Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Driving your message

As I'm finishing up things at the office, I just finished typing this information on Wayne Hamilton, former Executive Director of the GOP party in Texas.
I think the message goes a long way towards ministry and driving/communicating your message our The Message - The Gospel.
“Driving the message is always important in politics,” Hamilton said. “The Democrats did a great job making Newt Gingrich look like an extremist. But the Democrats don’t follow their script very well lately. For that matter, the Republicans haven’t either. During the latest redistricting, the message was controlled from a Republican standpoint. Susan Weddington was responsible for the message and the state party was in a position to drive the message of ‘fair redistricting.’ They had credibility as the majority party and when the Democrats left the state the Republican party set out talking points. Ted Rueter and Robert Black helped implement the strategy then.”
Hamilton said that grassroots efforts played a major role in helping push the message and agenda.
“During redistricting people were updated and informed constantly,” Hamilton said. “When you can keep people updated and informed you don’t have to do much. The party did a phenomenal job in the media. The party also used paid media, which of course gets you earned media.”
But despite the continued use of mass media, Hamilton said the most effective way to drive a message is through personal interaction.
“Tom Craddic said it was the most effective grassroots driven message ever and it was a text book example on how to communicate a message,” Hamilton said. “We live in a very impersonable world where we work in one place and live in another. The personal touch of someone coming by and talking to you may be the only touch they have but it can make a world of difference. That can be seen especially in local raises like the city council or county commissioner elections which are sometimes decided by hundreds if not a dozen votes."
I think that's why churches and ministry need to continue to utilize technology like Flickr, MySpace, blogs and more to put a personal demension and touch on the ministry.
As ministries grow bigger and bigger and the outreach grows, you need to take advantage of every possible way to be personable and reaching out to your "clients."

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