Effective Church Communications

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and a Biblical Perspective to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. Our tools constantly change; our task doesn’t; Effective Church Communications can help.

FREE videos, graphics and other resources and a new ministry model to create them

By 3 Comments

Muddy River media
Muddy River Media is a site that offers free media resources for churches based on a missionary supported model. Do check it out and consider donating if you use the resources.

The challenge for both churches and for the people who create resources for them is always how to have enough money to do what we all feel called to do. Creators would love to give away everything they do –but somehow the bills have to be paid. Churches struggle with how to balance budgets while finding the resources they need to do their ministry.

I just discovered a site that provides lots of FREE images, full-video clips and has a different ministry model to fund them. The site is: http://www.muddyrivermedia.org.

They truly do provide FREE video clips, images and assorted media for free. Check out their ever-growing collection.

A different model for support

Rather than sell their materials or charge a subscription, they are doing their work as digital missionaries. This means they solicit donations to support what they do. So please do consider a donation if you use what they create. I've often thought this would be a great way to do this kind of ministry, though a challenging one.

I like their material and hope to be in contact with them and find out more about what they do--but for right now I wanted to pass on what I did know so you can take advantage of it.

Enter a comment below if you have an opinion on this way of funding resources.

Even better, send a donation and pray for the success of the ministry! http://www.muddyrivermedia.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

Backpack ministry bulletin inserts–a variety of options to publicize this caring ministry

By Leave a Comment

When the stores start their Back-to-School sales, not only are these great deals for families, but for the family of God, backpack ministries are fantastic ways to share the love of Jesus. You can do fill backpacks for needy kids in your community; you can also do it as part of a missions outreach.

To encourage and inspire the people in your church to take part, Effective Church Communications has links at the end of this article to entries that have church bulletin inserts with a variety of illustration formats that you can either personalize on the back or change in any way you want if you are an ECC Ebook and Template Club member

The first two links are for Backpack Ministry Inserts, the third one encourages people to shop for your Christmas Shoe boxes when the fall sales are on, and finally a personal article on why this ministry is so important to me.

Click on any title to go to the articles:

Back-to-School Backpack Ministry--an opportunity to bring joy to needy kids

A new set of designs with templates for Effective Church Communications

My personal reasons why backpack ministry is so important to me

Bulletin Inserts: Shop for Your Christmas Child Boxes in August--Samaritan's Purse shopping Tips!

Bulletin insert and links to Christian resources about Ramadan

By Leave a Comment

Ramadan Resources bulletin insert, color image
The image here and the one below illustrate ready-to-print and editable church bulletin inserts for Ramadan that are FREE to members of Effective Church Communications. The downloadable file is at the end of this article.

In trying to practice Christian disciplines, I've fasted at various times in my life for short periods of time and always only from food. It is never easy. From my feeble experiences I am in awe of Muslims who during the month of Ramadan fast from sunrise to sunset not only from food, but from water (and that includes coffee and tea--which to my mind are essentials of life at the computer).

Currently, theological debates rage over the internet as to whether Christians should observe Ramadan, and though I come down on the side of those who believe that a Christian should no more observe Ramadan with a Muslim friend or neighbor any more than we would ask a Muslim to take communion with us--it is a very good time for us to pray FOR our Muslim neighbors and the Muslim world.

It is also a good time to learn and understand the differences between the Muslim faith and Christianity. If you don't understand the differences, you can't knowledgeably share the uniqueness of the Christian faith. In my personal experience as a Sunday School teacher, one of my students came up to me one week and shared a conversation he had with a Muslim student that he and his wife were sponsoring as an exchange student. We'd been sharing life and discussions about the Christian faith with her and he said, "We finally found something in common because Christians and Muslims believe in the same God of the Old Testament and Abraham." I was very concerned, but before I answered, I realized I needed to do quite a bit more study. CLICK HERE for the study that resulted. (Update: it's been over 2 years since that lesson and after much more interaction, many more lessons, discussions and prayers--last weekend our formerly Muslim friend was baptized as a follower of Jesus.)

Following are some resources to help you communicate understand the Muslim faith and pray for Muslims. [Read more...]

Free Islamic Images and Clipart, a video tour

By Leave a Comment

 

Free Islamic Images and Clipart Video overview
Free Islamic Images and Clipart Video overview with links to download sites.

It is not easy to find good Islamic images and clip art that are free. I found lots of sites that charge a lot for images. Though the images were beautiful and very nicely done, the prices were not realistic for church communicators who want to create materials either in print, PowerPoint or on the web  for the upcoming Muslim festival of Ramadan or any time that your church wants to teach about the Muslim religion.

On the other hand, many of the sites that say they are "free" really aren't or have so many rules, regulations and usage guidelines they are unrealistic.

The video below will give you a tour and preview of some sites that have good quality, respectful and correct images. In addition all of them are FREE and they don't have restrictive usage guidelines. Below the video are three links. There is a fourth site illustrated, but the link I had no longer works and I do apologize for that in the video. [Read more...]