How You Can Help Worshipping Communities
How You Can Help Worshipping Communities Embrace Their Need for Security Procedures
Show them how they benefit from your expertise
Church Security is more important than ever.
“Hope isn’t a plan,” the retired military policeman reminded the small group gathered to form a new security team. “We’ve got to be ready for fire emergencies, tornadoes, and heart attacks.” “Missing children,” a young father added. “And these days, even active shooters” chimed in another voice. The people around the table looked down, nodded in agreement and sighed. “Active shooters, too,” a few of them muttered to each other. “But, we’re a church. How do we do that?”
That’s where you come in. Maybe you’re an insurance company who covers houses of worship. Or a church security business. You might specialize in crisis communications. How do you help these communities of faith see the need for your services? Then how do you keep them engaged?
LifeWay Research of Nashville, TN, published an article on January 28. 2020. They found more churches are developing security plans. The research focused on active shooters and the congregations’ response to those threats.They surveyed Protestant pastors and found 62% of them had “an intentional plan for an active shooter.”
LifeWay Research found that the smaller the congregation, the less likely they were to have an emergency response plan. But, per capita, they are no less likely to have an emergency.
Help them develop, learn, and remember their emergency response procedures.
“Oh, that won’t happen to us” is a dangerous emergency protocol!
More faith communities need your help with
- communication
- planning for various emergencies
- use of and training in the processes they create.
How do you help them realize the importance of organizing and training for the challenges they will face?
Words. Persuasive words. Help them see in their minds the emergencies that could befall them. Show them with words how they can respond to those emergencies.
Ezra Pound, a 20th century poet, had a great insight in the March 1913 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. An “Image” is that which presents an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time. He went on to encourage poets to use words that touch the emotions and the intellect to create images for their readers.
Master copywriter and marketer, Mark Ford, wrote a concise definition of persuasion in his book Persuasion: Effective persuasion is the presentation of emotionally compelling ideas with clarity and specificity.
He expanded on those three component parts of effective writing and speaking on page 9. Quoting him, persuasive writing needs
- An emotionally compelling idea
- The clarity with which it is expressed
- The specificity with which it is demonstrated and/or proven.
What gets our attention is our emotional response to the image in our mind. The reason we want to pursue it is an emotional one. We use our intellect to justify the decision and track its reasonableness. And that reason is found in clear, specific information.
In the real-life story at the beginning of this article, unfortunately that congregation had to see the threats in reality. One week they had violent intruders. The very next week, a medical emergency. They recognized they had failed in both cases. Their protocols got developed quickly and thoroughly. The leaders train in them regularly.
You can guide other congregations in avoiding that trouble.
Communicate effectively, persuasively, to help congregations be safer.
You believe in your product or service. You know how it makes worshipping communities safer. The foundation of all marketing efforts is the use of WORDS. Written or spoken, persuasive words help your customers “see” how your business helps them.
How do you reach them?
- Be sure to use conversational language. Church leaders daily have to translate difficult, mystical, theological concepts into everyday language people might understand. Give them the same courtesy.
- Use White Papers or Special Reports with quality content to draw them to your website and company. Let them get to know you. Like you. Trust you.
- Follow up with email series as they get used to the idea that they need to develop a new mindset and protocols they didn’t need “back in the good ol’ days.”
If you would like help writing or editing your marketing material, contact me by email or visit my website. We can make our communities safer!