Effective Church Communications

At the end of this blog is a video tour of the Bibleverse t-shirt store, first I wanted to share why I'm doing this.

When you see a snarky t-shirt, how does that make you want to act?

I want to be snarky.

When you see a coffee cup that reminds you of a happy vacation what do you think about?

I think about that happy place.

It seems to be a core fact of human nature that we are influenced by short messages we see around us. Moses made note of it when he was attempting to get the children of Israel to listen to God’s commands about their lives. They heard God speak at Sinai; Moses wrote 5 BIG books of very detailed rules.

Yet during all that, he also recognized the need for less thunderous and lengthy reminders, when he said:

Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates Deut.6:6-9, MSG

Today our visual reminders are not on doorposts or phylacteries (the leather boxes, Orthodox Jewish men wear on their heads and arms during prayers) but as I realized when I was praying about how to get people to think about God’s Word more, want to learn about it, and live by it, today we have mugs and t-shirts!

There is a t-shirt for everything.

A major event happens, and t-shirts appear almost before the news blast is over. People’s politics, beliefs, causes, and attitudes are all loudly proclaimed by the t-shirts they wear.

So as part of my ministries of wanting to get people to focus more on God’s Word (www.Bible805.com) and effectively creating church communications, I thought I need to learn to create t-shirts! Maybe that tiny turning to the things of God will lead people to greater exploration.

That was my first idea, but it took the longest to bring to reality. I started researching it, but oh my how complicated (cheery, loud, YouTube videos aside) it is in reality.

While researching that I came across the idea of Printables, (Bible verses and saying printed out and frames as visual reminders) which I quite like and had already been doing for my personal use. That resulted in the Bibleverse Shop, (www.payhip.com/Bibleverseshop) and you can read all about that lengthy process on that site.

But I still wanted to do t-shirts and mugs.

Designing them was super easy for me but how to sell them? And more importantly, how to sell them without being consumed with the business details of sales tax, shipping and much more?

My primary ministries are teaching and writing (through www.Bible805.com and www.effectivechurchcom.com ). The creation of these items I realized could be an important way to support the ministries, which I desperately need to do, but I could not let that overwhelm my teaching and writing time.

Fast forward through months of trial and error (I am a slow learner in some things) and I’ll detail it more on my blogs, but I finally found www.payhip.com to sell the Printables (check out my store at www.payhip.com/bibleverseshop  ) and www.bonfire.com to sell my t-shirts and mugs.

Here are some of my final products:

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Yes, for those of you who know about such things, I could make more profit with other companies than Bonfire, (for a $17-$23 product I get maybe $4-$5), but Bonfire does ALL the hosting, handles the shipping, and most important of all to me pays the proper sales taxes to the states and countries that require it.

The Payhip and Bonfire people have been quite pleasant and helpful to work with, do not charge anything until a product is sold, and their interface for uploading products quite simple and intuitive (compared to dreadful ones like Shopify, Woo Commerce, and others).

I am extremely excited about this new adventure. I love to create designs when my mind is too tired to write or teach, and I feel like it gives me a way to make the most of my time for our Lord.

But what I feel is not as important as what I pray the mugs and t-shirts do for you. When you sip your morning tea or coffee, I pray the encouraging words will help turn your mind to Jesus. When you wear a t-shirt with a Bible verse or Bible-inspired setting I pray it will help you remember to represent Jesus well and give you an opportunity to share about your life in Him.

I also pray the shop will be a practical way to support the Effective Church Communications and Bible805 ministries—a win-win for all concerned!

Here is a video review of it: