This is perhaps one of the most common questions we get from church leaders at Flocknote: “How frequently should I be sending out information? Once a month? Once a week? Every day? How often should my people hear from me? And how much is too much?” Today, we’ll not only give you an answer, but we’ll give you a much better question to be asking in the first place.

Instead of asking — How often should I send stuff out?

Try asking — How much have we earned the right to send this out?

“Sending messages that you haven’t earned the right to send is called spam.”

When your members give you their contact info, they give you implicit permission to a certain amount of communication but not necessarily unlimited communication.

If you feel like you’re begging your people to listen to you, that is a good sign you haven’t yet earned the right to speak to them yet (on that topic, with that frequency, or just in general).

Extremes

Churches can often fall into two extremes – not communicating enough because they’re too afraid, or communicating too much when they haven’t earned the right to do so.

How often should a spammer communicate with you? Zero-often! Never. They haven’t earned the right.

How often should your mom communicate with you? As often as she’d like! She’s your mom and has more than earned it.

How much permission have you earned?

What did your people give you their email address/phone number for? What did they sign up for? That will tell you the implicit permission they have given you to communicate with them.

If they signed up for a daily reflection, you’ve earned the right to a daily message.

If they signed up for a weekly Bible study, you’ve earned the right to a weekly note and maybe one or two extra messages.

It is important to respect the permission that your people have given you and communicate accordingly.

How to gain more permission

Intentionality is key to earning permission to communicate with your people.

1. Send good, quality communications. Make your emails and texts worth your people’s time.
2. Segment your communications. Different people give different permission, so instead of saying more to everyone, say more to the groups that want you to say more.
3. Enrollment vs. Enforcement. Don’t use your authority to force people to listen, do something meaningful that your people will want to sign up to learn more about.

If you’re afraid to communicate, you might not have earned permission to communicate yet. When your members are enrolled, engaged, and excited there should be no fear in communicating with them.

Links from the show

• Do you feel like you’re begging your people to listen? If so, check out this post on the Flocknote Blog: Stop Begging Your Members to Listen.
• Matt Warner mentions our daily emails on the Catechism and the Popes. Learn more about these projects and join our Catechism in a Year and Popes in a Year groups!
• Matt Warner talks about the importance of segmenting your communications. Learn more in this previous episode of The Finding Uno Show: Why Segmenting Lists is So Important.
• Matt Sewell mentions using a Flocknote Smart Button to help your members enroll in groups to hear more from you. Learn more about that feature HERE.
• Did you find Uno? Send us a photo at howdy@findinguno.com.
• Have a general question about church communication? Submit it to our hotline at Findinguno.com/ask-a-question.

How big should a local church be? Can it be too big? Or too small? Is bigger always better? Or is there a size that’s just right? In this episode, we’ll discuss these questions, along with some of the natural barriers that impact the size of a community, along with some tips for overcoming them.

It is good to have a diversity of sizes of churches. There are pros and cons for each. There is too big and there is too small. There does seem to be, however, a natural size that is just right.

Natural Limits

British anthropologist, Robin Dunbar, pointed out that most people can only maintain about 150 relationships. This can be seen in the earliest hunter-gatherer tribes, Amish communities, Native American groups, and even Marine companies.

150 seems to be the magic number. Beyond this point, humans seem to struggle to manage meaningful relationships.

This can also be seen in the increasing abstraction that occurs alongside the growth of groups and communities.

For example, in a school project with 5 classmates, it’s pretty obvious when someone doesn’t do the work since they’re responsible for ⅕ of the work. What happens when there are 20 people? Or 100 people? Or more?

As the size of a group grows, the weight of an individual’s responsibility seems to diminish.

What about Churches?

The average church size in the United States is actually about 100 people. Even when considering larger churches with thousands of people, there are still only around 100-150 people/families that are truly connected and engaged.

This doesn’t mean churches shouldn’t exceed 150 members/families. But, there are things that need to be done to successfully surpass that number AND keep more people engaged.

Three Practical Tips to Successfully go Beyond These Limits

1. Culture of Communicating a Big Vision – Larger churches will naturally have subgroups that know each other. Having a big vision is what unifies the many groups and ties them all together. This includes concrete goals, traditions, and organizing principles.

2. Nourish the Smaller Groups – There needs to exist small groups and communities to help scale the size of the church. A community within a community. These can easily be formed around ministries and should be nourished and supported by the church.

3. The Leadership Skills Need to Evolve – Leaders need to train other leaders to guide these smaller communities within the church. Leading other leaders is a unique skill set, but is necessary to grow a group of leaders to successfully guide these smaller groups.

Links from the show

• Matt Warner references Robin Dunbar’s theory that we can only maintain 150 relationships. Read more about Dunbar’s theory HERE.
• In the “People Got Church Problems” segment, Matt Warner clarifies that there shouldn’t just be one communicator in your Flocknote network. All your leaders should be communicating. You can learn how to set up all your admins in Flocknote HERE.
  • Help your new admins get started by sending them our training videos and New Admin Orientation. You can find those HERE and HERE.
• Did you find Uno? Send us a photo at howdy@findinguno.com.
• Have a general question about church communication? Submit it to our hotline at Findinguno.com/ask-a-question.

Anyone who does ministry amidst the rapid technological changes of modernity has undoubtedly at some point heard something like the following: “It’s not our message that needs to change, it’s that we need to communicate the same old message in new ways.” There is some truth to this. But those who express it this way are often misunderstanding and muddling an important distinction that needs making: What, exactly, is the message anyway? It may not be what you think.

In our previous episode, we talked about how to better get your people’s attention. This episode continues that thread of conversation by discussing how to better communicate your message.

What is the Message?

Very often, the thing we think we’re saying (and the way we hear it) is not the same message that other people are getting.

The message that ultimately gets communicated is not simply what we say. There is more to a message than simply what is said. It’s a much more complicated equation.

Have you ever been talking about something with a friend and then, later that day, you’re browsing the internet and you start to see advertisements for that very thing you were just talking about? Was that Big Tech listening in on your conversation? Was it a violation of your privacy? Well, maybe. Sometimes it probably is. But it also might be a basic human phenomena that’s been occurring for thousands of years.

Studies have shown we view thousands of advertisements every day. Over time, our brains have learned to ignore the vast majority of them. This is actually a primitive survival technique. Since our brains are used to processing so much information, they are finely tuned in on the things that are necessary for our survival and ignore everything else.

Since our brain focuses on our needs and filters out everything else, when we have a newly perceived need, or something is on our mind, or we recently talked with a friend about something we want – our brain includes those things when filtering and sorting through all the data (including ads) around us. So we might begin to see or hear everywhere the very thing we were just thinking or talking about.

This phenomenon influences how people listen so it is important to consider it when developing your church communications.

People hear what they need, not what they need to hear.

It is tempting to tell people what we think they need to hear, but most people tend to only hear what they think they need. Because of this, church and ministry leaders need to look for points of intersection.

To successfully reach and lead your people, ask yourself the following question: Where do their perceived needs intersect with our mission and ability to help them? This is how you can find ways to speak to your people so that they actually begin to listen.

Here are three helpful tips for finding points of intersection with your people:

1. Think about their needs. What is already on their minds?
   1. Finances, relationships, confidence, suffering, fears, and anxieties.
2. Talk about what is going on in the culture today.
   1. Wade into hot topics, politics, and current events.
3. Don’t answer questions they’re not asking. Start with the questions actually on their minds.

Have the courage to tackle tough topics, to present the faith, and show how it applies to what is happening in their lives and the world around them. This can help capture your people’s attention so you can begin leading them where you want them to go.

Links from the show

• Matt Warner talks about Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s TV show. Watch the first episode HERE.
• In the “People Got Church Problems” segment, Matt Warner mentions that Flocknote is meant for your entire church and all your ministries. Check out our blog post on that HERE.
• Did you find Uno? Send us a photo at howdy@findinguno.com.
• Have a general question about church communication? Submit it to our hotline at Findinguno.com/ask-a-question.