Effective Church Communications

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators. 

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators.

Share Jesus this Christmas with a FREE Christmas Story—as a flyer, Christmas letter, social media, however you want

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Free story that shares Jesus at Christmas
An easy way to share our most important message at Christmas about Jesus. Click the image to download the Zip file and SHARE!

This story has been used by thousands of churches through the years and I created 4 new designs for you this year, that you can download as PDFs, plus a MS Word file, and use in any way you want to share the Gospel of Jesus at Christmas. You can use them in these ways:

  • Personalize from your church with invitations to specific events on the back or links to more information about what it means to follow Jesus.
  • Print and give as a gift to members to share in Christmas letters, give to friends, encourage them to use them.
  • Upload to your church or ministry website and freely share the link and encourage members to download and share either in print or in their own social media.
  • Use in your social media, newsletters, and anything that the church sends out.

Below are images of the PDFs and below that is a ZIP file that has the PDFs and the MS Word file. The text copy is also below the images if you want to copy and use it from there. Click on the images to see a larger version.

To download a PDF of the images above, plus an MS Word file of the content CLICK the following link: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Christmas-Flyer-to-Share-Jesus.zip

To go to additional FREE Christmas Templates and past versions of this Christmas Letter: CLICK HERE

Here is a short motivational video--share it from YouTube to motivate others to use the flyer:

To download a PDF of the story to share Jesus, shown above, plus an MS Word file of the content CLICK the following link: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Christmas-Flyer-to-Share-Jesus.zip
[Read more...]

Scam Alert for Geek Squad Users (or even if you aren’t)a video for you

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Scam alert for Best Buys Geek Squad
A quick warning video about a scam alert and the power of typography (check it out to see what I mean!)

The Geek Squad from Best Buy can be a useful resource for churches and one I especially rely on when getting a new computer and switching over programs. [ PLEASE REMEMBER Effective Church Communications does not take any advertising or do affiliate deals—this is just my opinion of the Geek Squad or anything else I talk about].

And so I was understandably upset briefly when I got an email saying that my membership in it was due and had doubled in price. The cost of so many things has gone up considerably, so I was momentarily panicked but then I noticed (seriously) the sloppy typography of the Geek squad logo in the email and it just looked off. I compared it with the real one (on my real Geek Squad contract) and yes, it was fake.

I called the company and they said that unfortunately the web is being flooded with these at present. They said to ignore it and forward the email to abuse@bestbuy.com.

There are lots of detailed warnings online for it and you can CLICK HERE to go to the one from the FTC.

However, I did a little short video to warn you and others (Please pass it on), plus a tiny typography lesson from it—that I'm sure many of you caught the minute you saw the fake email.

Cautions on writing, creating, sharing personally revealing stories AKA testimonies, the possible negative results, and what to do instead

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We all want to share stories, yet we must always be respectful of the person whose story we want to tell and above all, we need to keep primary God's story and God's Word.

Storytelling is very popular currently. Just today I got yet another promotion of a “Learn How to Tell Stories” webinar.

Though storytelling is perennially popular, our Bible is made up of stories, after all, we must also be aware of some cautions when we tell stories—and that’s what this podcast and blog is all about…. The podcast is below and the blog on the same topic follows.

With the current trend of excessive sharing influenced by current media and the public revelations of indiscretions of previous Christian leaders, it seems there is nothing that is off-limits in public discourse.

There truly is no longer shame in what is shared.

The secular news media is one area; the church is another and it's important to set limits for what we share in the church in our written and digital communications and spoken public and digital sharing. This includes written and spoken testimonies and regardless of our reasons for wanting to share them, please consider the following cautions as we do them.

Please consider the following suggestions as both the ignorance of possible consequences of oversharing and the abuse of it can have lasting, though often not intended consequences for the people in our church.

We can never separate the content from the person

Allow me to first share my background on this issue as it comes from years of writing about people in difficult situations when I wrote about people for a number of Christian ministries in Colorado Springs and also was a religion reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun.

When I was a senior editor and writer with Compassion International and progressed to teaching writing and publication creation to other ministries, one thing I was adamant about was that we never, ever show people who were recipients of our ministry from a victim position either in what we wrote about them or how we photographed them.

No pictures of children with flies on their faces, no women beaten and bruised, and no men slumped in a pile of rags. Regardless of their previous need, I felt we should always treat people with honor. [Read more...]

PODCAST & blog—Your Chaplain of Communications—the unique ways Yvon Prehn and Effective Church Communications can serve you

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Comfort from Chaplains needed in church communications
Chaplains comfort and encourage in many situations and I want to be your Chaplain of Church Communications.

There are many useful resources available online to help you in your work as a church communicator. Considering that I was recently thinking about what makes my ministry of Effective Church Communications useful for you—what to expect from me that is unique or different from what is available from other sources.

Though I’ll break it into practical parts for you shortly, overall, I realized a good label for me would be Your Chaplain of Church Communications. This covers what I do, as a chaplain is defined as one—

  • Who provides spiritual care and resources
  • Is a mentor and a reassuring and trustworthy presence
  • Who assists with the spiritual, religious, and emotional needs

Caring for your spiritual needs and providing resources for you as a church communicator is foundational to what I do for two reasons:

  1. The spiritual importance of who you are as a church communicator.
  2. The unique ways I can help you be more effective based on the spiritual, Biblical foundation of the resources of Effective Church Communications.

Let’s look at these two areas in more detail now either by listening to the podcast or going to the blog that follows.

The spiritual importance of who you are as a church communicator

As a church communicator, you have one of the most critical jobs in the church both in terms of the potential impact of your position and the spiritual warfare involved in it. [Read more...]

“You are One of the Great Ones and far more important than you may realize,” an encouragement for all church communicators

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Church Communicators are the GREAT ones in the Kingdom of God
Your work may seem challenging and overwhelming, but church communicators are truly the Great Ones in the Kingdom of God. Heaven will be different because of the work you are doing today.

It's easy to forget the incredible importance of your work with all the hard work it takes to be a church communicator. The devotion below will help you remember.

You are one of the Great Ones and far more important than you may realize

Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. (Dan. 12:3)

Often when I ask someone who has come to one of my church communication seminars what they do in the church, they often respond by saying something like: “Oh, I’m just the church secretary” or “Oh, I just help work on the church newsletter” and similar self-deprecating statements.

My heart is broken when I hear that because the person who says it (and you may have thought similar things about yourself) has no idea of their true worth. Let me explain what I mean by sharing a story from a scene in C. S. Lewis’ book , The Great Divorce. In this scene the main character is being escorted around heaven. He sees a woman coming toward him magnificently clothed and attended to by a great procession. The book goes on: [Read more...]