Remember when you were a kid and you got a trophy, ribbon or at least a certificate for participating in almost anything! It’s not quite like that as an adult … but it could be.

Did you know that many professional development and networking groups—specifically in the area of communications, public relations and marketing—sponsor awards competitions to spotlight excellent and creative communications work being done by all kinds of organizations and companies? Including churches!

Just last year, Kingsway Christian Church and Fishhook entered two such awards competitions for the “Kingsway ‘k’ Community Outreach Campaign.”

The Kingsway and Fishhook team were happy and humbled to win two awards for these entries. They were:

• An “Award of Merit” in the external communications program category given through the EPIC Awards competition of the Indianapolis chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators; and
• A “Pinnacle” award in the community relations category given through the Pinnacle Awards competition of the Hoosier Chapter of the Public Relations Society of America.

Now you may be thinking a couple of things at this point, like:

• My demanding workload doesn’t leave room for involvement in professional groups, let alone awards competitions.
• I have no idea what our church would submit to an awards competition. We work with a small budget and don’t have anything “flashy” to show.Or, aren’t we called to be humble and meek? Trying to win awards doesn’t seem to fit.

Here’s how I’ve addressed these issues in my own mind and heart:

• In response to the already demanding workload … Yes, these awards entries take a few hours to develop. However, if you’ve taken good notes and tracked your progress and results for a specific project, the award entry can come together surprisingly fast.
• In response to “we have nothing to enter” … Communications professionals in and with churches are doing excellent work that brings glory to God and reaches out to many. Any communications project or program that has clearly stated goals and objectives, strong planning, solid execution, and demonstrates success through the evaluation/results can be a winner! In fact, explaining how you creatively met your goals and objectives—in spite of your slim budget, staff or other resources—can greatly enhance your award entry.
• About our calling to humility … Yes, of course we are called to follow Christ’s example. But we are also called to do excellent work and to give God our very best. It’s a fine line. To me, seeing the work of a church (God’s work, not mine) recognized right alongside corporations, large non-profits and others piques interest and brings glory to God. In addition, I find that being involved with professional groups—and the awards competitions specifically—is a great way to be “salt and light” in the community.

Executive Pastor Jeff Lewellyn from Kingsway Christian Church says he has three encouragements that come immediately to mind when he thinks about the IABC and PRSA awards:

• “The first encouragement is to churches. We need to communicate our message with excellence. There is little doubt that the message of the church in this post-modern world is of unsurpassed importance. Yet all too often, the importance of the message is lost as a result of a distractingly mediocre presentation. The message deserves our very best.
• “My second encouragement is to the communications personnel in our churches. Be willing to study (adapting where appropriate) the best communication practices from the marketplace. And when you have done so with excellence, don’t be afraid to participate in some of their evaluative processes. We have the greatest message. Why not let others instruct us on how we can communicate it in the most effective way possible. We received feedback from a variety of sources on our most recent retooling of the “Kingsway look” (brand). Certainly the people in the church were excited about what was going on. We heard from the community as well. The IABC and PRSA awards were further affirmation that we were doing the right things in the right way. We also discovered areas for improvement from each of those groups. It’s definitely a win-win for us.
• “The third encouragement is for all of us as ministry leaders to resist limiting the impact of the message. When we put the church and the marketplace into separate silos, everyone loses. Whether we want to admit it or not, our audiences are basically the same. We are each trying to influence our communities to consider what we have to offer. Let’s face it, competition for their attention is fierce and just to be clear, our competition isn’t the church down the street. It is more likely the fitness club, the soccer field or the huge sale at the mall. To effectively reach our audience, the silos have to come down. We have to be in this for the win and that requires us to be willing to go up against a few Goliaths. Not to fear, however, God can handle that, if we’ll just give Him the opportunity. For us, that meant that we not only got the attention of our community, we also were noticed by the local media, area hospital execs, local retailers and even IABC and PRSA, all of whom are very important to God.”