Lesson 3: Committee or Solo

Should you take this course alone or with your team?

Church communication touches everything—every ministry, every event, every person who walks through your doors for the first time. Because the stakes are that wide, one of the first questions leaders ask is a really practical one:

Should I go through this course on my own, or should our whole church tackle it as a team?

The good news is there's no single right answer. Both approaches work—it really depends on your church's size, staffing, and current season. Let's walk through your options.

Option 1: Take the Course Individually

A lot of churches start with just one person going through the material first. That might be the pastor, a communications director, a staff member, or a key volunteer who already handles announcements, the website, or social media.

Going through it solo lets that person:

• Quickly grasp the strategy behind clear, effective church communication

• Identify where confusion or gaps currently exist—often things nobody had noticed before

• Start making small, practical improvements right away, without waiting on a committee to convene

If your church moves fast, runs lean on staff, or just needs someone to get the ball rolling, this is often the most realistic starting point. One person with clarity can accomplish a surprising amount.

The trade-off? Insight tends to stay in one person's head unless it's intentionally shared. Without a next step to bring others in, good ideas can stall out simply because nobody else in the church has caught the same vision.

Option 2: Take the Course With a Group or Committee

Other churches prefer to work through the course together—as a staff team, leadership board, or a dedicated communications committee.

Going through it as a group allows leaders to:

• Build a shared vision for how the church communicates, rather than one person's individual take

• Bring in perspectives from different ministries—what looks clear from the front office might look completely different from the youth ministry or the guest services table

• Create stronger buy-in, since people support what they helped build

When a team wrestles with the material together, it usually leads to better long-term alignment. Communication stops being "that one person's job" and becomes something the whole leadership team owns.

The trade-off? Group processes move slower. Scheduling, coordinating, and reaching consensus takes more time than one motivated person working independently.

A Hybrid Approach Many Churches Use

In our experience, the most effective approach for a lot of churches is actually a hybrid of both.

Here's how it works: one leader goes through the course first and becomes the communication champion—the person who fully understands the framework, has done the thinking, and can speak to why it matters. That person then pulls together a small team to help apply the ideas and build out the actual communication plan for the church.

This gives you the best of both worlds. You get the speed and clarity of one person driving the process forward, plus the collaboration, buy-in, and ministry-wide perspective that comes from involving others. The champion isn't doing it alone forever—they're just the one who gets things moving and then brings people alongside.

So, which is right for you?

Ask yourself a few honest questions:

• Do we have a team that can realistically commit to going through this together, or is that likely to stall out?

• Is there one clear person on our team who already owns communication, or is it scattered across several people?

• Do we need speed right now, or do we need buy-in more?

• Could we start solo and bring others in partway through?

There's no wrong door here—just the door that fits where your church is right now.