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 PRINTABLES, images for Mother’s Day in all formats and sizes

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Prov 31:30, to celebrate any woman who serves God
These images can be printed up in a variety of sizes to honor women at Mother's Day or any time.

This image is part of a collection of printable images you can download and use in any digital format in 96 dpi and also in high-resolution PDFs and 300 dpi jpegs that can be printed at large sizes through online printing shops. I can only give you some of the smaller sizes here (because of upload size limitations), but the larger sizes are now available at the Bibleverse Shop!

Please click on the images and a larger view will come up.

I chose this verse because though it is a great one to share for Mother's Day, it applies to all women, biological moms or spiritual moms, or any woman who deserves praise because she fears the Lord.

At the bottom of this article are downloadable files that contain the images in these sizes and formats including:

  • INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK size 96 dpi images are useful for any way you want to use them in a digital, social media, or web format.
  • Ready to print PDFs, 2 sizes in one folder for 8.5 and A4—the most common for a full-size sheet printed out in with standard church or office printers. Plus high-resolution 300 dpi jpegs.

It's now here! The Bibleverse Shop!

I now have a system and a place (the Bibleverse Shop) where I can also provide a selection of sizes and formats that can be sized from small images to 24x36 and 30x30 in both high-resolution PDFs and high-resolution 300 dpi jpg. You can use these files to have the images printed at your local print shops, or online with Costco, Vista Print, Staples, and many more.

At your home or office, you can print them out and then put them into frames for gifts or for inspiration around your church. The mockups below illustrate some of the ideas. The Bibleverse Shop is now OPEN and these images show what you'll be able to do with the files on the site.

Download these files for the Images

Click on the links below, the first for Instagram and Facebook, 96 dpi images for all digital uses.

The second one is for 8.5 x 11 and A4 files in both hi-resolution PDFs and 300 high-resolution dpi jpegs for printing.

Files for Home & Church Printing Files for Digital & Social Media

Files for Home & Church Printing

PODCAST: Was Jesus a Zombie? Consider this question before you finalize your Easter Sermon

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Jesus is AliveWas Jesus a zombie? Please understand, there is no irreverence or shock value intended with this question. It was an honestly asked question from someone who was totally unfamiliar with church.

After I got over my shock of being asked this question (and a short time later I was asked it from someone else), I did a podcast that coincided with Halloween, but I think it is also appropriate for the Easter Season so I am re-recording it for Effective Church Communications.

The rest of the podcast is primarily directed towards people outside the church, but I'm sharing it with church communicators and I hope with Pastors and those who prepare sermons for Easter to help you remember that if you did a good job on outreach to get unchurched people to come to your church for Easter, you need to think carefully about the audience you'll have. Many more people than those of us who grew up in the church can imagine did not grow up with ANY exposure to the church or the Bible. The implications of that reality are vast. You can't count on them knowing anything about the true story of Jesus, but they will come into the church with many pop culture ideas about life after death. I can't tackle them all, but now I'd like to tackle just one aspect of it—the question of........

 

Was Jesus a Zombie?

When you think about it calmly, if you are someone who doesn't go to church regularly, it really is a very good question because the only conception many people have today of a person who has come back from the dead is a zombie. So when someone hears Jesus came back from the dead, that's immediately what they think about. Easter is all about Jesus coming back from the dead, but as we'll see in the podcast today, how Jesus came back from the dead is very different from coming back as a zombie.

So what do we know about Jesus coming back from the dead?

[Read more...]

Effective WEBSITE strategy for Children’s Easter follow-up and a handout to go with it

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Children's Easter Return Card
CLICK on the image above to download the PDF. You can add specific information from your church on the back to help people return after Easter.

Many churches have special events at Easter for children. Many churches have an Easter Egg Hunt. One church in our city has a petting zoo every year. It's a fun event for kids and they serve snacks, play games, and get to interact with baby animals. Lots of unchurched people from the neighborhood surrounding the church attend.

The church doesn't do a petting zoo every Sunday. They don't serve special snacks each week to the kids and they don't have an Easter Egg Hunt each week. Also, the children's ministry doesn't even meet at the same time on a regular basis that they hold the special events for Easter.

Yet somehow, because of the petting zoo, and all the money and time spent on the goodies and the Easter Egg Hunt, the people in the children's ministry assume that the unchurched families in the area surrounding the church will come back to Sunday School the following Sunday because their kids had so much fun.

When they don't, the church staff is often disappointed, but they forget parents aren't mind readers. They have no idea what this church or any church does on a regular basis and no hint of why they should bother to get out of bed early Sunday morning to take their kids to some program they know nothing about.

A flyer like the one here is essential to give out at Easter. On the back you can invite families to your regularly scheduled children's ministry events. In addition to that, a clear link to your website can make a huge difference in ongoing response. Following are some ideas how this works.

How your website can help change this response

If you are a parent of young children, when you see an advertisement for a program for kids, a new game, a special food, anything advertised for kids, what is the first thing you do to check it out?

You will check out the website. On any commercial product or program of any kind, the website is always prominently displayed. That is the next step to find out about the product.

On the site it explains and illustrates the benefits of the product. It will answer questions, tell you where to get the product, and give you instructions on how to contact someone for more information if you have questions.

If this is the obvious that any commercial business does; why do we assume in the church that people will know all about what we offer kids on a weekly basis if we don't tell them? [Read more...]

We could all use good news now and here is the best news—all about salvation in Jesus

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Good news is found in Jesus
When so much of the world is filled with bad news, there is good news to be found in Jesus. Check it out and be encouraged!

Pandemic, crazy weather, racial injustice, and political turmoil—wherever we turn, bad news fills our world. There is one place the news is good—in the good news about Jesus. Many call this the gospel.

There are two reasons why it’s essential to explore the gospel now. First, for those of us familiar with the gospel, we do well to remember what great news that is, no matter what else is going on. And for those who aren’t familiar with it, this news has implications for you far beyond the hysterical headlines that currently fill your news feeds. The gospel is good news, the best news ever.

Why the gospel is GOOD NEWS

Good news. That is the dictionary definition of the term gospel. The question to answer next is, of course, “What is the good news?” or “Good news about what?”

The best answer to that question is in the Bible, where John 3:16 tells us that: “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”

The good news is that God didn’t sit up in heaven, watching humanity make a mess of their lives and their world. He did something about it with extraordinarily important implications for people both now and eternity. To explore the good news in more detail, let’s look at our situation and what God did for us.

Without God, making a mess of our lives is pretty much what we do.

It doesn’t take unique insight to know our world is a mess right now. But now, let’s look away from the world. [Read more...]

The PERFECT VACATION—FREE Instagram and other media–and an encouragement for your congregation, when you can’t do traditional vacations

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The Perfect Vacation in Jesus, images and commentary
Though it might be challenging to take the vacation we'd like, in Jesus, we can always find the true rest and renewal our soul needs.

Staying at home isn't so hard when it's windy or rainy and there are schoolwork and chores to be done.

But it's a whole different situation when school is out, the sun is shining, and it's time for a vacation! We want out! We want fun! We want anything but feeling guilty about leaving the house.

But. . . . . . no, the virus is not going to magically disappear. So what do we do when everything in us screams we want to get out of the house, but our sensible mind, considerate of long-term health and family, says, stop and think a minute?

This is very real to me

After being a virtual prisoner in my home for almost two years because I couldn't walk, after my surgery to fix things, I couldn't wait to get out.

But. . . . . .

I won't give away my struggle and spiritual resolution (that's in the Caption/Commentary below), but it motivated the Media Made for You set included today. I am going to be moving these to a paid section of the website in a while, but I'm still moving pretty slow so it's all free for now. Below are

  • Thumbnails of the images. These are available in ZIP files with formats and sizes for Instagram, Pinterest, Presentation size, Facebook post, 600 x 600 jpg files, and MS Publisher Ready-to-Print PDFs.
  • A copy of the Caption/Commentary I did for Instagram. You have my permission to use this in any way you want if you want to use the images on a newsletter, print, or email or whatever. Please, however, if you use it, do not edit it. I am going to be doing more of this. Somehow the images and the microblog format of the caption space works for what I feel the Lord wants me to communicate now. It isn't the usual use of INSTAGRAM for many I know and I'll be experimenting with it. If you want to simply capture and share the image and caption, you can follow my INSTAGRAM account: https://www.instagram.com/yvonprehn/
  • Of course, you can also use the images in any format you want and write your own caption or commentary, or not even use one if you don't want.
  • Below the commentary are the ZIP Files for you to freely download

[Read more...]