April 18, 2013

Communications Toolkit: Evangelism

Communication is evangelism – and I’d like to introduce you to The Public Affairs Toolkit: a collection of resources offered by the Episcopal Church’s office of communication to help church communicators and leaders evangelize the Good News and engage communities in the work of the Episcopal Church.

These resources include tools to assist with building awareness of your work, gaining a stronger voice on topics that you care most about, and enhancing perceptions among influential, highly engaged groups inside and outside the Church. Designed to help enhance your message and broaden your reach, they also offer tips for placements into regional, secular, and other media – both traditional and social. The goal is to enable you to prepare your messages not only for your diocese or community, but your regional area, your ecumenical partners, and beyond.

Included are useful materials, such as forms to develop key messages and create local news media coverage, and a step-by-step guide on how to place your leaders on local opinion pages and websites to gain community leader buy-in on topics important to you. You’ll also find information about other tools, help, and counsel available, often at no cost, through the Episcopal Church’s Office of Communication. 

The contents of The Public Affairs Toolkit include: 

  • Catalog: a list of important topics along with any actions taken by The Episcopal Church and General Convention.  
  • Getting started: an easy how-to for getting started in preparing materials, news releases, op-eds, etc. 
  • Topics: topics of interest that you may want to address, whether liturgically, socially, or the hot news that people are discussing. 

The Toolkit is an aspect of Let's Invent this Together, a variety of resources and services available through diocesan partnerships. Through these partnerships we seek to further church wide goals and diocesan and congregational mission.