# The sixty-minute planning hour

One hour, once a month, three people: the pastor, the communications volunteer,
and whoever prints the bulletin. Print this page and work down it. Everything
below is timed, because an hour that has no clock on it becomes three hours once
and then never happens again.

Companion to the twelve-month calendar at
https://churchposting.com/resources/communications/church-social-media-calendar/

## 0 to 5 minutes: last month

- Read the four numbers off the page: posts published, posts skipped, newsletter
  opens, and anything a member replied to.
- Name one post that should not have gone out and say why in one sentence.
- Do not score anything. No engagement rate, no reach goal.

## 5 to 15 minutes: the season

- Open the calendar file at next month. Read the Season column.
- Confirm the feast dates against the church's own service schedule.
- Confirm that any handover post for the next season is already dated. Advent,
  Lent, and the fall schedule each need three to four weeks of lead time.

## 15 to 30 minutes: fill the grid

- Fill the Working title column for every row next month in your own words.
- Cut any row the church cannot honestly staff. A cut row is a decision. An
  unfilled row is a broken promise to whoever inherits the page.
- Mark the Sunday preaching text for each Monday slot. If the preaching plan
  does not exist yet, that conversation is worth more than the rest of this hour.

## 30 to 45 minutes: the assets

- List every asset in the Asset needed column whose Asset due date falls before
  the next planning hour.
- Decide who takes each photograph and on which Sunday. A photograph of a
  service can only be taken at that service.
- Check the photo permission list against the register. Never publish a child's
  face or name without written permission from a parent or guardian, and check
  again on the day rather than trusting the list from last quarter.
- Confirm nothing in the plan needs a music license the church does not hold.
  The CCLI Church Copyright License covers recording a service for archive or
  limited distribution. Posting it publicly is a separate license.

## 45 to 55 minutes: schedule and approve

- Load the month into the scheduler in one sitting.
- Route anything touching doctrine, money, or a pastoral crisis to the elders
  before it is scheduled, not after it is published.
- Leave the deliberate silent days empty: Holy Saturday, and any week the church
  is grieving.

## 55 to 60 minutes: hand over

- Write the date of next month's hour in the shared calendar.
- Confirm the logins live in a password manager the church owns, not in one
  volunteer's personal email account.
- Name the backup volunteer for next month out loud.

## The four questions for the quarterly review

Ask these with an elder, once a quarter, and adjust the rhythm before adding a
channel.

1. Did we say anything untrue.
2. Did we publish anything about a person who had not agreed to it.
3. Did Advent wait.
4. Is one person carrying all of this alone.