Crisis Management: Public Relations in the Church

 

How forcible are right words! but what doth your arguing reprove? Job 6:25

It is my nature, as it is with many others, to lash out and criticize things contrary to my will and opinion. When difficulties arise from dissenting opinion, my flesh wants to use words in a bitter fashion to persuade them to the truth as I see it. God, however, is not pleased with that reaction. What He wants is for us to use our words rightly (Pr. 15:26) -- to bring glory and honor to Him. Call it holy public relations if you will.

Crisis management was just one of the many topics covered while studying the role of a public relations worker as a college student. Although a position in PR/Communications was not one I desired after graduation, I'm certainly glad I had the opportunity to learn effective ways of maintaining a positive outlook for an organization.

During my time in college, I had the opportunity to intern under my university's public relations director and its assistant PR director. They trained me how to maintain a positive image for the school, regardless of the negative approaches from the outside to distort that image. I learned that there is always someone out there trying to undermine an organization's purpose. They taught me that there is no such thing as negative publicity, for all publicity-- even the publicity we deem to be negative--  can be manipulated by adjusting perception. It is the perceived image that must be managed. The role of the PR worker is to manipulate that perception to conform to the desired image of his client. Take a bad and turn it good. Create a solution from a problem. Maintain a positive image and outlook.

This past weekend, I had the unfortunate job of playing PR director for our church, and I realized how difficult it can be to successfully convert negativity into positivity. The story goes like this...

Our church has done balloon releases for many years and over the past two years we have incorporated the promotion into our Rally Day Celebration. Rally Day is a Sunday when we attempt to break our attendance record in Sunday School. Part of the celebration is a balloon release between the Sunday school hour and the Worship service. Each balloon has a Gospel tract attached. Kids and adults love it and promoting it has proven effective in seeing our attendance goals reached.

This year, however, we discovered that not all people love the idea of releasing the balloons. It all started Saturday when a pair of activists against balloon releases showed up and spoke with Pastor. He was kind and confirmed our intentions of releasing the balloons, while taking note of their concerns and position on littering and wildlife protection. Upon their leaving the church property, they organized a massive social media assault on our church's Facebook page. Many people kindly voiced their environmental concerns, others rudely doing the same. Some even resorted to threats.

Since I manage the FB page, my PR instincts kicked in. I first deleted the promotional post that specified event details. A copy of the paper flyer we used to distribute door-to-door was attached to that post. I had hoped deleting it would take care of the problem. I then spoke to the pastor and got on the same page with him and proceeded to remove and ban all inappropriate posts.

To my surprise, this group's campaign against our balloon release was much more massive than I could have anticipated. With in the hour, I had people from all over the world (London, California, Cambodia, etc) posting menacing messages on our timeline. I deleted them as fast as I could. I then posted a status update.

One of the most successful tools available to a PR worker in the middle of a crisis is his words. Choosing the right words, connotatively neutral, is vital in issuing official statements on behalf of an organization. The last thing you need is to incite more negativity by how your words come across to those looking for a fight. Here's what we wrote:

"To all those who've contacted us through FB about tomorrow's balloon release, please know Pastor (name) has been made aware of your concerns. Thank you."

This brief statement may seem like nothing, but its value cannot be underestimated. First, it appeases those who think we are ignoring the issue. Second it shows we value the people concerned. Third grants time for church leadership to resolve the problem.

That post generated about 1,200 hits, most of them positive. Many were thrilled we took time to hear them out. However, as time went on without a secondary statement that addressed a course of action on the church's part, the comments began to once again grow negative.

I had discussed with Pastor the option of not doing the release, since, after all, it was a type of littering. Should we as a church willfully litter and violate laws? Did they have a legitimate point? We should be good stewards of the earth God has called us to subdue, right? And releasing the balloons probably wasn't the wisest of things to do if we are to be exemplifying obedience to God's word. Mind you, we hold to the position that we should not worship this earth, rather we should worship its Creator. We do not necessarily believe that releasing a couple hundred balloons is as catastrophic to our environment as these activist would have us believe. We hold to the position that this world will all one day burn anyway, and seeing a few balloons with gospel tracts go skyward isn't a big deal (just keeping things in perspective). We do value animal life, just not in the same light as human life. Humans, we believe have souls that are destined for heaven or hell. We feel it more important to see souls of men saved than keeping the Gospel grounded as a result of not releasing the balloons. However, as a PR effort goes, that information cannot be disseminated. Unbelievers cannot grasp it. They cannot see our perspective because they do not view the issue through the lens of salvation.

This next part is genius-- and I had no part of it. The solution: Pastor decided on a "targeted" balloon release. His resolution was to send the balloons home with every child where the target of the tracts would be the parents. All leftover balloons were to be taken to area nursing homes and given to its residents -- also the targets. Now, instead of having balloons descend to land in the middle of no where (where chances of the literature actually getting into the hands of someone would be limited), the Gospel would assuredly reach many. This resolution was perfect in the fact that it appeased the activists, but more importantly, it more efficiently accomplished the intended task of sending out the Gospel to those in need without breaking littering laws.

The plan was announced to the congregation, but the unknowing group of activists on social media was growing impatient. Many even resorted to threats of calling the police on us. One even showed up to video tape our release (He fled the scene as Pastor approached him to "target" him with a balloon). That is when I issued the final statement on our Facebook page. It read thus:

"To those concerned about our Rally Day balloon release:We took time to hear you out and decided against an untargeted balloon release. Instead we sent balloons home with all the children and leftover balloons were taken to area nursing homes. Each balloon had Gospel tracts attached, and it is our prayer the message of salvation through Christ is received to those we targeted. We hope that all of you are just as receptive to that message as we were to yours. God Bless!"

Again, word usage is vitally important. We again recognized their "concerns." We implied that we took "time" to think it out-- time is a valuable commodity, so it shows we were not downplaying the issue. Next, we stated the resolution. In that resolution, we did not focus on the negatives of having to decide against a balloon release; rather we highlighted the fact that the new plan was better than the old by using key words like children and nursing homes (which plays to one's sympathy), untargeted and targeted.  Finally we presented them with a challenge. Their presence on our social media page was an opportunity to plant a seed. That seed came in the form of a challenge. Since we had taken time to listen to them, they should return the favor and take time to listen to us.

After posting our statement, their perception of us changed from being Westboro Baptist-like nut jobs, to a positive one where we were praised for our decision. With that perception, maybe they would be a bit more receptive to hearing God's plan of salvation for their life.

Within 24 hours of posting that last official statement, we had reached about 850 people and received about 52 positive comments, and had accumulated 92 likes. Over the course of two days, our page's activity showed an increase of about 2,200 interactions. For a church of our size, that is exposure. That is positive. It may not have started out that way, but it's all about how a crisis is managed.

I'm proud of Pastor, his wisdom and his solution. I'm proud the church handled it with love and compassion for the lost activists who just need Christ. And for the first time since graduating college, I can honestly say that I value and am indebted to the training I received in the field of public relations/communications. God must have known we'd need it someday!