In our interview last February, Cynthia Ware, Executive Director of the Center for Church Communication (CFCC), talked about wanting to put a spotlight on church communications excellence.

Cynthia and her team have delivered on that idea with the launch of the Firestarter initiative.

Firestarter is a promotional and educational tool for honoring churches that excel in using all forms of communication to connect people to Jesus and one another.

The first group of Firestarter honorees have been announced.

Firestarter

The 2010 Firestarter honorees.

Cynthia, the board of directors and team members have done a great job in developing the Firestarter concept.

Featuring churches and their Big Ideas will help others see what can be accomplished through communications excellence. It will spark creativity. Encourage new technology ventures. I am confident that Firestarter will jumpstart greater innovation in church communication.

CFCC has started a fire for communications excellence, but a fire doesn’t automatically continue to burn.

To keep it going, to build a larger fire, will take fanning the flames.

Six ways to fan the flames

1. Form a Firestarter discussion group at your church or ministry. Start with the question, “What can we learn from the 2010 Firestarter churches?”

2. Conduct a communications audit to evaluate current activities and strategy. What’s working? What’s not? What are the opportunities and threats? Are measurable goals being set? Are goals being achieved?

3. Draft a vision statement for communications excellence.

4. Implement at least one NEW approach or experiment for using communication technologies to carry out spiritual disciplines (evangelism, Bible study, serving, etc.) in the next 3 months.

5. Promote Firestarter and its honorees on blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other communication channels.

6. Put a link to CFCC on blogs or websites. Church communications is a hot topic. The CFCC represents a nationally respected group of leaders. For the period Jan-June, CFCC is the number one outbound link on my blog.

A major risk

Communication technologies will continue to evolve at a dizzying rate well into the future. The Internet has advanced beyond email and websites and into Social Media and externally-hosted software services (often referred to as cloud computing).

Trying to figure out what to do is not easy.

That said, to take full advantage of the opportunities these tools are bringing to the church, to be good stewards in this critical hour of history, getting started is essential.

The risk is not so much that some new communications endeavor won’t go as planned. Or that the communications excellence of megachurches just isn’t possible.

The risk is falling so far behind that, at some point, establishing any type of effective 21st century communication platform will move beyond the grasp of the average church and ministry.

A major benefit

A major benefit to starting now is that so much help is available. More help than may be realized at first.

I believe right now God has prepared highly skilled communications specialists to help your church or ministry leverage new media tools for communicating His message.

This could mean the addition of a new staff member or a qualified volunteer. It may mean securing the services of a communications or media consultant.

Or it could mean taking advantage of the vast array of information and services on the Internet, beginning with the CFCC. Check out their Purpose. Using only a few of CFCC’s services and tapping into their network of experts will enable any church to take a step toward excellence.

And the most powerful help of all? The Great Firestarter, God’s Spirit, will enable leadership to see who should be on the team; what needs to be done make communications excellence a priority; and what tools and strategies best fit the overall vision of the church.

Want to be a Firestarter church? Start fanning the flames today.

Question: Why is church communications excellence important? What other ways can churches fan the flames of excellence? What innovations in communication for the gospel have you seen lately?