Effective Church Communications
Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission
Business and invitation cards can be used for so many things during the Christmas season: invitations, gift enclosures, links to website explanations about your church or Facebook or Twitter encouragements, cards to encourage people to come back to church, gift tags, or whatever else you can think of. [Read more...]
After all your hard work to get people to come to your Christmas events, you want to make sure you make a connection with them so that they will return to your church after the holidays. To do that you need to capture names and contact information.
These Connection Cards for Christmas are a simple-to-create, but very useful tool. The one to the left is free for everyone, just click to download the PDF, print and use.
At the end of this article is a link to a ZIP FILE that has ready-to-print PDFs of all the images below, including two versions that can be printed with color separations if you have a digital duplicator.
In addition the ZIP file contains editable MS Publisher files of all the cards plus hi-res images of them. The ZIP FILE is free also. [Read more...]
Christmas events should always have a clear presentation of the good news of salvation in Jesus. Jesus is the "reason for the Season," but also your Christmas events are a time when people will be visiting your church who often don't come.
No matter how fantastic your music or program, no matter how delicious the food, you don't want anyone leaving without knowing about Jesus.
This piece, "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, but why?" has been one of our most popular and frequently printed Christmas communications. In the past we've given you this piece either in MS Word format or in PDFs on one page.
Below is the MS Word text and to see this communication in various formats on one page, you can CLICK HERE.
This piece can be used not only to give out at church events, but it also works to give to your people to put into Christmas letters, to share in their neighborhoods, to give out at work, to friends or however you can think of to use it. The text below is for everyone to copy and use. On the brochures in addition to this basic text is also a back panel with additional websites for people to check out the Christian faith in more detail and a place for you to personalize the brochure for your church. Below it is a ZIP file that contains: an MS Word Editable files of all the versions below, ready-to-print PDFs of each version and images of each one.
Hark! the Herald Angels Sing! but why? At Christmas—did you ever wonder what that joyous singing was about? It certainly couldn't have been for Jesus. Leaving the glory of heaven to inhabit a body that would get tired and hurt from a hard day working in the carpenter shop wasn't reason for joy. Then to preach the message he'd been sent to communicate not only to have the majority of folks not believe him, but to crucify him for it—no, the singing wasn't for Jesus.
It probably wasn't for the angels themselves. It would give them no joy to watch for the next 33 years the incredible wonder of the Creator of the universe playing with little kids, speaking to the storm and quieting it like a child, watching him restore sight and wholeness to the hurting and life itself to a friend who had died, and to have all that love rejected. No, the angels weren't singing for themselves.
I think the angels were singing for us. The celebration was because they knew Jesus was the true connection between people and God. They knew Jesus could quiet that empty place in each heart that God created and only He can fill. They knew Jesus came to earth to bridge the gap between God and man by his death on the cross. That's why we have Christmas and the angels sang.
Their song is for you if you know Jesus. If not, if the place is your heart is still empty and without Jesus, this year consider filling it with him. But think carefully first. Though salvation in Jesus is a free gift, it isn't one without cost. You get it free, but Jesus died to give it to you. Also, if you accept Jesus' gift of salvation, know He takes it very seriously and you won't ever be the same. A new life will start in you, the very life of God. If you want God's gift in all His fullness, chances are that He might ask for some changes your life to make room for new things He'll want to bring in. Don't be afraid; you won't be losing out. You'll be gaining a whole way of life that will be more satisfying than you can imagine. You'll want to read the Bible; you'll want to talk to God in prayer; you'll want to go to a church and meet other members of your new family of God. You'll want to grow spiritually and become all your Creator meant for you to be. It can be scary. You'll be under new management, but whatever you might be tightly clutching now will seem no more important to you than it does to a child who gladly sets aside a toy tricycle when he realizes his parents have a real bicycle for him.
The first Christmas began with a glorious song from angels, but the song isn't over. Did you know the angels want to sing for you?The Bible tells us that the angels today sing for joy whenever someone accepts the greatest gift of all—Jesus. If you want that gift, wherever you are, out-loud or in your heart, say something like this to him:
Dear Jesus,
I want the gift you want to give me. I want to be connected with my God this Christmas. I know that I'm not. I know there are things in my life, my sin, my pride, even some of my good deeds that I thought could take me to God, but I know on my own I won't make it. I realize Jesus came to earth that first Christmas to do what I could not do—to die for me, so I can live with you. I don't understand it all, but I want to ask you anyway to come into my life, to be my Savior, to be with me now and forever. Help me to learn what I need to learn and to grow and live a life that will be pleasing to you. Amen.
If you prayed that prayer, listen quietly. The angels are singing—you may not hear them with your ears, but a song of joy that will never end has begun in your heart.
This next section can be on the back or a third panel of the brochure If you are considering becoming a Christian, please consider. . . . . This is not a decision to be taken lightly. It is not a quick fix, fire-insurance, one more thing to try to make you feel better. It is an eternal commitment to Jesus Christ as Forgiver and Leader of your life. Please take time to explore these sites:
Who is Jesus? http://www.whoisjesus-really.com/english/menu.htm Lots of questions answered here about Jesus.
Christian Research Institute: http://www.equip.org/ This is the website of the Christian Research Institute and Hank Hanegraff, the Bible AnswA Christmas brochure that explains the gospel--Hark the Herald Angels Sing, but why?
Ten Reasons to Believe: http://www.rbc.org/rtb/ An excellent site to explore the Christian faith in detail. Contains a number of lists including: Ten reasons to believe in life after death; Ten reasons to believe in Christ rather than religion; Ten reasons to believe in the Bible; and other lists.
One of the best ways to find out more about the Christian life is to become part of a church. Please find one you are comfortable in, that preaches the Bible and that will answer your questions.
(Here is where you can put in specific information about your church).
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CLICK HERE to download the ZIP File
This 5 minute video was created to answer this question from an Effective Church Communication Member:
"I’m having no luck creating a zip file so that I can e-mail projects-in-progress, such as flyer designs, around to other committee members for their input. I”ve tried the free 30-day trials of Stuff-It and WinZip and am just lost. Any chance you might put together a how-to video that cuts through the jargon on their Help files?"
Her question caused me to remember when I first got WINZIP. As with many programs today, it seems the companies attempt to flood a person with all kinds of options and special features and ways to do things I have no need to do--but all I wanted was to ZIP and send files. After quite a bit of experiementation I found a very simple way to ZIP files and that's all. I made a 5 minute video that shows exactly what I do, in fact, I had a set of files I wanted to ZIP and will be sending this week. I'm sure WINZIP is a fantastic program that can do all kinds of things--but all I care about, and I imagine many church communicators are the same, is that it does the one important thing I need it to do.
NOTE: after I did this, I got another question about file compression--to see that article and to suggestion options, please CLICK HERE.
I use WinZIP almost every week because it is the program I use to create the files that Effective Communication Members can download and that contain a variety of files: editable MS Word & MS Publisher, ready-to-print PDFs, image files, videos any and all kinds of files.
There are many files available for Effective Church Communication Members that will save you many hours of time and provide a starting point and inspiration for many projects.
At this holiday time of year, we work so hard to put on Christmas events and we want as many people as possible to attend.In addition to all you do at the church, if you can get free media advertising, this can be a way to reach people who are unfamiliar with your church.
To help you do that, reach your community, and get them to your events, ECC Member, Sandra Coulson, a newspaper reporter and copy editor has shared a Publicity Workshop presentation that she presented to her church. The advice in it is clear, simple, easy-to-follow and tremendously useful.
The ZIP FILE at the end of the article has her PowerPoint presentation and PowerPoint notes. Below is her cover email that explains what she did.
I can't thank her enough for sending it. If you have training materials like this that you would like to freely pass on, please email me with them at yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.
Hi Yvon,
We recently tried a publicity workshop for leaders of groups at my church and it seemed to help many of them with an area in which they were struggling.
Some background: I’ve worked as a newspaper reporter and copy editor for 30 years. Although I sit on the other side of the fence, I understand the general approach that publicists use to attract attention to their cause. I also noticed that some of the posters, flyers and public service announcements that groups at my church were putting out were missing the mark. (At my church, each group often does their own publicity.) So I volunteered to put together a short, simple presentation on the basic of publicizing events.
I sent out invitations (mainly by e-mail) to all group leaders. Since I work nights at the newspaper, the easiest time to organize it was right after church on Sunday morning. The alternative was a session on Saturday, but I figured most of us would be there on Sunday, so I chose that day. I made up a PowerPoint presentation and an A-V Team member kindly stayed after church to run it for me. I prepared a handout with the PowerPoint slides and a list of all the media outlets I could think of in our city where events could be promoted: dailies, weeklies, magazines, newsletters, radio stations, TV stations, neighbourhood bulletin boards (the old-fashioned, non-electronic kind), websites, Twitter hashtags. (I didn’t provide all the details on how to contact each outlet because that seems to change quite often, but at least having a name gets them started.)
I think every group was represented either by the leader or a substitute the leader sent along, so I must have touched a need. Another church across the city heard about the presentation and asked for the material to use there. My presentation took only 20 minutes and there was a bit of discussion afterward, mainly with group leaders sharing with each other additional media outlets that I hadn’t thought of or whether some seemed more effective than others. Since then, some of them have continued to e-mail me with new ones they come across (mainly websites) and I have forwarded those to others who attended the workshop, so our list continues to grow with options for them to choose from.
I’ve attached the PowerPoint presentation. I thought it might be of some use to Effective Church Communications.
Sandra Coulson
Church of the Ascension
London, Ontario
I'm making this file free for everyone for the next few weeks and then it will be available for ECC Members only.
Once you download the ZIP file, save it to your computer and then click to open.
