Interview with a Pastor of a Mega Church

The Church was designed, in part, to function for koinia(fellowship); does it serve this function well or is it lacking?

Yes and no, The church was established by God to extend hope to theWorld through a relationship with our creator. We live to glorify God bygoing into the world to seek and save the lost. The church I serve in ismaking a difference. Our focus should be on creating opportunities forfellowship with Jesus, our koinia with each other is just a buy productof our mission.

How does effective communication aid the function and process of koinia?

Coming together to fellowship does create better Koinia and theenvironment fosters better communication. There are several aspects andtypes of communication all have to be effective, timing, polish,demographics, presentation, etc.

What has been your experience in the Church: Does it communicate well (both within and without)?

Are we talking about my church or (The Church)?

The Church.

Bulletins are becoming lessand less effective. Video Adds seem to get better response, I do notthink the announcement loop thing is working well, often the people whoneed to hear the most tend to get to church late and get zero exposure.Currently Phone contact is becoming less and less effective.

Most oftenyou never reach a live person and leaving messages are often not evenheard. Several time a week I hear people call leave a message only to hear back later that "no one ever called me" So in effect we tie up pastors and staff making calls that we get no results from.

The expectation is that the church needs to call at the perfect time andmake live contact. There are as many different schedules as there are people. Seems like everyone wants to believe that they are the only ones that are after something from their pastor. With a church of 5000 people and approximately 15 pastors, That's about 333 potential calls, emails,visits per week or some times two or three times per week. There simply needs to be a better way.

How might communication improve in the Church?

Increase the staff size. Educate people to keep trying, not expectingthat they are so important that the pastor or his staff will put theother 332 people on hold while they get communicated to. They need to believe that their pastor really wants to connect, rather than take thepossition that we don't want to connect.

How does communication relate to and/or effect community?

The better we connect the more people feel loved and then when they feel like a part of the community they invest more and attend more events.This all translates to getting the word of God out into the world. Getting more people to understand how deep, how wide, and how full the love of God is for them.