 Lightstock It was somewhere around 2005 when I accepted the calling to Church Communications ministry. I was a clueless college freshman and had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into. (Perhaps you can relate.) All I really knew is that my dad's sermon PowerPoint slides looked atrocious and I felt compelled to rescue him from the pit of poor design. In fact, at the time, I didn't really think Church Comms would be my full-time career in life. The future was bright and loaded with endless possibilities. I was working my way through a bachelor's degree in Communications with a track in broadcast journalism and had dreams of becoming a famous reporter and traveling the world. If anything, church work would just be an occasional side gig. God, however, had other plans. (Doesn't He always?) As the years went on, and I immersed myself more and more in worship leadership, graphic design, and media ministry, I sort of cultivated this notion of what it might be like to work in Church Comms at the full-time level. What I envisioned in my mind's eye had made this a glamorous job full of perks, benefits, status, style, and recognition. Buying all the latest Apple tech and Adobe software. Spending endless hours in coffeeshops sipping on expensive lattes and cappuccinos as I designed jaw-dropping sermon series graphics. Bringing my church into the 21st Century with a stellar social media presence that would make us look like a church of 1,000 rather than 100. Rocking my designer jeans and dress shirts as I multitasked between leading worship, playing guitar on stage with the band, running busily around the room, responding to online prayer requests and direct messages, and manning the tech booth and livestream during the remainder of the service. Building, designing, and implementing a stunning website that would bring half the city through the doors of our building in less than a year. People would flock to our congregation, I thought, because our digital presence would be that good, that professional, and that engaging. I pictured it all looking and working a certain way. And guess what? It was all rather glamorous. Fast-forward 15 years. Church Comms is now my full-time calling and career. It is not, nor has it ever been, glamorous. It is [usually] grunt work. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. I'm just speaking the truth here. Now, don't misunderstand. I have a deep affection for my job and am passionate about the work I do. I love the mission and calling of Church Communications and the niche in which I have been called to serve. But, the fact of the matter is that there are a great many things about digital media ministry and the work of Church Comms that are overwhelmingly dull, monotonous, and exhausting on the good days and, on the bad days, utterly gut-wrenching, soul-crushing, mind-numbing, and spirit-sapping. Those of you who have been in this branch of ministry for as long as I have (or longer) know exactly of what I speak. There's nothing glamorous about spending 40-plus grueling hours at your screen for an entire week designing, building, and implementing the church's new website, only to have the powers-that-be tell you to change 138 different things about it. There's nothing glamorous about unveiling a new logo — after an ungodly amount of drafts — just so that Brother Billy can tell you to go back to the drawing board and start over again from scratch. There's nothing glamorous about spending two weeks designing, styling, branding, and implementing the pastor's new sermon series slide graphics and matching/corresponding social media promo content, just so that he can tell you on a Saturday night he wants to make a change to the Sunday morning media which has been finished and ready to go since Friday. There's nothing glamorous about spending an entire weekend immersed in video/graphic/social/print editing so that your church can be excited about baptism or discipleship, when you could be going out to dinner with your family, spouse, or significant other. There's nothing glamorous about working with an entire staff of people who don't understand the amount of hours it takes to design original graphic artwork, sermon series media, etc. There's nothing glamorous about being a one-man or one-woman comms team for over a decade and realizing you need to build and train an entire group because, let's face it, you won't always be around. And there's definitely nothing glamorous about juggling two, three, or four jobs and streams of income so that you can make ends meet, pay for the software and hardware you need, and simultaneously hold to the ministry calling you know that God has for you. This is real life. And the reality is that, especially in ministry, someone has to do the grunt work. Someone has to do the heavy lifting. In Director Rob Reiner's 1987 medieval classic "The Princess Bride" — based on the 1973 novel of the same name by William Goldman — André René Roussimoff (André the Giant) became famous around the world for his portrayal of the behemoth Fezzik. In the movie, we learn that Fezzik was a former member of something called The Brute Squad. This group of tough guys are in the employment and service of the evil Prince Humperdinck and it is their responsibility to do the thankless and menial tasks and perform the physical labor which no one else can do. (Including, but not limited to, hauling supplies, chopping down trees, beating people up and removing large groups of peasants from forests. But, that's a story for another time. Go watch the movie.) In short, these are the guys who do the grunt work.  When it comes to Church Comms ministry, it's the grunt work that is often critical. It's the grunt work that is paramount to your church's ministry efforts. And it's the grunt work that will see eternal results for the Kingdom. You may utterly despise and altogether loathe staying up until 3:15 in the morning, sipping on coffee, in order to finish the social media updates, wrap out the sermon series graphic design content, and put the final touches on website updates. But, when one of those social media graphics prompts a lost person to visit your next worship service because their friend invited them to follow your church on Instagram, it will be worth it. You may detest the headache you have every single time you plunge into a long night of video editing. There may be days when you swear you'll never design another brochure or update another website ever again. But when that single mom who's been drowning in depression for over a decade finds your church because of a handout a coworker gave her, it will be worth it. When the visitor who's been watching your website livestream for six weeks finally shows up in-person and gets saved a month later, it will be worth it. Do the grunt work, Church Communicators. And do it well. Form a Brute Squad if you have to. There's strength in numbers. But do the work nonetheless. Souls are hanging in the balance. Jesus is trusting us. And the Kingdom is counting on us.  Lightstock
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