REACH OUT:
Church Communications
By Laura Treneer
CPO. £12.99
Church from the inside: Welcome,
news-sheets, magazines and stories
Church from the outside: displays,
noticeboards, invitations and PR
Church Online: Websites,
Church Online: Social Media
These four little books – under 100 pages each and designed to help with all aspects of church communications – promise much and deliver quite a lot, actually.
Each book discusses one of four different elements of communicating with the outside world: church from the inside, church from the outside, the web, and social media.
Genuinely insightful
Inside, the author discusses why each factor is important and the shortcomings most churches experience. She then moves on to offer new ways of thinking and gives some practical advice for improving the quality of how we make ourselves known to the people around us. Consequently, Laura Treneer offers some genuinely insightful observations and very helpful practical steps that challenged my thinking. I’m sure it would be a great help to many a church wondering how they could better use their resources.
However, the books weren’t perfect. While the desire to get people into church was obvious and admirable, the grounding in the gospel seemed sparse at best. While there were verses given that sought to ground things in Scripture, I never really got a good understanding of how the gospel should drive the use of our church communications beyond ‘we want to get people into church’.
Obviously there’s only so much information you can get in under 100 pages, so if you’re looking for a theology of church communications then look elsewhere. However, if you want some helpful, short and easy-to-read books which offer useful suggestions and tips on how to focus your resources, then these books are for you.
