Effective Church Communications
Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission
From our Great Ideas & Samples Swap this brief video shows some of the Image and Training Resources sent in. The video gives you a preview of the sites and some tips on how to make the most of them. The video links, plus additional tips and resources can be accessed by CLICKING HERE.
Please note: Videos are at the end of this article. This article is a few years old and the system has changed a little, and they may not have the free offer, but the material following should be useful.
Most of the printed publications we do in the church are done with either the copier or a digital duplicator. Sometimes we use color if we have a good color copier. These machines work for most of the products we create, but sometimes we long for full-color or glossy printing on our church business and invitation cards or church outreach postcards.
Many churches justify the cost of special projects for major holidays, but most wouldn't think of doing a full-color business or invitation card for a Sunday School class, children's or women's ministry event in the church because of the short run and the cost. But you might think about doing it--if the price was FREE. FREE or almost (there are a few little charges I explain later) is what is honestly available through Vista Print. Remember what follows is my experience and opinion, only, not anything from the company, but I trust will be useful to you. What prompted me to do this article and the associated videos is that I wanted to get some full-color, glossy business/invitation cards done for the Sunday School class my husband and I teach. There is no way I could go to my local printer and afford to get that done, but then I got one of the special discount emails from Vista Print. As I was putting together my order, I realized I could share it with all of you.
Vista Print (www.vistaprint.com) is an online printing company. There are a number of them out there today and many churches use them successfully to create high quality print items at a low-cost. They are in NO WAY a substitute for your copier or digital duplicator, but when you want 100 business cards or a vinyl banner or a couple of full-color yard signs they are great.
Vista Print has been around a long time and they do a reliable job. I've used them for church and business jobs and have been happy with all the results.
Many of the online print companies (Vista Print does this also) recommend that you use Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to create your products. At first look, it seems like if you don't use these products you won't get quality results. But that is not true! As the video below will show you can easily create a publication using MS Publisher that is extremely simple to load up and have created with Vista Print--and the results are great! [Read more...]
We have so many ways we can share the messages of our church today, often our biggest challenge is knowing which one to use. The video here is an overview of the communication channels available to church communicators today along with a discussion of the positives and challenges about each one. It also encourages you to create a communication team because no one person can possibly do all the communication in any church today.
This is not a how-to for every channel shown, but an essential OVERVIEW of the church communication channels.
Below the video is a PDF of the handouts for the Video.
This video is FREE for everyone, but the PDF of the notes are for ECC MEMBERS only. We are in the process of adding HD videos for ECC Members, this one was created before we had that ability, but it is still very useful. Membership is one of the best investments you can make in the communication success of your church and is only $9.99 a month or $99 a year for any size church. CLICK HERE for membership information and signup.
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Today churches have extravagant images, powerful design, and extraordinary technology to advertise our message, but in spite of those tools, the Christian faith is declining in much of the world. Though we don't want to discount any of these tools perhaps we need to take another look at the foundational skills of Planning, Measuring and Evaluating our work.
The book Church Communications Planning, Measuring, Evaluating done a new way—big is busted, try tiny! has practical training on planning, measuring, and evaluating to help you make sure that your time and money spent in creating church communications accomplishes the goals of your church.
The book first looks at the details of planning that form the foundation of a solid church communication program. It then goes into the use of FORMS that will help you gather and organize the facts and the information people need to connect with your ministry or event. The forms will also help you measure and evaluate your communications and enable you to understand what is really effective and what isn’t in your ministry communications and marketing.
This approach works in any size church, with any budget. While much extravagant multimedia is only possible on a big budget, any church can make use of the tiny, but significant tips, ideas, and changes suggested in this book to make a significant difference in the impact of your communications.
For immediate download of a PDF of the book, CLICK ON the button below.
For the print version of the book, available through amazon.com, CLICK HERE.
This set of forms is an invaluable help in planning and tracking your church communications. These are the forms that are shown in the videos and books on Planning. The Forms are FREE for ECC MEMBERS (click link at the bottom of this article) or for sale for anyone in an immediately downloadable ZIP format for $7.50.
1) A set of ready-to-print PDFs. Anyone can download and print these--you don't need to have any special program.
2) Editable templates of the forms in MS Publisher. You need MS Publisher to be able to open and modify these templates. If you have it and are familiar with it, not having to do the basic layout of the templates will save you many hours of work! All you have to do is personalize or change them if you want to and you have them on computer files in your office.
The files are for planning your communications and for evaluation and recording follow up. They are the forms that were used in the Planning Video and Forms Video. Consistent use of these forms will help you honestly evaluate your communication program and give you an objective measure for success. For information on how to become an ECC MEMBER and have access to many more editable files, ebooks and more for only $9.99 a month or $99 a year, CLICK HERE.
You have permission to use them as many times or however you want throughout your church.
You will receive an email back immediately with your download. Download the ZIP file. Save it to your hard drive and then simply click to "unzip" it. You do not need any additional software to do this.
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CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD the Zip File.
SAVE to your computer (on your desktop makes it easy to find). Click to open and use. ***Remember you must have MS Publisher to modify the templates. They will open in MS Publisher.
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