Mashable is often a wonderful place to find tidbits of insights for churches that we never could quite expect. Today, they highlighted a new Qantas safety video called “Feels Like Home.” The interesting part is that it not only shows us something about videos, but provides an “ah-ha” moment that can relate to every element of how we communicate in the church.

Now, a little background. I fly somewhere between 75,000 and 90,000 miles per year (mainly for work.) In general, safety videos bore me to tears. I can state the script verbatim while reading Game of Thrones and jamming to the latest NF album. (Meaning multi-tasking to an extreme.) It has become the background noise of getting on a flight that everyone ignores.

The latest trend in safety videos has been to try to make the humorous or engaging while showing the specific required safety elements. All of them take place on a place and include some other humorous elements like Delta’s “most Internet’y safety video.”  Now, they have even become expected and part of the background noise on a plane and fades from our attention.
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Now, take a look at Qantas’ “Feels Like Home” safety video:

Not only does it provide the basic run of the mill safety information, but it shows you the wonderful scenery of Australia, brings a small tear to your eye at the end and provides some motivation to hop on a plane to go see it (likely through Qantas).
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There are a couple themes that we should note:

1. It stays focused on the objective (highlighting important safety information) while doing it in an unexpected way.
2. They understand their audience. They are talking to travelers. Some are Aussies that take pride in their home while others may be interested in going there some day.
3. It is interesting because it shows us places we are interested in ourselves as well as almost tells “micro-stories” in the process.
4. It feels very authentic and not gimmicky or cheesy.
5. It has an emotional payoff at the end.

Now, you may feel that I may be over-analyzing a simple safety video and making things up. Watch it again and then compare it with the Delta video. Which one would you watch again?

Ah…I thought so.

The same is true for church communication. Whether it is from a pulpit to an announcement on YouTube, how you capture someone’s attention, hold their interest and achieve your objective is a tough thing to do. We are constantly bombarded with information. They pay attention to what matters most. We need to earn it.

So, what can we learn from the Qantas video?

1. Get clear on the objective. What do you need to convey and what do you want people to do? Make it only a short, single and simple objective. For the Qantas video, it is simple. We are legally required to show specific safety elements to passengers prior to take off.
   
   
2. Understand WHO you are talking to. Who is your audience and how do they feel at the moment you are communicating. What are their thoughts, concerns and cares? For flyers, some are anxious about flying. For others it is to go to new places and explore. For everyone, they just want to get home safely and rejoin their families.
   
   
3. Get clear on WHY it is important and address it in the first 10 seconds. You have 10 seconds to get someone’s attention and keep it. They will evaluate whether they should continue to pay attention or not in that time. For the Qantas video, it is to keep you safe. Count how many references and inferences they make about this in the first 10 to 15 seconds of the video. (Hint: The use of sheep is not accidental.) People in your church and community will judge any communication in the first 10 seconds so make them count by getting clear on the WHY.
   
   
4. Distill what you need to communicate to its essence. Think about what very specifically needs communicated and why. In the Qantas video, there are specific elements that must be shown: use of a seat belt, putting on an oxygen mask, and so on. Now, simplify that list to its essence of what the minimum that must be shown to succeed.
   
   
5. Make an unexpected turn in how you communicate it. Whether you use humor, tell stories or just present your message in an interesting way, think about what would surprise, delight or engage you. For the Qantas video, they took the mandatory safety elements and placed them in an unexpected and beautiful content relevant to their viewers.
   
   
6. Always be authentic. People hate feeling like they are being manipulated. It is especially important for churches to have an authentic voice in their communications. The Qantas video is delightful because it feels like you are meeting authentic people that represent the heart of Australia. It is not overdone or feels like they are hiding something. The church MUST take the same approach. Everyone has stories of churches that use guilt, pressure and manipulation to get people to do something. It may be effective in the short-term but it always fails in the end.
   
   
7. Be clear on what you want them to do next. Don’t make people guess what to do after watching the video. Make a single statement of the next step. The shorter, the better. If they have to guess, you failed. For the Qantas video, it is simple. Sit back, enjoy the flight and we will take care of you. For a church, it could be “sign up for a class” or “volunteer for the next food drive.” The more you are asking of someone, the more effective your communication needs to be in engaging them, convincing them on why and giving them a simple, one step action to take immediately.
   
   
8. Review the communication and ask “Did we reward their attention.” It is called “paying attention” because there is a cost. People get very upset if you wasted it. It needs to be relevant to your audience, convey a meaningful message and have a clear next step to have a chance. Now ask the questions, “Am I happy I watched/read this?” and “Would I share this with my friend now?”  If it does not pass those two tests, rework it.

Now, does every church announcement need to go through this filter? Nope, but the things that are most important do need to pass these eight steps. I would argue that it is just as important for a sermon as well as a video conveying the mission of the church.
Churches must be clear in what they communicate. Otherwise the noise of the world will drown them out.

Many churches bemoan all of the changes that are happening in today’s society.  Every time you stop to take a breath, something changes.  Whether it is how teenagers communicate to one another or even what is the hottest TV show or song this week, everything seems to be moving in fast forward.  Just once we start to figure things out, the ground shifts underneath or feet and we need to change again in reaction to these cultural waves.

While I personally feel this all of the time since I work in the technology sector, this is even being felt in our local churches.  Worship styles and approaches sometime feel out of date even through the church just launched a contemporary service.  Kids would rather watch a video during Sunday School than use traditional written materials.  The Pastor uses an iPad to read the scripture verse instead of reading out of a Bible.  People want to “tweet” during worship in addition to saying “amen.”

Should we fight the cultural waves of change?
The world has changed and there are a number of people in church who are not happy about it.  They want to stop people looking at their cell phones in church, make sure the latest version of the United Methodist hymnal is in the pews and keep to the “tried and true” methods of the faithful that have worked in the past.

In other words, they want to be a “surf break” against the cultural waves which are slamming our church and create a calm in which they can connect with God.  There is nothing wrong with this desire.  In a world where everything changes, we look for calm in some area of our life.  There are many who believe that the church need to be this sanctuary in this storm. We can hunker down in this storm and seek peace in the breaking waves of life.

The actions at General Conference of the United Methodist Church in 2012 and the consequent Judicial Council rulings show an extension of this desire to maintain the status quo.  Our structures at all levels of the church reflect the best thinking from the 1960s and not 2010s.

We are not alone…There are a number of industries fighting change and will become extinct because of it.  One look at our living room television reveals that we are not alone in our desire to maintain the status quo.  Today’s cable companies are trying desperately to maintain control our what we watch and how we watch it.  Television advertising, 30 min and 60 min shows and even the idea of prime time television are all tied to the basic model that people will sit down and watch shows when they are aired.  Companies like Time Warner and Comcast (and even Direct TV and Dish Network) make you buy blocks of channels to watch programming.

Now enter Netflix and Hulu.  They offer unlimited viewing on demand for under 10 dollars a piece.  While it may not have every show, you can use is as a simple substitute for your expensive cable bill to meet 90% of your TV needs for under $20.  (The only exception being live sports programming and there are ways to satisfy that as well with MLB.com and NFL.com).  We are not that far away from the situation that we will be paying and watching our television content on demand.

The reaction of many of the cable companies have been to dig in and try to maintain the current state of affairs   Music and radio are in the same boat.  We are moving to an on-demand world and yet they try to make people come to them, when and where they want and ingest their content in a particular way.

The winners focus on the principles of their industry.  For cable companies, it is providing killer content. Broadcasters want people to watch when they show it and interrupt their viewing with commercials every 12 minutes (so they can make money.) Netflix and Hulu understand that people want to see killer content when it works for them so they charge a rate and make the content available when they want.

Principle vs. preference (for churches)
Whether we care to admit it or not, we seek to do the same with the church and our content (called the message of Christ).  We hold our services at a particular time and in a particular way and we feel that people need to come to us to hear the life saving message of Jesus Christ.  We want things on our terms because it makes us feel comfortable.  We feel the waves of change hammering around us yet we stand firm.  Many believe that we should stand on principles and not allow the world to change us.  We are standing firm for Christ, right?

Here is the killer question: Are we (as the church) standing firm on the right principles or stuck on our preferences? Let’s take a look at a few…

Jesus is God’s Son = Principle
Worship styles = Preference (the organ was once considered the devil’s bagpipes)

The Holy Trinity = Principle
Use of hymnal (or screen) = Preference

Serving the Poor = Principle
Going on International Mission Trips = Preference

Christ came to this world and upturned many of the rules the Jewish faith.  Working on the Sabbath.  Hanging out with the unclean.  Drinking water with a Samaritan woman.  Jesus took religious convention and turned it on its head.  He had a very clear mission to reconcile God and his people.  He focused on saving the lost and not about following the rules laid out by the religious authorities (many of which were layers upon layers of man-made rules on top of the scripture.) They were made with the best of intentions to keep the Jewish people from breaking God’s commandments.  Instead, these rules turned into a straight-jacket for our faith and kept the church from moving forward to reach the least and the lost.

The same is true today. Take some time to list out all of your church’s key principles and then ask yourself, “Is this really a principle or is this a preference?” Then back it up with Scripture and key church writings (meaning the Apostle’s Creed and not the Bishop’s latest letter.) If an unbiased person looking at the evidence would not say it is a “principle,” then you may need to ask yourself why you are holding onto it so strongly.

Many times, it is our emotions trying to convince ourselves it is more important than what it really is or we want to conform God and Jesus to our worldview instead of the other way around.

It is time to get clear on our calling!
When we strip our thinking from our preferences and focus on God’s key principles, we can surf the cultural waves of change while staying committed to God. If our goal is to make disciples, what do we need to attract people to God’s message of reconcilation and disciple them in the faith. It may not be on a Sunday morning at 11am singing Hymn #256. It may be at a recovery group being held in a community library or a bible study in a coffee shop (or even a bar (gasp!))

If someone commits their life to Christ and grows as a disciple in the faith, do you really think God cares about anything else?

We as the church need to get very clear on our calling (to make disciples) and then be willing to surf the waves of the world to be able to achieve it. We need to leave behind our “preferences” on how we like to reach them.

At the end of the day, we cannot force people to like what we like and do things the way we want to do them. We need to attract people to the message of Christ and connect with them in a way that they can relate with and connect to.

Jesus did it. Why shouldn’t we?
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To learn how to craft programs that surf the cultural waves, check out the article “How does picking surfboards look a lot like creating church programs?”

Church assessments are hard. It is that simple. All of us want to see both ourselves and our churches in the best possible light. It is kind of like when our jeans don’t fit after the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. We can try to say they shrunk in the wash or we can admit to ourselves that we may have indulged a little too much. It is not until we look at ourselves in the mirror with a critical eye that we can admit we may have overindulged over the holidays. The same is true for churches.

When was the last time your church looked into the mirror?
​Many churches complete their charge conference paperwork (if you are United Methodist), and then attempt to rationalize what happened in the previous year if things did not go well. Think about your own church situation and ask: how do we explain our church growth or our decline? (And with 94% of churches in decline, it usually is the later.)

Here are a few explanations:
Growth – We are so friendly here.
Decline – It is the megachurch down the street that just puts on a show.

Growth – Our pastor preaches a good sermon every week.
Decline – It is societies fault that people don’t want to come to church.

Growth – Our choir is amazing.
Decline – Kids sports are on Sunday now. It isn’t our fault.

Growth – People love our children’s programs.
Decline – It isn’t about numbers. It is about how strong of disciples we are.

Now, some of these explanations may provide some insight into why there is growth or decline in your church. Your pastor may be good at preaching. The megachurch may be drawing away members. People may love your choir or children’s programs. There may be people drawn away by competing events.

The fundamental issue is that none of these explanations get to the WHY!

The core issue with church assessments
What is the core issue with church assessments? It is us.

​Yep, it is true. Let me explain.

We make thousands of decisions each day. Whether it is what we want to eat for breakfast or why someone cut us off, our brain uses our experience, our emotions and our perceived patterns to help us accelerate the decision making process. It is the only thing that keeps us able to function in our daily lives, especially in today’s fast pace world.

To help reduce the workload on your brain, it uses patterns to recognize what is happening and what to do about it. While it keeps us from going crazy, sometimes our own frame of reference prevents us from objectively seeing a situation and evaluating it.

Here is a graphic published in the article, “20 cognitive biases that screw up your decision making” by Business Insider UK to provide an overview of JUST SOME of the many biases we need to think through to objectively analyze a situation.

The first step in church assessments.
Lying to ourselves, whether as an individual or as a church body, is not that hard. Our bias gets in the way. Ask any church that has not grown. We are professionals at explaining away our declining church attendance and pointing to a set of facts that make it “not our fault.” We will then go on and explain that we are growing spiritually and that it is OK.

I have two words for you:  “Not biblical.”

Stop making excuses. The Great Commission and the Great Commandment make it very clear that it is our job to make disciples for the transformation of the world. That includes bringing new people to the faith, growing their faith and sending them back out into the world to re-present Christ.

I believe any church can grow. I have seen it. I have written about it. I have experienced it. If the church can grow under extreme presecution (whether in Acts 2 or today in China), it can grow anywhere. If a urban church of 35 (and everyone over 65) can grow in 3 years to a church of 150 and serve over 5,000 meals a year with zero budget, it can grow. If your church is just 3 families and 12 people, it can grow.
The question is…are you willing to do whatever it takes with God’s power to do it.

The key to taking to first step is to answer this question: “Are we willing to take an objective look at our actions, our attitudes, our community, our calling, and our capabilities to live fully in the Great Commission and the Great Commandment?”