If you've worked in church communications for more than five minutes, you know the drill: a ministry leader fills out a request form and checks every single communication channel imaginable. Bulletin? Yep. Email? For sure. Website, social, announcement slide, stage promo, skywriting, interpretive dance? ALL OF IT.
And here you are, staring at this request thinking, "I literally cannot do all this."
Here’s the truth: church comm directors should be the communications experts. Ministry leaders are the experts in their people and their mission—and that’s beautiful. But expecting them to also know which platforms to use, when, and how? That’s not only unrealistic, it’s counterproductive.
So why do our communications request forms treat them like marketers?
Stop Letting Checkbox Chaos Lead the Strategy
When we hand ministry leaders a giant list of all possible communication channels and ask them to pick what they want, guess what they do?
They pick all of them.
Not because they’re being demanding. It’s because they care deeply about their event or initiative—as they should! But that passion doesn’t translate to strategic clarity. It leads to over-promotion, misaligned messaging, and a whole lot of noise.
What’s worse: now you’re stuck either delivering on unrealistic expectations or spending hours backtracking, explaining why you can’t do what they asked for in the first place.
Lose/lose.
Been there. Done that. Burned the checkbox form.
Here’s What I Did Instead (And You Should Too)
I scrapped the buffet-style request form and rebuilt it around the kind of information only the communications team knows how to use strategically.
Here’s what our new communications request form asks:
1. The Basics
Just the essentials: event or initiative details and hard deadlines. If we don’t have a deadline, we don’t have a project.
2. Target Audience (Get Specific!)
Not just "youth." Not even "parents of youth."
Try: "Parents of incoming 6th graders who want to help their kid plug into the youth group and are likely looking for volunteer opportunities too."
We need to know who we're speaking to so we can choose the right channels and tone.
3. "Sell It to Me"
Yes, I ask this—literally. If the ministry can’t tell me why someone should care, why should anyone care?
Tell me the why. Tell me the heart. Tell me the win. If you can get me to care, I can get your audience to care.
4. What Are You Doing Internally?
This question changes everything:
"What else is your team planning to do to communicate this within your ministry sphere?"
Why it matters:
- Maybe your comms team can’t take on 100% of every promo all the time. Ministry teams need to own internal communication to their specific audiences.
- Or maybe you need to monitor how ministries are promoting things to make sure it aligns with your brand, voice, and timing.
- Or… it’s probably a mix of both.
5. Past Wins (or Misses)
"Has anything worked well (or not so well) in the past that we should know about?"
If they’ve seen traction through a parent Facebook group or heard zero feedback from a Sunday slide, that’s good intel.
6. Creative Ideas
Give them a chance to dream. Out-of-the-box ideas or audience-specific insights are welcome. Ministry leaders know their people better than we do. So invite their wisdom—then filter it through your expertise.
Then What? Build the Plan.
Once I have all of that, I create the communications plan. Not a scattershot "throw it on every channel" campaign. A strategy that aligns with the goal, the people, and the story.
It all gets summarized in a campaign brief and mapped on a church communications calendar. If you’re not already using campaign briefs, check out this post: /blog/why-every-church-campaign-needs-a-brief/
Church Comms Teams, You Are the Experts
Let’s stop handing over our strategic role with an overloaded request form. Lead with empathy, but also with clarity.
The ministries you serve will thank you. Your team will thank you. And your congregation might actually hear the messages that matter most.
Want to streamline your communications process, ditch scattered tools, and run everything from one ministry-minded hub? That’s what Communicate was built for. See how it works →
