The blind side of church communications

The church seems to have forgotten how to have a two-way conversation.

The Christian church is good at preaching, at teaching, at carrying out the functions of church – but in many ways have forgotten how to engage its members in meaningful dialog.  Are we too intent on carrying out our roles that we forget how to serve, to care for the people that we are trying to equip?

Church leadership (pastors, boards, ministry directors) often have a blind side to communications – they think they are communicating, but they are really not – substituting email, memos and church policy in place of where true dialog needs to take place, in conversation.

The size of the zone of blindness increases with the size of the church.  Effective church management should be no different than business management, yet the church (in America) rejects this notion.  The blind side grows as churches grow, and as leadership loses touch with people as they pursue ministry.  It grows as the emphasis on evangelism takes the place of equipping people to evangelize.  The blind side grows as the degrees of separation grows from executive and teaching leadership to lay leadership (who often are more in touch with what is really happening in ministries).

It's not too late. Pick up the phone, have lunch with someone who volunteers in your church.  You'll be surprised what you can learn.