About
Tim Schraeder is passionately committed to helping churches effectively communicate the message of the Gospel in a way that’s relevant to our ever-changing culture. He’s served churches as a communications director for over a decade, most recently serving on staff at Park Community Church. Today, he serves the Church as a part of the team Church Solutions Group and as the co-director of the Center for Church Communication. He’s the creator and general editor of Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication, a field guide for church communication leaders. Tim lives in downtown Chicago where he can be found in any neighborhood coffeeshop that has free wifi.
Background
- I was born and raised in Peoria, Ill.
- From an early age I knew I was called to serve the Church but wasn’t sure where I fit.
- I had an awesome youth pastor who invested in me and taught me God could use anyone.
- Experience was my educator. I bypassed college and started serving churches at age 18 with some rad design skills using Microsoft Publisher.
- My early years in church communication were on staff at Riverside Community Church in Peoria, Ill.
- I experimented, made a lot of mistakes and grew through the incredible opportunity of serving on the team there.
Park Community Church
- I attended my service at Park Community Church in January of 2007.
- The next day I went on their website and realized what I had experienced in person wasn’t being expressed through their site.
- I threw together a portfolio and resume and sent an email.
- 2.5 months later I started working there.
- While I was at Park I helped them rebrand, launch a new website [2 iterations, actually], killed the weekly bulletin, helped them be one of the first churches in the country to regularly use text messaging in services and for day-to-day communication, and got them to leverage social media.
- My work at Park was featured in the Chicago Tribune, NBC Chicago, COLLIDE magazine and many other faith-based publications and blogs.
- I transitioned off the team at Park in December of 2010, turning over their communications to a guy I was able to mentor and train, my friend Josh Burns.
Personal Highlights
- In 2008, I was one of 25 finalists for Seth Godin’s Alternative MBA Program. Although I didn’t make the final cut I got to spend a day with Seth at his office outside of New York City and it truly was one of the most affirming experiences I’ve ever had.
- In 2009, along with my friend Dawn Nicole Baldwin, I created the Cultivate Conference, a conversation-driven un-conference event focusing on the role of new media in the church.
- In 2011, I was named the co-director of the Center for Church Communication, an organization that played an influential role in my personal growth and development as a communications director.
Strengths 2.0:
I’m a firm believer that we all need to lead from our areas of strength. Mine, according to Strengths 2.0 are:
- Strategic
- Futuristic
- Empathy
- Developer
- Adaptability
Stuff Tim Likes:
- Big cities.
- Public transportation.
- 37signals.
- Hillsong.
- Coffee. Intelligentsia to be exact.
- Anything created by Apple.
- Reality TV, even though in most cases it’s far from being real.
- Mexican food.
- Traveling… mainly for the people-watching in airports.
At the end of the day…
- …I’m passionate about the local church and thrilled to play a small role in helping it communicate more effectively.