By Chris Turner
Director of communications, Tennessee Baptist Mission Board
cturner@tnbaptist.org
There are two types of organizations in our world: Those who have had a crisis and those whose crisis hasn’t yet hit.
For years I’ve been leading crisis communications and media relations workshops for all types of organizations and I usually open those training sessions with that statement. The response is usually an uncomfortable laugh, especially since I don’t smile when I say it. I have been a reporter and organizational communicator for about 30 years and I’ve unfortunately seen – and experienced – the truth of that statement from both sides.
In my role as director of communications for the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board, I often counsel ministers, mostly pastors, how to communicate during a crisis in which they and their churches find themselves. Unfortunately, the frequency of such sessions has increased in the past 18 months. [Read more…]