#1 - Six Steps to Vision-Soaked Communication
(overview post already completed, tee up Vanguard as the sample we’ll explore)
#2 - Fill the Pool - Articulating Your Vision
(post on Vision Frame as the foundation; describe Vision Frame process)
#3 - Boil it Down - Developing Your Tagline
(tagline, review basics of tagline development)
#4 - Describe the Water - Crafting Your Key Messages
(key message development one I already wrote)
#5 - Tap into the Thirst - Communicating the Big Problem
(burning platform - make sure to communicate the problem)
#6 - Break out the Hose - Leveraging Every Medium
(something about every medium; show a medium checklist)
#7 - Drip, Drip, Drip - Talking Vision Every Day
(Drip it daily; talk about using tagline, key messages in one-on-one personal conversation)
Old Draft
Once you’ve gone through the Vision Frame process, you’re almost there. Typically, the Vision Frame elements are things that you share with people once they set foot inside your church. Many times, though, it’s helpful to use two strategic communication tools to share the concepts from your Vision Frame with an “external” audience - people who haven’t experienced your church yet. These two tools are your tagline and your key messages.
For more about developing a tagline, check out this series of posts. [link to tagline series] I’d like to focus on the key messages. In short, the key messages articulate critical elements of your Vision Frame to (primarily) an external audience. What is your church all about? What will it be like to be a part of it? Why should I care? The key messages endeavor to answer all of these questions.
It may be helpful to think of key messages this way. If you were putting together a brochure to communicate about your church to someone new, what would you say? The tagline would go on the cover of the brochure and the key messages would be the headlines of the inside pages. Let me share an example.
An Christian university we worked with recently articulated their mission this way: “Equipping students for a Spirit-empowered life of Christ-centered leadership and service.” Their tagline, based on the brand promise of significance, was “Your Story Matters.” The word “equip” actually comes from an ancient Nordic word meaning “to prepare a ship for a journey. This idea, plus the fact that their personality, strategy, and values all carried an inherent redefining and opening of new understanding, led to these key messages:
- Beyond the classroom
- Beyond community
- Beyond integration
- Beyond academics
- Beyond the expected
Each key message has an accompanying paragraph that fleshes out the idea and develops a tone for all future messaging. For example, here’s the paragraph that describes the “beyond integration” message:
“Many people talk about the integration of faith and life. We believe they were never separate to begin with. Our understanding of the world—in science, business, education, the arts, and beyond—informs and deepens our faith, bringing color and life in surprising ways. As we go beyond integration, we discover a reality based instead on incarnation, where faith comes to life in every molecule, every equation, every performance...in every moment.”
Do you see how valuable this can be for communication? For this university, inviting students into a world where faith, learning, and life are integrated is crucial to achieving their mission of students experiencing the “Spirit-empowered life.” By developing key messages that are emotive and compelling, they are communicating their mission—and inviting students to be a part of it—without just stating their mission word for word.