When we hear the words “communications” or “marketing,” we tend to think about for-profit businesses with massive marketing departments. While those business-sounding terms may make you cringe internally, there’s no need to let the business world co-opt basic methodologies we can use to share the Gospel. We can stay far away from any slimy and manipulative marketing practices and still be quite effective at getting the word out about Jesus and our local church.

The challenge is that church marketing can become overwhelming. There’s simply too much information to communicate and too many questions coming in to leave communications up to the pastor and a business administrator. 

Instead, churches can benefit from a team of individuals who are passionate about the mission of the church and gifted at communicating that vision.

That leads us to the Communications Team. 

A church marketing and communications team is responsible for making sure people receive information about upcoming services, events, and ministry programs. This communication happens through a variety of methods:

• On-stage announcements
• Video announcements
• Church bulletin
• Text messages
• Emails
• Billboards
• Church signage
• Social media
• Church website
• Postcards or mailers
• Flyers
• Online paid ads

Ideally, a full-time Church Communications Director leads this team and is responsible for developing and implementing a comprehensive communications strategy. Between the always-evolving nature of online tools and various approaches to church marketing, this role requires a strong leader with a talented team.

Building a Church Communications Team

Since most churches don’t have a multimillion-dollar budget for a communications department, you might need to fill some of these roles with volunteers. After all, who’s going to write and schedule all the social media posts, create graphics to promote upcoming events and sermon series, shoot videos, write website copy, write and schedule emails, etc.? 

Those tasks can’t all fall onto a lonely Communications Director. 

Instead, you’ll need to build a team of communications volunteers who are passionate about serving the church in this capacity.

Pulling together a team of volunteers to handle many of the vital communications tasks may feel daunting. After all, what’s the incentive for them to complete their assigned tasks on time? It certainly isn’t a paycheck! 

This is where, as a leader, you’ll need to articulate a clear and compelling vision for potential communications volunteers. Help them see how they could play a critical role in leading people to Christ and ensuring people know how they can grow in their spiritual journey through the church. 

Communications is mostly a supporting role, so you’ll need to help people see how their work could directly impact people making a decision to serve Christ.

Another way to help volunteers stay motivated is to help them see how this role benefits them. 

High school students with an interest in photography or communications careers may find this experience helpful as they decide what career path to choose. They can also use this time on the church communications team on their resume; showing potential employers that they have real-world experience. In a panel with communications leaders, the team at Vanderbloemen recommends creating an internship program for high school and college students with an interest in communications careers.

Communications Team Roles and Responsibilities

Depending on church size (and budget), a communications team structure might include the following roles:

Graphic Design

With so much of our communications happening on visual platforms, there’s plenty of graphic design work to complete each week. Social media graphics, bulletins, sermon series promotions, and event marketing materials, are just a few examples of what you could have a communications volunteer handle for you.

Social Media

This typically involves writing multiple posts per day for any social media platform the church uses. A social media volunteer may also be responsible for responding to questions or comments on the church’s social media accounts. If you have volunteers responding to questions on behalf of the church, you’ll need to provide these individuals with detailed guidelines and training on how to handle those communications.

Website

The church website is often the first place people visit before deciding whether to check out your church. As a result, it needs to be up-to-date with clear copy and easy navigation. Depending on the experience of your volunteers, you might assign some to perform simple content updates versus keeping WordPress plugins updated or designing new pages for the site.

Video

Video is a powerful communication tool and one that’s incredibly popular online. However, if the video quality is poor, you won’t make the positive first impression you’re looking for. This means you’ll need to find (or train) talented volunteers for your communications team.

Email Marketing Specialist

While social media is useful, the various algorithms often mean the people you want to view the church’s posts don’t see them in their feeds. One way to ensure more people actually receive messages from the church is via email.

 A weekly email newsletter with content that applies to all (or nearly all) congregants is useful. Tailored communications to specific audiences such as parents, college students, widows, or single parents can help you send each group information on upcoming events or messages that are relevant to them.

A volunteer in this role would be responsible for writing the emails and designing the automated workflows within your church’s email delivery system.

Writer

From online to printed materials, there’s plenty of writing to do when it comes to church communications. Website content, blog posts, downloadable resources, and other materials are just a few examples of how you could benefit from a few volunteer writers on your team.

Data Entry

How does data entry come into play for a communications team? Well, you may want a volunteer to pull quotes from the pastor’s sermons for social media posts. This volunteer could enter email addresses into the church management system so you can follow up with guests via email.

Project Manager

The church communications team usually has several projects going on simultaneously.

• Creating event promotional materials
• Designing graphics for an upcoming sermon series
• Writing emails to promote a new ministry program
• Updating church signage
• And much more…

Someone needs to oversee the myriad of tasks and deliverable handoffs required to make all these efforts come together on time and within budget. That’s where a project manager comes into play. 

This individual works with the team to identify all the tasks required to complete a given project, uses that information to create a project plan, then monitors all the tasks. This person might manage several projects at once, so the project manager will need to deconflict task deadlines and work with the Communications Director to manage resources effectively.

Photographer

While there are several great stock photography sites available, the costs can become prohibitive. Also, no stock photo will ever capture the dynamics of your congregation, the church facilities, and photos of special events. Having a few photographers on your volunteer communications team can be a huge blessing.

Setting Expectations for Each Communications Role

A key first step toward building a church communications team is to write a job description for each role. Now, you might wonder why you should create a job description for a volunteer. It all comes down to setting expectations. 

Without a documented job description, volunteers won’t understand exactly what you expect them to do. They will take whatever you’ve told them in a conversation and will put their own interpretation on it. That may or may not align with what you intended. 

To reduce frustration for everyone, it’s wise to document what you expect from a volunteer in each role.

Job descriptions are also useful as you consider how to train each volunteer. All communications team members will need a foundational course on the church’s branding, statement of beliefs (and how that applies to social media and other communications), a high-level view of the church’s communication strategy, and any applicable communications policies. From there, each role will need training materials based on the tasks assigned to that role.

Here’s how to get started:

Step #1: Identify Volunteer Communications Roles

When you’re preparing to recruit a volunteer team, the first step is to identify your volunteer needs.

• What tasks do you need someone else to perform? Is that task well-suited for a volunteer to do?
• How do those tasks combine under specific roles (graphic design, social media, website)?
• How much time should it take a volunteer per week to fill a particular role?
• How many volunteers do you need in each role?
• What skills or experience should a person have to be successful in completing a task?

Another key issue here is to ensure you don’t put too much work onto any one volunteer. You might need to break up the graphic design work into 2-3 volunteer roles with each volunteer handling the graphics for 1-3 ministry departments. 

You’ll need to provide branding and style guidelines to ensure the graphics have a cohesive look, but that’s certainly a manageable issue.

Step #2: Anticipate Volunteer Questions

Most people who’ve attended a church for a while have an idea about the common volunteer roles (greeters, ushers, childcare, etc.). However, they might not have considered serving in a communications role. 

As you prepare to write job descriptions for these communications roles, consider what potential volunteers will want to know before they commit to serve.

• What tasks are involved?
• How much time will this take each week?
• Am I signing up for forever or is there a check-in date to see if this is a good fit?

Step #3: Document the Job Descriptions

Overview

At the start of each job description, provide a summary of the role. Include information about the purpose of that volunteer role and why it’s important for the church.

Time Commitment

The people in your church have busy lives like everyone else. They have jobs, families, and other responsibilities, so their time is limited. Before they sign up to be on the communications team, they’ll need to know how much time they’ll need to carve out for this work. 

Within each job description, include an estimate of how much time this role should take to complete each week (or each month). If there are specific deadlines, include those as well (social media posts for the month must be scheduled by the Monday before the end of the prior month).

Core Responsibilities

Volunteers will want to know what they’re signing up for before they commit. In addition to the time commitment, this includes understanding what tasks you need them to complete.

Be specific with the list of tasks and when each task is due. Discuss this list with interested communications volunteers to confirm whether this list seems reasonable for one volunteer to complete.

Also, consider the following questions as you write each job description:

• How often would this task be performed (weekly, monthly, etc.)?
• What does this volunteer role involve? What are the specifics?
• Who would this volunteer report to (what staff member or volunteer leader)?
• What is the mission/purpose behind these tasks? How does this volunteer role support the mission and vision of the church?
• What does success look like for someone in this role?

Education & Experience

For certain communications roles such as videography or graphic design, you might want someone who has either a degree in that field or the equivalent in work experience. 

Another consideration is whether you have time to train someone who is interested in a role but doesn’t have much experience yet. Note these factors within the job description.

Step #4: Update as Needed

As you review these job descriptions with volunteers, they might ask questions about a line item that you hadn’t considered. A certain bullet point might not be as clear as you thought it was, so you’ll need to revise it. In addition to making updates as you receive feedback from volunteers, schedule time to review these documents annually and update them as needed.

Building A Church Communication Volunteer Team Is Possible 

Building and leading a church communications team isn’t a quick or easy process. While you may feel the urgency to just get a few volunteers to help, don’t take on a volunteer without having a clear sense of what you need that person to do. 

That only sets up the volunteer (and you) for failure. 

Give volunteers the gift of clear expectations through a documented job description. This will save you from many difficult conversations and from having to redo a volunteer’s work. That alone should give you the extra motivation needed to write those communication team job descriptions.