‘When did your PCC last discuss communications, including your parish magazine and website?’ Southwell diocese is asking a bold question – some might even say intrusive – and it is likely to bring on a bad conscience. It may, after all, involve expenditure and not all PCCs have thought of spending money on publicity.
There is no reason why a PCC should be expected to return a well-informed answer. With good reason: a PCC cannot be expected to see itself as an expert in the publicity business. There may be members with a media background but, on the whole, PCCs have little acquaintance with the grubby world of deadlines, headlines and word-play. A PCC is composed of people with day-jobs that require expertise and experience in other fields. A PCC is no more likely to have a reporter or sub-editor amongst its members than it is likely to have a test-pilot. Even so, we have to salute the Southwell diocesan staff for at least nibbling at priorities.
PCCs need help on this. It is a good diocese that offers hands-on assistance. Guildford and Southwark make a point of offering advice and training. Liverpool invites requests for help day or night. Norwich has extensive tips on press relations and writing skills. Newcastle’s current diocesan publication (one of the best incidentally) has a feature ‘Sharing skills for digital church’. Not surprisingly there is a tendency to suggest that parishes contact the diocesan office rather than going it alone.
To come back to our starting-point, a PCC can usefully ponder these matters. It will not go very far wrong if it avoids the polysyllabic word ‘communication’ and regards its subject as mission. A church is entrusted with a message. Its primary responsibility is worship but that in itself is part of its mission – to declare its loyalty. And that declaration has to be TTD (taste the difference), arresting and prominent.
When we buy a car, we are not required to have the designing and engineering skills to construct a vehicle. We choose from what is available. What is true of buying a car is true of shopping for a website or a magazine. A PCC has the job of making a choice from what is on offer. It makes sense, for instance, to look at other church websites and to compare church websites with, say, school websites. In other words PCC members do not have to be experts in media matters. They have to make sure they are getting the best of what is available. And there is much out there to choose from.
Church websites worth a visit include Knowle parish church (easy to navigate), St Paul’s, Old Ford, London (brilliant pictures) and St George’s, Leeds (featuring amongst other things Lighthouse for the homeless).
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