Talk to me: Talk to each other!

As we continue our discussion of communication in Sunday School and Life Groups, it's important to remember that communication is not just top-down, from leadership team to the larger group.  It is also important for your group's leaders to talk to each other.  If you have assembled your team (more in future posts), you should be meeting together regularly to plan, discuss, and pray.

Here are some helpful tips for maintaining communication for your leadership team:

• Meet often.  This probably means meeting in person together every four to six weeks.  If not everyone can make it to the meeting that is ok, but it is best to hold this meeting at a regular time (say, the second Sunday afternoon of every month) and to send out minutes/notes afterwards.  
• Take the temperature.  Everyone has a different personality and perspective.  Ask your team if they sense any needs or interpersonal dynamics in the group that should be addressed.  Ask if your current practices (events, schedules, outreach) are going well.  See if anyone on the team is feeling overburdened or needs help with a task.  

Talk to me: Get the word out!

In my previous post, we discussed the Biblical basis for making your group's communications relate desire and qualification of the audience.  As promised, this post will give you some tools for accomplishing those goals.

In my experience, there are four formal ways to communicate to your group:

1. In-class verbal announcements
2. In-class visual announcements (PowerPoint/bulletin board/whiteboard/clipboard)
3. Weekly e-newsletter
4. Facebook group or Facebook fan page

While you do not have to use all of these media, I suggest using at least two of them-- one in-class, and one digital.

For in-class verbal announcements, the best time to do this is at the beginning of class, before the Sunday School lesson.  Use a format that implements the 4WHC details:

Talk to me: Desired and qualified

As we enter February, we continue our focus on growth by looking at communication.  When I moved to a new city with my family six months ago, I was eager to learn what was going on in town. What are the good restaurants?  The fun activities for kids?  The best parks and walking paths?  With the help of a local parents' magazine, moms' group e-newsletters, and a great county parks website and city app, I quickly found what I needed to know to begin shaping a life here.  The local parents' magazine led me to a consignment sale by a MOPS group, which in turn led us to the church we joined a month later.  The city app and local signage led our family to some fun Food Truck Friday outings in our new downtown, and the parks website helped me find which parks had playground equipment (and shade!) nearby for my son to play on hot summer days.

All this was relatively easy not just because of the internet, but because these groups were talking to me.  They made themselves and their information easy to find, and