At the 150th Diocesan Convention in November 2024, as part of my update on the Communications goals and initiatives in the diocese’s Strategic Vision, I announced that we were looking to identify the people in our local congregations who were responsible for communication functions, including those who prepare the Sunday bulletins, produce the parish newsletter, manage the website, and handle social media posts. We posted a survey and asked our church leaders to make sure those people, whether staff or volunteers, complete it.
The development of this new Parish Communicators group is one of the initiatives in the Strategic Vision that will move us toward our goal of “placing communications and technology on an equal level to other areas of ministry and congregational life and offering opportunities for professional development in every congregation and faith community across the diocese.” With this new group, we can now send information directly to the people at the parish level who are responsible for communicating with the people in the pews, and they can share what is happening at their local level with us to share across the diocese. The new group currently has 113 members representing 77 congregations.
As part of the professional development goal, since January I have hosted a monthly communicators group gathering online, where I can show them how to use certain communications tools, answer their questions about effective communications at the parish level, and offer them time to network and support each other in this critical ministry. To accommodate people’s various schedules, these sessions alternate between shorter midday meetings (12:30-1 PM) and longer evening meetings (6:30-8 PM), and we’ve consistently had 8-10 attendees at each one. The next Parish Communicators Zoom meeting is scheduled for Monday, June 2, 6:30-8 PM.
If your parish is not represented in the Parish Communicators group, please ask your communicators to complete a survey. If you are a parish communicator with one of the roles listed above and you are not currently in the group, you should also complete the survey, so that we can get you on the list and include you in future notices. You can also visit our Parish Communicators page on the diocesan website (under Communications in the main menu) for upcoming meeting and communications resources.
