Really excited about speaking at ECHO this July 29-31 in Dallas with some great friends: Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Shawn Wood, Carlos Whittaker, Cynthia Ware and Greg Atkinson A week or so ago I got time to sit down and do a “Q&A” with Echo Conference for their blog.

Here is one of the questions they asked with my response:

ECHO: “What kinds of things are you working on at your church?”
MK: I wear multiple hats at Lawton First, but I mainly oversee the Communications Department, including Print and Publication, PR, Creative Services, and Media. My role is responsible for leading and developing the Lawton First strategy, increasing widespread participation and awareness of the overall vision. This includes capital campaigns to be conducted through various methods (e.g. donor events, grant applications, direct mail, online networking).

My true passion is simplifying and honing all communication corporate wide through the power of story. We tend to make things a lot more complicated and more difficult than it really is. We are working on corporate wide re-brand and advertising to focus on being intentional about storytelling. We are reformatting the weekly Bulletin (yes we still have a bulletin) to include a storytelling element like a brief testimony and head shot. We are changing all promo videos to tell stories instead of just giving the four W’s. My experience and research finds that a good story is better than a good, factual promo video or someone telling you what they think you want to hear.

To put it simply we are going to stop recreating the wheel and go back to the tool of the Master which is “STORYTELLING.” In many ways, churches have focused to much on the cultural wave that they lost their own unique voice. They lost their brand, their market place, and created fractured communication and presentation. Churches need to shift to less distraction and greater content. Or to put it another way, in the words of my dear friend Kem Meyer “Less Clutter, Less Noise”. Genuine communication that is simplistic wins.

You can checkout the full interview here and I’ll see you you at ECHO for my talk about how video production has changed; lightweight gear, no time…“make it good – fast”. And how your ability to craft a look with digital cameras is more important now than ever…

Hope you’ll be there in Dallas.