Effective Church Communications
Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission
Paint.net is a great FREE program for modifying the free images available online. Following the webinar that provided an overview of the free sources, a number of people had problems downloading www.paint.net. I went over the download too quickly and I apologize.
I created the webinar here that goes step-by-step through the download process. I also found, what I think is a better resource to download it than the one shown in the other video--PC World.
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Here is the video:
We all want free images to use in our church communications, but where can we find ones that we can use without guilt and without violating the Terms of Use for some of the sites?
Though there are hundreds of sites that claim to be "free" out there on the web, most of them have hidden agendas, are actually teasers for payment sites or have such restricting rules and terms of use that they are unpractical for use in a church setting.
After many hours of research and shifting through the websites, I've come up with four of them that I highly recommend (plus one obvious one many people forget about). These sites have excellent quality images, primarily photographs (not just tacky clip art) and their generous reproduction rights make them free in cost and guilt-free for churches to use. [Read more...]
Google can find anything you want—an image, a devotion, an article, a sermon. One click and you can view it; copy and paste and you capture it. But just because it’s that easy to do it, does that mean you should do it? If we want our digital lives to match the beliefs of our analog lives, as believers and servants of Jesus, the answer is no. We need to be just as careful today that we are not using something that does not rightly belong to us, just as we did in junior high school when we were taught not to plagiarise material for school papers.
To help us do that, a review of what constitutes copyright, fair use, public domain and the newer Creative Commons designations is essential. Following this brief overview and some recommendations is a list of links to the U.S. government sites and other articles that explain these issues in more detail. Yes, this is work and a challenging area that we often do not want to be bothered with—but we work for the King of Kings and Lord of Lord and we need to do all our work as honestly and legally as we know how—no matter how hard it is.
This does not apply to any material you purchase: the images, clipart, articles you may have bought for a yearly or monthly fee.
People often email me to ask how I create the online videos, the webinars and online videos that I do to create the materials on my websites for my church and communication ministries.
In this webinar, I'll give you a tour of the software and programs I use.
I know there are other programs that do what I'll be sharing with you, but these are the ones that work for me and I'm quite happy with all of them. I'll give you brief descriptions and costs of the programs I use in my workflow.
Below, for ECC Members is a video of the webinar, along with a PDF of the notes for it.
PLEASE, if you have comments on any of the programs or other ones you would suggest, please post them in the comments section here. Thanks so much!
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Click on this image to download the PDF of the notes.
Back-to-School is a time with great outreach potential. Backpack Ministry, where your church assembles and gives children backpacks filled with school supplies, now more than ever, is a greatly needed ministry. Children in homeless shelters, kids whose parents have lost their jobs, or whose jobs have been cut back, many of them face a sad and embarrassing time—to be forced to go to school without the required supplies their parents can't pay for and the schools don't provide.
To keep that from happening to any little child in your community, below are PDFs of bulletin inserts (two styles, same content) you can download and print up for your church with the specific details for your church on the backside. First are some links for websites that will give you additional ideas not only on Backpack Ministries for this time of year, but year-round for needy children.
Many families need help on a continuing basis. These backpacks aren’t filled with school supplies, but with food for children who may not eat on the weekend without help. Check out churches in your area who may do this and if none do, consider starting that ministry at your church.
May the Lord burn into our hearts the needs of children and make us motivated to meet those needs. May the Lord give you, the church communicator, the passion, power and prayers to create communications that will link needs with resources.
For another set of designs, PLUS a downloadable ZIP FILE of editable MS Publisher files of the new designs, jpg, png and a text file of the content CLICK HERE
