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; we can help.

Free images for Giving Tuesday

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GIVING TUESDAY LOGO, free to use
This is one of the logos that are free to use from Giving Tuesday.

I'm sorry this is so late in coming to you—I was waiting to confirm that you could indeed use the images they created and they just recently got back to me. I was asked by a church communicator if I knew of free images for Giving Tuesday.

I found their site and they had a great selection of what looked like free images BUT (and this is a lesson to all of us) NO WHERE did they tell you that they were free or terms of use or anything. As I'm very concerned to not use anything on the Effective Church Communications site or pass on anything that is not 100% copyright and attribution free, I emailed to ask if it was OK. They just got back to me.

Having said that I realize it is an incredibly lame excuse because I should have worked to contact them earlier so I could pass on the information to you in time for it to be useful. I apologize.

I just added a note to my Google calendar to remind me at the end of July next year to look at their website and start planning ahead. I'd encourage you to do the same because to make a significant difference on this day, we need time to coordinate resources and communications. I promise to remind you much sooner next year. It is a wonderful alternative to the excessive consumerism of Black Friday and as a reminder of the importance of giving. [Read more...]

Christmas Strategy—Christmas Connection Cards—effective tools to get people to return after Christmas

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FREE Christmas Connection Card
Click on this image to download the FREE PDF file.

After all your hard work to get people to come to your Christmas events, you want to make sure you make a connection with them so that they will return to your church after the holidays. To do that you need to capture names and contact information.

These Connection Cards and Registration for Christmas are a simple-to-create, but very useful tool.

At the end of this article is a link to a ZIP FILE that has ready-to-print PDFs of all the images below and editable MS Publisher files of all the cards plus hi-res images of them.

The strategy behind the cards

Churches often put on Christmas events as a gift to the community and some have told me that they don't want to be "too pushy" during that event and so they don't do anything to try to get information from their guests.

Though I understand the thoughts behind this thinking, we need to remember that the kindest and the best thing we can do for our Christmas guests (or church guests at any time of year) is to introduce them to Jesus. We may begin that introduction at Christmas, but what is strategically important to remember is that it takes at least SEVEN exposures to any idea for acceptance. For many people in our world today, the idea that Christmas is about Jesus or that he is more than a baby that inspires kind thoughts and lots of parties this time of year is a totally new idea. [Read more...]

If you’ve got your church communications totally under control this isn’t for you, if not—read on!

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Overwhelmed with Church Communications
Sometimes I feel like I can't ever catch up or measure up as a church communicator--but here is how I've decided to help us all accomplish what God called us to do

I like to keep up on what’s happening in church communications through online groups and email news, but sometimes it discourages me more than helps me.

I got a major dose of that today when I was reading raving reviews and recommendations about Affinity Software (So easy to use! Cheaper than Illustrator!). And then I read about how you had to start streaming your church service and install online giving in your church before Giving Tuesday.

Please do not misunderstand—if you are a designer who thinks Affinity Software is easy to use and want to create advanced designs—go for it! It didn’t look very easy for me to use when I checked it out, but that’s just me and I did have to smile as I remembered the original Serif software the company created years ago. They have certainly changed. I thought it was too simple years ago and now it seems overly complex for practical church communication tasks.

If you’ve got time to set up a streaming service (more ways to share the gospel, what’s not to love about that?) or install online giving (that’s the one thing I hope every church implements at some time—because giving does go up, again), go for it!

But if you are like me, you already feel overwhelmed by the holidays and don't have time for all that

[Read more...]

Updated Resources added: Clickable List of 23 FREE & LEGAL Image Resource Sites

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Free & Legal image sources
We never seem to have enough resources for our church communications. This list will help and it's all FREE & LEGAL.

Update note: Tis the season of needing lots of images and below is a clickable list of FREE Image Resource Sites. I've added several new sites and along with them a short video and preview of the sites.

These are truly, totally free. No attribution required, no copyright infringement, they are all OK to use for commercial purposes (and for churches that means you can sell a t-shirt with an image used and be legal). I've spent many hours reading the fine print so you don't have to.

I did this because it really bothers me when you run across the frequent list of "free" images, but then you read the small print and you can't use them for anything but "personal use" (whatever that means) or that you have to print an attribution. I do understand why that is important to many people, but for many of the church communications we create, it simply isn't practical. Or it would look strange on an invitation card or similar communication.

There are thousands and thousands of images here and I recommend doing searches for what you need ahead of the time you need them. Just save in files under the categories you know you'll be working in (holidays, various ministries, etc.) and you'll have your own store of images when you are on a deadline to produce communications.

Here is the new updated list of video sources

[Read more...]

Why Jesus is the Reason for the Season—based on the Nicene Creed

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Jesus is the reason for the Season postcard
Our world needs to be reminded that Jesus truly is the "Reason for the Season." This piece will help you do that.

I've got dozens of free Christmas Templates available for you for every aspect of Christmas holiday communications.

HERE is the link to all of them: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/christmas-templates/

I'll be featuring different ones in the coming weeks with tips on how to use them. Today I want to focus on one of my favorites. You can use it as a flyer, postcard, image in newsletters or social media. The ZIP file has jpg images, ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files. Click here to download it:  Jesus-postcard

This piece uses the words of the ancient Nicene Creed that distills the essence of who is Jesus. The creed settled the controversy over the identity of Jesus in the early days of the church and it is my prayer it might help to clarify who He is to some today.

Use it freely and pass it on!