Yvon Prehn

Yvon Prehn is the founder and director of Effective Church Communications and is the primary writer and editor of training materials on church communications for this site. For over 20 years she taught church communication ministry, skills, and strategy at seminars, conferences, and national conventions all over North America. She now works full time in Ventura, CA writing,  creating videos, blogs, podcasts to help church communicators, helping church communicators network and help each other, plus updating  and maintaining the technical aspects this church communication training website.

Yvon has worked in communication ministry as a writer and teacher for over 25 years. She was a newspaper reporter and religion writer for the Colorado Springs SUN for nine years. When desktop publishing was first invented Yvon was a top-rated, national trainer in desktop publishing for Padgett/Thompson, the nation’s largest one-day seminar company. She worked as a communications consultant and trainer for numerous Christian ministries in Colorado Springs and was senior editor at both Compassion International and Young life International.

Yvon is the author of many books, including the first book out on desktop publishing, The Desktop Publishing Remedy, published by David C. Cook in 1994. She has written for many of the major Christian magazines including Christianity Today, Discipleship Journal, Today’s Christian Woman, Youthworker Journal, Ministries Today, Computing Today, Clergy Journal, Church Office Computing, Pulpit Helps, and Your Church. She has been the communication columnist for Christian Computing Magazine for 16 years. Her most recent books include The Heart of Church Communication, The Five Steps of Effective Church Communication and Marketing, Church Bulletins, how to use them to touch and change lives, and Connection Cards, grow your church, pastor your people, little cards, big results.  In addition to these books, she has a number of shorter booklets, how-tos, training CDs and other material available on her storefront at www.lulu.com/yvonprehnand her YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/yvonprehn.

Yvon has a master’s degree in Church History and has done additional, extensive graduate work in theology and communications. She has taught high school English and was an adjunct professor in church history at Regis University.

In addition to her formal experience in these areas, Yvon gets the opportunity to practice church communications in very practical ways. She and her husband Paul (a bi-vocational pastor) have worked in many different areas of ministry in the church, especially in single adult ministry, adult education, and small group ministry. In all of  these Yvon has served as a Bible teacher as well as creating all the church communications and marketing materials, both in print and online for the various ministries and churches she and her husband have worked with. She and Paul live in Ventura, California.

Yvon’s seminars, plus her written and web-based  materials have helped thousands of people in ministry maximize their church communications and enabled them to use them to help fully fulfill the Great Commission.

Yvon is incredibly excited about the new opportunities to educate, equip, and encourage church communicators through this training website.

To contact Yvon Prehn, email her at yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.