Download Communicating Today - The Catholic Spirit

Communicating Faith
“What challenges
currently face the
church in the
area of effective
Communication
–
Solutions to
Consider?”
The view from
the USCCB and
national
perspective.
Challenges & Solutions
• Leading through a vision of mission.
• Creating content and message that
impact people.
• Engaging people.
Leadership & Direction
• Knowing what we want to achieve?
• Our role as leaders is changing ?
• Tendency to focus on outputs rather
than outcomes.
• Our own understanding of technology
• Social media tools are just that – tools
to do something.
• Be disciplined and focused on long
term.
Content & Messages
• Messages and content need to connect
people’s lives with Jesus Christ and the
Church. Why Be Catholic?
• Clear sense of what we want to say to
people about Jesus and Church.
• Messages tend to become unnecessarily
complicated.
• Competition for people’s attention requires
unified, clear, and simple communications.
Engagement
• Changing roles and responsibilities
driven by technology and learning
models .
• Role change from gate-keeping to
facilitating/mentoring.
• Respectful dialogue - Two way:
interactive and participative.
• Competition for time and attention.
Solutions-Leading
• Vision drives action – this is all about bringing
people into a relationship with Jesus Christ!
• Communicating as essential element in
building community of believers.
• Get the right people involved.
• Training-formation.
• Create a culture that includes assessment of
outcomes.
• Focus on need to develop right content
expressed with right messages.
• Be willing to take a risk – a measured risk.
Solutions-Messaging
• Identify what it is that you want to share with
people – content?
• Create messages that engage and impact
people.
• We are not just creating content and messages
for ourselves - I am not the audience!
• Focus on desired outcomes, not just outputs.
• Value of “branding” as tool for evangelization.
• Create strategies and communication vehicles
to get messages to right people at the right
time.
Solutions-Engaging
• Create strategies to move people from
passive “receivers” to active “participants.”
• Using social media – know what you want
to achieve (desired outcome) and
understand how social media works best.
• Respectful dialogue.
• Transparency.
• People are choosing methods and formats
that they are most comfortable.
• A unified approach for parish as a whole.
Moving Forward
1. Build a culture and organizational structure
for effective communication within the
parish.
2. Develop relationships and work
collaboratively with key stakeholders,
ministries and the community.
3. Create a unified strategy for Catholic
Communications in the parish both
internally and externally.
4. Create clear and consistent messages