Effective Church Communications

Colorful, fun church reminder postcards for Summer

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Summer church reminder postcards
Remind people in fun ways about what is going on at church this summer with these cards.

A light touch, a gentle reminder is often all that is needed to let people know what is going on at church during the summer and to help you do that, I revised some summer postcards I made with www.tagxedo.com, a fun site you can use to create word cloud images that you can then place into any publication you are working on.

The cards below were designed as reminders or notes that you can send out to remind people of what is going on at the church. Make them up for Sunday School Teachers, Small Group Leaders and Pastors to write a few notes a day to various church members. Summer is time for fun, but the best of times are often with our church families and these cards can remind people of that.

Below the illustration of the cards is a downloadable ZIP file that has ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files.

To download the ZIP file for the images above, click the following link: Fun Summer postcards

 

What do your church communications say about the priorities of your church, especially in the summer?

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Summer communications
Because we have the opportunity to do different things in the summer, what we choose and communicate about reveals the true priorities of our church.

Jesus told us that "out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, (Luke 6:45)" and we know that's true. If we are angry with someone, it always comes out. Maybe in nasty, little snide comments, maybe in screaming. If we love someone, we can't help but smile when we are with them or thinking about them.

We may want to hide either emotion, but it seldom works. No matter what we say, "I'm not angry, just frustrated" or "No, he's really just a friend" our words and actions will always show what is in our hearts.

It's the same with your church. You can have the most biblical, Great Commission-centered mission statement ever. Your leadership board can decide that this year the focus will be on outreach and discipleship and the congregation can agree those are great goals.

But are these truly at the heart of your church? Do you honestly care about reaching unchurched people with the good news of Jesus and growing your current members into mature disciples? Do these convictions result in action?

It doesn't matter what you say in staff meetings. What does the voice of your church, your communications, say are your priorities?

This is very easy to evaluate. Look at the recent communications—your social media, newsletter, church bulletin. What are they about? As I write this, it's summer and I had the opportunity to compare two sets of church communications from two churches where they talk about their communications. The defining details are changed so as not to embarrass any member of the Body of Christ, but here is a summary of each one from an overview of their summer communications.

I selected summer as a time to evaluate because we tend to be very intentional about this time. Churches have incredible opportunities to either make a great impact for the Kingdom of God or to be selfishly inward-focused. The following are true stories.

[Read more...]

Summer Postcards to encourage church attendance

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Summer postcard to encourage people to attend church
Here is a FREE set of summer postcards to remind people to keep coming to church.

Here is a set of cards you can print to remind people to come to church during the summer.

The all the images were created as 1/4 page postcards in MS Publisher. I then made PDFs of them that are ready to print. I intentionally left a white margin around the images so if you print them in the church office and are a little off in your cutting them apart, you'll still be OK. If you get them professionally printed you might want to add run the image all the way to the edge of the template size the online companies provide. Below is a ZIP file with additional cards that contains:

[Read more...]

A great need addressed—a Video and Instagram images of Prayer for GRACE for all nations

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A prayer for Grace for all nations
A prayer for Grace for all nations is desperately needed in our contentious times.

Grace, unmerited favor and kindness, which we receive from God and should share with our fellow pilgrims on this earth, is something we need now more than ever. To encourage that I created some Instagram images for you, plus the short video below.

Please watch the video as a prayer.

The materials above are an updating of a project a few years ago when I wrote up the acronym GRACE as a prayer to celebrate the 4th of July, taking as my inspiration the line from the song, "America, America, God shed his grace on thee."

You can grab the video from YouTube and use it however you'd like. Below are Instagram images I first made and that are illustrated in the video.

You can download the Zip file for them here: 2020 INSTAGRAM GRACE Prayer for all nations

An ECC Member in Canada modified it for Canada Day and that in turn inspired me to create a series of Free PowerPoint slides and videos using it as a prayer, go to this link to download both of them: https://wp.me/pDky9-7mJ

In addition to them, I created a series of PowerPoint Slides and videos you can use to celebrate the 4th of July for the U.S. and a set as a prayer of grace for any nation. Here is the link to them and they are illustrated below: https://wp.me/pDky9-7mD

You can freely use all these materials however you wish, but please DO PRAY for our hurting world, that God would change hearts and infuse it with his Grace.

4th of July, Canada Day and GRACE for all nations: slides, videos, handouts

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There is a lot here--slides and videos for you to use both in America for the 4th of July and for all other nations that we pray for God's grace to touch our world.

"God’s love in action towards men who merited the opposite of love."

is one of my favorite definitions of grace and as Jesus's disciples, grace is an attribute and action we can share with a world currently so desperately in need of it.

A few years ago I created a bulletin insert for the 4th of July that uses the acronym "GRACE" as a prayer. Following that, a member of ECC created one for Canada Day. (CLICK HERE to links to both)

That inspired me to take the same acronym of GRACE and make it into a set of PowerPoint Slides you can use however you want and as a prayer video not only for the 4th of July in the United States, but for the many members of Effective Church Communications in other countries around the world.

In the midst of all the rancor and strife that overwhelms our world, one of the most powerful things we can do is to remind our people to pray and encouraging them to exhibit grace to a hurting world by guiding them in prayer for lives that reflect the grace of God.

Below is a set of slides for both the U.S. version of the video and then the world-wide one. Only the intro slides and the last one are different, the ones for the acronym GRACE are the same. Just click the zip file below the slides to download them.

Below the slides are videos of each set with a voice over of me reading the slides to you and one with the music only. Below each video is a DROPBOX link where you can download the video to use for a guided prayer time in your church.

Please use and share with others and pray God will grant us grace to be his people in every situation to those who deserve it and those who don't and desperately need it. [Read more...]

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