A new year brings fresh opportunities to flesh out your content strategy for the coming months. One of the most effective ways to plan that strategy is by developing a content calendar.
Much like the church's liturgical calendar, which helps worship teams stay on track throughout the year, a content calendar helps structure your content delivery by allowing you to plan, schedule, and track content across your communications ecosystem. You may also hear a content calendar referred to as an editorial calendar - the terms are often used interchangeably in communications work.
Below, you will learn what a content calendar is, why it matters, and how to create one for your team.
What is a content calendar?
A content calendar is an important component of your overall content strategy. It is a schedule of the content you plan to publish in the coming months across all of your content channels. Channels may include your website, social media platforms, email newsletters, blogs, podcasts, and video platforms such as Vimeo or YouTube.
Not all content needs to be distributed on every channel. For example, you might create a short photo reel for Facebook that features your latest food or clothing distribution to help generate donations. This type of short-form content works well on social media, where people go for bite-sized information, but may feel out of place on your website. A content calendar helps you track when and where specific content is shared.
This tool is also invaluable for tracking engagement - a measure of how well your content performs on a given channel. We will discuss this more below.
What types of content does a content calendar include?
Church content generally falls into four main buckets:
- Timely (often based on liturgical or other preplanned events, such as Lent, Vacation Bible School, or a sermon series)
- Weekly series (designed by individual churches and including items such as Motivation Monday, Scripture of the Week, or Throwback Thursday)
- Evergreen (content that can run at any time, such as photos of a church garden to celebrate spring or a video about outreach efforts)
- Reaction or response (created in response to news and including items such as press releases, public statements, or a pastoral letter)
With the exception of reaction or response items, most content can be developed ahead of time and held until it is ready to be published.
Why should I use a content calendar?
A content calendar exists to make your life easier. By having a plan and schedule for content, you can avoid the twin challenges often faced by communications teams. I call this "react-and-scramble mode." Without planned content, you may find yourself rushing to create a post, locate a usable photo, or build a web page on short notice.
By planning ahead, you can be more intentional and strategic about what you create and how you communicate it.
Content strategy is not just for large organizations. Churches and organizations of any size benefit from having a plan for what to say, when to say it, and how to communicate it. If your church has a guiding focus or theme for the year, your content can reinforce that vision through coordinated messaging.
A content calendar is especially helpful during annual seasons that almost every church experiences, including the slower pace of summer and the intensity of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. Planning ahead allows you to fill quieter months with meaningful content and to front-load content creation before your busiest seasons.
Other benefits of a content calendar
Bird's-eye view - Seeing your content laid out over several months makes it easier to identify gaps or missed topics and address them proactively.
Boosting creativity - Planning content in advance often sparks new ideas. One concept may lead to multiple related pieces of content, which is harder to accomplish when you are constantly reacting.
Planning visual needs - Scheduling content helps you anticipate photo and video needs. Do you need additional photographers for a major event? Do you need more general images for your photo library or extra equipment for a summer video series?
Keeping leaders in the loop - A content calendar allows church leaders to see what is coming next. This transparency builds trust and gives leaders time to flag potential sensitivities or concerns.
Working smarter, not harder - A content calendar makes it easier to repurpose existing content by showing when it was last used. This is especially helpful for church websites, which can quickly become outdated but are critical for welcoming potential visitors.
Set it and forget it - If your team uses a social media scheduling tool such as Sprout Social or Hootsuite, you can schedule posts in advance and let technology handle the timing.
Data speaks - A content calendar provides a central place to track metrics. How many people engaged with your content? Did you gain followers? Did visitors attend church because of something they saw online? These insights help demonstrate return on investment and inform future strategy.
Year in review - A content calendar is also useful when reviewing the past year. It can support year-end reports, brochures, newsletters, or photo montages used in worship or annual meetings.
How do I get started?
Content calendars do not need to be complicated or intimidating. They can be as simple as a spreadsheet or a Google Calendar. You also do not need to plan an entire year at once. Start with a single quarter and build from there.
You can download a simple template here to get started or explore a variety of content calendar templates available on Canva and similar platforms.
The most important thing is consistency. Before long, you will have a full year's worth of thoughtful, intentional content that supports your ministry and communications goals.
Rebeca Ervin has more than two decades of experience as a journalist and legal and nonprofit marketer. She enjoys working with teams to implement strategy and vision through strong and effective communication. Rebeca is a lifelong United Methodist and native of San Antonio, Texas. She has a Bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology from Harvard University and a Master’s in Theological Studies from the Iliff School of Theology. In her free time, Rebeca enjoys photography, writing, traveling abroad, and spending time with family.