may find people who have shown up, not because they are willing to do that work, but who would like to contribute financially, to replace the copier being held together with duct tape or the computer with Windows 95 still on it. Your focus group may reap people who have the capacity to contribute in different ways but have never been asked or have never had the opportunity to find out what the focused needs of your community and your work really are. At the same time, you may also run into people willing to do the work, but who do not have the means, equipment or otherwise, to contribute the way they would like. Consider how you may be able to provide these people with opportunities to contribute, or who could be able to help you do this.

You might also consider the equity between the people who make up the committee you are trying to people. Are there people on this committee with more power, authority, or influence in your relationship than you have?? If so, does this affect your ability to keep people on the committee who contribute meaningfully? Is there a power dynamic that gets in the way of the productivity potential of your committee? Do you get to choose the people you need? There may also be people who only come into the committee and contribute on occasion, rather than on a regular basis, because their contribution may only be meaningful in this format. 

Where to go from here?

Maintaining a successful committee can come with a lot of moving pieces when you finally have one. How do you honor those contributing to your committee in a way that makes them feel truly appreciated? Some contributors with specialized expertise and contributions (photographers, writers, web developers, etc.) may need an honorarium or regular pay – how will you enable yourself to make sure they feel appreciated? Other contributors would feel slapped in the face if you tried to pay them for their contributions – how do you make them feel appreciated?

How do you acknowledge those who contribute to your community at a high level? Language is a vital component in everything that we do, even when it is not necessarily put into words.  Unpaid contributors can seem temporary and/or unqualified if they are simply referred to as “volunteers.” Rather, calling them servants communicates a connection between their contribution to your communication and their relationship with God, making their commitment and their talents more meaningful in context. For those with specialized expertise and contributions, they may be better referred to as specialists, consultants, or experts.

Your communication strategies will develop and grow as your community continues their work, but it is also important to keep a record of what you standardize as policy or at least relatively permanent, indefinite strategy. When you have multiple hands in the communications pot, a lack of consistency can make it very easy to tell how consistent your communications are across the board. How are times and dates written? Do you all use the Oxford comma? How frequently does your messaging contain spelling/grammar errors? Casual language? It is important to set standards and rules about the little things so that all communications, no matter how many people are doing this work, are consistent and smooth across the board.

At the same time, setting a standards policy also gives you the opportunity to set standards and expectations for what you need your committee to accomplish. The line can be a bit blurry, because (as always) it is important to acknowledge that every person on that committee, including you, is an individual with a life and commitments outside of the committee and outside of your community. When the humanity in the dynamic is lost, so is the purpose and productivity of your committee. However, make sure that you can accomplish what you need to maintain smooth and effective communications across the board. As a result, the committee may go through some iterations over time as some people are no longer contributing meaningfully, and that’s okay! As communication needs and strategies evolve, so do we.

The art of communications is managing opportunities: each of us gets to choose what we need to push off our plates to be more successful and what is easier to keep on our plate because we know that we are the best people for the job. Whether you establish a communications committee, or you only outsource help every once in a while, consider what you know will be the most rewarding, manageable, and productive experience for you without killing your soul.

I Need Self-Care (Not Just Coffee)

By Ret David North

You work hard. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back, there’s no harm in it. Through every meeting that could have been an email, every email that should have been a meeting, and every moment where you’re just waiting for a lunch break, wishing for another cup of coffee, or itching to go home already, you’re there killing it and helping your community stay in touch and in the know.

All jokes about the wonders of caffeine aside, work can drain you of energy, motivation, and even your sense of self. It is an endless cycle of working so hard that you feel you can’t work that hard the next day or the day after, and then going back to work the next day and doing it all over again, against all odds.

Especially in jobs where our phones sit in our pockets making us think about work everywhere we go, taking care of ourselves is critical. Self-care is a multi-faceted endeavor with the power to decide what you’re able to accomplish in a day both at work, and at home. Taking initiative to take care of yourself is a means to survive and thrive.

There are 5 areas of life where self-care is critical:
a) Physical
b) Mental
c) Emotional
d) Spiritual
e) Social

In this order, they improve upon each other, and each step can further enable you to take on the world.

Physical
If your body is not working, then neither are you. Physical problems actually detract from how much energy your brain has to do mental and emotional work as your brain is working overtime to heal your body. Needs like adequate food and water, sleep, and exercise are not only survival mechanisms: they are needs that are totally unique to your body and how it works. Some of this really breaks down to time management, so set aside time as you are able to eat, drink, and stretch or exercise, even if only for 15 minutes. Try to get in the habit of configuring the distribution of your time each day so that you know when you need to go to bed to get enough sleep to function the next day.

Other physical self-care activities can feel like treats or rarities, but too long without them and they become needs. That bath bomb you saw at the store the other day? You might need that time relaxing and breathing deeply tonight. That dog park you thought might be some fun exercise for you and your pup? It may just be the first real time you’ve spent not thinking about work all week. Taking care of your body can feel like an impulse decision, but it may just be the one thing you needed most this week. Listen to your body.

Mental
Mental health is a complicated topic because your psychological needs are even more unique to you and your life than your body is. How you distribute your mental energy within your day and what information you decide to absorb has a massive influence on your well-being before you even start to interact with people. In this instance, time management can also be a factor, but the way you spend that time, even while at work, can have an even bigger influence. How much time on your phone or computer was spent learning something new? Was the information you spent your time working with all positive? How much did any negative information you looked at affect your mental state?

Do you practice self-care for your mental health? Do you meditate, read, or attend therapy or counseling? If not, activities like these may be the boost to your confidence that you’ve been looking for.

Emotional
Being mentally healthy is not the same as being emotionally healthy. No matter how solid your mental health is, processing, understanding, and productively handling and responding to our emotions can be very difficult. Further, letting others see your emotions is equally difficult and can feel like the least healthy thing to do. Setting aside time to look at your emotions, contemplate them and understand why you feel that way, and what you can do to feel better can make an incredible amount of difference.

You may want to start by yourself, with a journal or even a voice memo. Getting your emotions somewhere outside of your head can be the first step to lifting a weight off your shoulders. Eventually, you may want to sit down and share those emotions with someone else you trust, be it a friend or family member, or even a mental health professional.

Spiritual
Especially when you work where you worship, strong connection and relationship with God can be a determining factor in how ready you are for the rest of your day; but working in a place that feels so close to God can often make us feel like we need a break from God sometimes, and that’s okay! Spiritual growth looks different for each of us, and sometimes that growth can even happen outside community. Meditation, worship, spiritual study, and introspection can be just as effective as community and structured worship in helping you grow spiritually.

Social
Social self-care may not always feel like self-care. Maintaining and making time for relationships with others can feel so overwhelming that we eliminate self-care entirely to make sure someone else is happy. Close relationships are extremely important for well-being, but it is also important to make sure that you have a good balance. Make sure the relationships you keep are valuable and do not detract from your ability to practice self-care. In a healthy relationship, each person takes care of one another, rather than one person (you) carrying the weight of the whole.

Effective self-care is multi-faceted and requires walking the talk. Don’t just talk about it: write it down and spend the time and energy to contemplate exactly what you need to take care of yourself and support your friends, family, and community. You work hard, so spend some of that time on you.

Pronouns in Church Communications

by Ret David North

As Pride Month comes to a close, a lot of what we do as churches and spiritual communities to celebrate Pride Month is beginning to feel performative. What’s more, we are not the only people with this feeling. But we’re not starting over completely – rather continuing the movement.

Pronouns are a subtle and simple way of affirming our siblings in love. What can feel like the most basic, subconscious part of our language is really a critical factor in the emotional state of those around us and a hint at the level of decency we show to others. As we plan our messages to our communities for the week, for the day, or even for one moment in time, considering pronouns and how we use them is an important step in demonstrating affirmation and love.

Transgender, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming individuals are not the only people who use pronouns. In case you didn’t know it, you use pronouns too! People call you he or she, and no matter how often you think about it, what people use to talk about you is very important to you! No matter your gender identity or expression, even one small mistake of your pronouns or someone calling you the wrong gender is more likely than not to cause you distress, frustration, or anger.

Gender Neutral and Neo-pronouns
What to do when you meet a non-binary or gender non-conforming person? Gender-neutral pronouns (they/them/theirs) have been declared grammatically correct in singular usage by Merriam-Webster, tracing back to the beginning of their usage in the English language. You may also run into people who use more than one set of pronouns and encourage others to alternate pronouns for them in conversation. This includes use of neo (new) pronouns, which are increasingly used in place of standard pronouns (she, he, or they) when referring to people. Below, see some common neo pronouns and examples of how they are used (sourced from UNC Greensboro Intercultural Engagement):

These pronouns can be difficult to remember because most of us are totally new to them, and that’s okay! Establishing and encouraging pronoun usage, declaration, and discussion in your community can help you to learn more about how to affirm and love those around you. If you’re not sure how to pronounce someone’s pronouns, it’s okay to ask! Many people who use neo pronouns will wear something that tells you to ask their pronouns, rather than declaring them, so that they can tell you how to pronounce them, how their pronouns are used, and even more about that person and how they express themselves. For example: “Hey Ret, I noticed you have the pronoun n-e on your nametag, and I wanted to make sure I’m saying and using it right. Can you help me?”

Incorporating Pronoun Usage
This starts with interpersonal connections, both direct and indirect. If your church uses nametags, this is a great place to start! If you prefer using disposal nametags, have them printed with pronoun options, as seen below. If you don’t have the option of reprinting nametags, write your pronouns beneath your name on the nametag and encourage others to do the same. One look at the nametag can make it that much easier to talk to and about the people around you and sends a subtle message to those in fear of being misgendered that your community is a safe environment that cares about and respects the identity and comfort of each and every person. Using reusable nametags? No problem! Pronouns can be added to nametags using a label maker or a lapel pin, or they can be added with permanent marker.

How you introduce yourself can also make an immediate impact on the comfort of those around you. Just like on your nametag, a personal introduction that includes your name and your pronouns clarifies your identity to the person you’re speaking with while also subtly stating that you provide a safe and loving environment where people to share their own pronouns. This practice can feel awkward at first, because it’s likely not how you’re used to making conversation, but those three or four words can make a split-second difference in how awkward the conversation feels for the other person as well.

Digital communications are perhaps a little easier to incorporate pronouns because it requires less practice. The best place to start is your email signature! Email signatures, especially in your first communications with someone, help the person reading your email to decide many things about you, how you work, how professional you are, and how much you care about them. More often than not, email signatures are programmed to go automatically at the bottom of your email immediately after starting a draft. Your pronouns should come directly after your name in the email signature, as you see below—think as if you’re introducing yourself over email.

Pronouns are also important wherever someone may be looking for names of clergy, staff, and ministry leaders, including but not limited to:

• Clergy/Staff Page on your church website

• Clergy/Staff list in bulletin or service leaflet

• Business cards

• Epistle or newsletter

• Blog

For more information on how you can incorporate pronoun usage into your communications, visit these resources:
www.pinkmantaray.com/pronouns
www.glsen.org/activity/pronouns-guide-glsen
www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/9904/christians-and-gender-neutral-pronouns