Sydney Anglican churches (i.e. the scene I am most familiar with) have lots of different paid roles. The most common positions include rectors, assistant ministers, administrators, and minsters to oversee and support children’s, youth and women’s ministries. One role that is prominent overseas is the role of a digital or communications pastor. Could there be a need for this role in your church?

Let’s explore some of the possibilities for this position, by learning what this role involves for the people currently serving in this capacity.

David is the Digital Pastor at National Community Church

“Primarily, my role is to support digital communications, that is, the website, podcast, webcast, email campaigns, essentially any Internet-based communication medium…On any given day, I’m working on a Facebook page, updating Twitter, adding an event to our content management system, re-structuring the content management system because the event didn’t go in as smoothly as I’d like, uploading media from the weekly message, crafting a new site for an outreach event or ministry, connecting with vendors of various services or consulting with other churches about digital communications.”

Robbie is the Creative/Communications Pastor at Next Level Church

“Within our service, I work closely with our teaching team and creative team to add creative elements (visual illustrations, special songs, videos, production videos, film clips, etc.). I also handle all of our stage design, and graphic design for all of our newsletters, worship guides, and series artwork. The communications side is simple. It basically means all communications from our church comes as a result of me putting them together. Organizing Facebook announcements, e-weekly’s, newsletters, etc.”

Cregan is the Director of Communication and Media at Redeemer Presbyterian Church

“I oversee the areas of design/print, internet, and video as well as our sermon ministry. I manage a staff of 8 with three direct reports who manage the areas mentioned. I typically hold meetings with the leadership of the church on various initiatives and give counsel on the decisions made for our communication strategy for various projects and initiatives. I manage and update the various online interfaces that our attendees and friends use, and I edit and oversee content that moves out to the congregation like brochures, Bible studies, our Annual Report and Vision Campaign docs. I am the gatekeeper for the staff interacting with various requests for interviews and church reports/studies, etc.”

A paid (full or part-time) position to carry out these activities won’t be financially possible, or appropriate for the congregations and communities for all of the churches in our Diocese. However, I can think of at least three ways someone in this role might serve our churches:

1. Email, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, podcasts, vodcasts etc. all provide new  opportunities for engagement and interaction with the people in our churches (let alone our broader communities). This communication is not insignificant (as I hope to increasingly illustrate in coming weeks), and can greatly serve, teach and encourage people throughout the week. Yet who on our staff teams has the time to be involved in these activities?
2. We plan our preaching programs. We plan each term of our youth calendars. We plan our women’s ministries. Why wouldn’t we plan our internal and external communication? Both planning and implementation take time and a specific skill-set that most administrators and pastor/teachers won’t have (nor can they be expected to have).
3. For many people in our communities, church websites will be the ‘shop front’ for our churches. They will make a decision about attending (or not attending) church, based on the information, accessibility and appearance of our websites. However, very little time is spent on church websites – for many reasons, but not least of all due to a lack of people with the right experience and skills and the time to regularly update the content.

What other possibilities can you see if our churches began to hire digital/communications pastors?  Would your church benefit from this?

On a related note…

Andrew Katay (Senior Minister at Christ Church Inner West Anglican Community) recently wrote an interesting post questioning whether an Assistant Minister should be the second appointment (after the rector) in a church, or if part-time staff might be better at filling important roles – e.g. music, kids ministry, outreach. Read “I’d stop licensing Assistant Ministers…”.