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.

About ECC: Stories and examples shared

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Effective Church Communications Stories SharedBe assured, if you are reading an entry and you think it is about you, it most likely is not.

Though I need to share true stories and examples to make the material on this site practical, I do not want to embarrass or make any member of the body of Christ, or any church communicator who is doing the best they can, to feel badly by my use of something they did to show what not to do.

So here is what I try to do:

  1. I tell true stories. I share true examples. If they are not true, I will stay something like "imagine if....."
  2. Even though an example may be true, I will try to disguise details so that the story will not point to any specific church or embarrass any one person. Sometimes in my efforts to change details I inadvertently mistakes. Once I changed the name of the church to what I considered an extremely generic one and got a scathing email from someone who thought I was intentionally critiquing her church. I apologized and assured her I wasn't—I hadn't even heard of her church.
  3. I often start negative examples with "sad, but true" because I don't think anyone intentionally tries to create ineffective communications.

Do remember I traveled all over North America teaching seminars for over 20 years, looked at thousands of examples and continue to look at communications from churches of every size and location all over the world. It is amazing how similar they are both in what they do well and in many similar errors. Every somewhat negative example I give always has the purpose to help all of us be more effective communicators of the gospel message.

Let me repeat the most important thing here: if you are reading an entry and you think it is about you, it most likely is not. If it really bothers you or you think I'm too harsh, please email me: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com or leave a comment.

About ECC: Effective Church Communications User Agreement & Privacy Policy

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Effective Church Communications User AgreementEffective Church Communications User Agreement & Privacy Policy

This Agreement sets out the terms and conditions relating to the online content provided free of charge and content subject to payment that Yvon Prehn and Effective Church Communications (ECC) will give to you.

By accessing any of the materials on this site and/or signing up for membership on this site means you agree with and will abide by the conditions that follow.

If you use the Site in the course of business or as a church, you are also agreeing to these terms and conditions on behalf of that business or church, including both staff and volunteers. If you do not agree with what follows, you shouldn't use the site.

If the User has any questions they should contact:  yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

Refund Policy: We want you to be happy with your membership. You will receive a full refund of your membership fee if you contact yvon@effectivechurchcom.com within 7 days of signing up if you wish to cancel.

If your membership is on an automatic, recurring billing, either monthly or yearly, please let me know within a week prior to your next due date if you want to cancel your membership, if you want me to cancel it for you or if you are going to cancel or not renew. It will cancel automatically if you refuse it or change your credit card.

If we don't hear from you and you wish to cancel after a recurring billing has been billed and collected, there are no refunds for the current billing, but the recurring billing will be stopped.

All memberships are fully transferable. If, for example, one person signs up for a yearly or LIFETIME church membership (even if they downloaded a bunch of materials at the discount price) and they leave and someone else comes in to fill the job, the person in the job retains the full membership rights, if it was a church purchase. If it is an individual purchase, you can keep it no matter where you work.

Please let me know if there is a change of billing information, please access your account or, email: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com

Services and Fees: ECC will provide Free and Paid-for Content. ECC reserves the right to vary the Free and Paid-for Content and does not guarantee that the content provided free of charge will remain free of charge and does not guarantee that the content provided subject to payment will remain a paid-for service.

Your responsibility: You must provide ECC with complete and accurate payment information. You can pay using a credit or debit card through our processing system. In the event of an unauthorized payment ECC reserves the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Site and Paid-for Content. If no payment authorization is received or payment authorization is subsequently cancelled, ECC  may immediately terminate or suspend access to any Paid-for Content and/or the Site. ECC will try to process the your request for any Paid-for Content promptly but does not guarantee that the Paid-for Content will be available to you by any specified time. A contract with you for Paid-for Content will come into effect when the Username and Password are issued to you.

Registration, Passwords, and Privacy: The use of the Site signifies your consent to ECC collecting and using personal information about the User in accordance with the Effective Church Communications Privacy Policy. The User can read the Privacy Policy below. You not have to register to use the Site in order to access it and enjoy the content other than the Paid-for Content. If you wish to access the Paid-for Content you will be asked to provide the Site Owner with accurate, complete registration information, including contact details, and it is your responsibility to update and maintain this information. The Site Owner is entitled to rely on this information to provide Paid-for Content. You will also be requested to create a Password in a format specified by the Site Owner (“the Password”). You shall not disclose the Password to any other person or entity other than the appropriate group as specified by the membership level and shall ensure that the Password remains confidential at all times.

If ECC has reasonable grounds for believing that you or your organization has misused or is misusing the Password, ECC may require the you or your organization to change the Password or may suspend the  use of the access to the Site, including Paid-for Content, until such time as the ECC is satisfied that the security of the Site is no longer compromised by the User’s activities.

Limitations on Use of the Site: All content and services provided by the Site Owner belongs to the Site Owner and guest contributors. The Site Owner owns all the intellectual property rights in the content and services. The content and services provided are solely for your personal use and you shall not sub-license, distribute, sell, supply, modify, adapt, amend, incorporate, merge, or otherwise alter any content or service provided under this Agreement, other than in the ways stated that you can do so by Yvon Prehn in the sections designed for modifications such as the templates.

You shall not remove or replicate any logo, copyright or proprietary notices, legends, symbols, labels, watermarks, signatures or any other like marks affixed to or embedded in the content or services. You shall not carry out any act or omission or permit any act or omission to take place that infringes or is likely to infringe any intellectual property rights owned or used by ECC or its contributors or otherwise relating to the Site.

Limitation of Liability and Indemnity: You expressly agree that the use of, and browsing of the Site is at your own risk. Neither the Site Owner nor any other party involved in creating, producing or delivering the Site, including Yvon Prehn and Effective Church Communications, is liable for any direct, incidental, special, consequential, indirect or punitive damages arising out of your access to, or use of, or inability to use the Site or any linked site or for the cost of procurement of substitute goods or services or resulting from any goods or services purchased or obtained or messages received or transactions entered into through the Site or resulting from any unauthorised access to or alteration of your transmissions or data, including but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, use, data or other intangible property including legal costs and expenses, even if the Site Owner has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

You expressly agree that the downloading of any material form the Site is at your own risk. Neither the Site Owner nor any other party involved in creating, producing or delivering the Site, including Effective Church Communications and all contributors to the site, are liable for any direct, incidental, special, consequential, indirect or punitive damages resulting from your downloading material from the Site or any linked site, including but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, use, data or other intangible property including legal costs and expenses, even if the Site Owner has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Without limiting the foregoing, everything on the Site is provided to you “as is” and “as available” without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement.While ECC will use reasonable efforts to include accurate and up to date information on the Site, ECC makes no warranties or representations as to its accuracy or completeness. ECC is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such information. ECC is not responsible for errors or omissions by contributors, guest authors, or commentators on the site.

The information is provided with the understanding that the information does not constitute any form of advice, recommendation or arrangement by Yvon Prehn, ECC, or its contributors or any other party involved in the Site and is not intended to be relied upon by you in making (or refraining from making) any decisions based on such information. You must make your own decisions on whether or not to rely on any information posted on the Site. ECC reserves the right to modify information displayed on this Site but it does not make any commitment to update the information displayed on this Site. No party including the Site Owner who is involved in the workings of the Site, including Effective Church Communications or its contributors, will at any time be liable or responsible in any way for the content, including Paid-for Content, and information provided on or via the Site and for your use of the Site.

From time to time ECC will make available to you links from the site to third party sites. These sites are not in any way approved, checked, edited, vetted or endorsed by ECC and you agree that the ECC shall not be responsible or liable in any way for the content, advertising or products available from such sites, the quality, functionality, suitability or legality of such sites or for any dealings that you may have, or the consequences of such dealings, with such third party site operators. Any arrangements made between the you and any third party named on the this site are at the your sole risk and responsibility and ECC expressly disclaims any liability for third party information or opinions posted on this Site or any linked Sites that arises under criminal or civil laws relating to defamation, intellectual property, infringement, privacy, obscenity, or any other area of law.

Indemnity: You agree to indemnify, keep indemnified, defend and hold ECC harmless from and against any and all claims, damages, liability, losses, costs and expenses (including legal fees) (whether or not foreseeable or avoidable) incurred or suffered by any Indemnified Party and any claims or legal proceedings which are brought or threatened arising from your use of, connection with or conduct on the Site or any breach by the User of these terms.

Consequences of Breach of these Terms: In the event that Effective Church Communications considers or determines, in their complete discretion, that you have breached, violated or contravened the Agreement or otherwise demonstrated inappropriate conduct in the use of the Site or the content or services they reserve the absolute right to: (a) warn you that you have violated the Agreement and ask you to discontinue such conduct; (b) discontinue the your membership of the site and/or any other related services, including Paid-for Content; and (c) take measures to prevent you from using the Site or linking to the Site.

Proper Law and Jurisdiction: This Agreement and all matters arising from it shall be governed by and construed according to the laws of the United States of America and the state of California. For any disputes other than these, by signing up you and ECC agree to arbitration conducted by a Christian party and will not pursue any litigation in the civil court system.

Entire Agreement: This Agreement supersedes all prior agreements, arrangements and undertakings and constitutes the entire agreement relating to the subject matter of this Agreement. You confirm that you have not entered into this Agreement on the basis of any representation that is not expressly incorporated into this Agreement.

Privacy Policy for www.effectivechurchcom.com

Effective Church Communications provides various materials including a website, www.effectivechurchcom.com,  related services on the website, and links to a storefront for purchasing additional materials all designed to help church communicators create communications that will enable them to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

By participating in any of these activities you agree, without limitation, to the practices described in this Privacy Policy and also accept, without limitation or qualification, all terms and conditions concerning Effective Church Communications, its websites and contributors. We may at any time revise these terms and conditions. You are bound by any such revisions and should therefore periodically visit them to review the then-current terms and conditions to which you are bound.

Collection of Information
In general, we collect only the information necessary to process your access to the site and information needed by the services we use to make the site operate. These service may use cookies (small text files that are stored on the hard drives of visitors computers when they access our Web site) to collect this information, for example, to help store your password.

Use of Information
We may use information collected to inform site members of resources available for purchase, updates and updates on the site.

Disclosure of Information
We will not share any of your information with any other party for sales or marketing purposes. The only information that goes to another party (such as the companies that process credit card payments) is what they need to do their job.

We have taken care to work with only the most highly rated and secure financial companies to manage our financial transactions. Our website maintains a current SSL certificate for additional security purposes.

Security
We have implemented certain physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect from our members.

However, visitors should consider any electronic communication that they transmit to us (such as data, questions or answers, comments, suggestions, or other communications) to be non-confidential. We will not be liable or responsible if information that belongs to an individual is intercepted and used by an unintended recipient, or is otherwise accessed and used without our written permission. By participating in or visiting our Web site, you assume this risk.

Opt-Out Policy
If you have signed up to receive our online newsletter, you may opt out of it at any time. There is a form on every newsletter to do that. If you need help with the opt out, email yvon@effectivechurchcom.com and we will take care of it for you.

Third Party Web Sites
Our Web site provides links to many other sites (products we cover, share, recommend, etc.) which may have privacy policies that differ from our own. We are not responsible for the activities and practices that take place on these web sites. Accordingly, we recommend that you review the privacy policy posted on any web site that you may access through our Web site. We have NO formal advertising, referral, or affiliate arrangements with any other site and are not responsible for them. This includes www.lulu.com the site that sells our products. This is a totally different company and any problems with the purchase of products should be directed to them. Having said that, we will always work hard and help to resolve any problems or issues as we are able.

Changes To This Privacy Policy
There may be times when we need to amend, modify, remove, or change various aspects of this Privacy Policy, and we reserve the right to do so at our discretion. We recommend that you revisit this Privacy Policy periodically to ensure that you are aware of our current privacy practices. You can be assured that any changes that we make will not be applied retroactively and that we will not materially change how we handle previously collected information without your consent. Your continued use of our services following any changes signifies your acceptance of these changes.

Bottom Line
We respect all our members and will never knowingly or intentionally abuse or compromise the privacy or trust you have in us. Please contact yvon@effectivechurchcom.com if you have a concern.

In case of dispute
By accessing this site you agree that if there is a dispute that cannot be happily resolved via email that the dispute will be taken to Christian arbitration arranged by Effective Church Communications. Our desire is that all things are done “decently and in order” and in ways pleasing to the Lord Jesus.

Before you use, trust, or take action on a statistic, always reverse it

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statistic distortion
Before you use a statistic, be sure you aren't distorting it just to make your point.

I'm not sure where statistics get their power—but put one in an article or headline and people pay attention. Though statistics are a catchy device to get attention, and are often used to prove a point, the numbers themselves say little without interpretation. And therein lies the challenge. Numbers without context mean little or nothing.

Writers create the context and as we create the context for any statistic we need to be careful that we don't ascribe more power to a statistic than it deserves. We especially need to be careful that we don't make unqualified assumptions, recommendations, or recommend ministry actions on a number that can be interpreted in various ways.

A recent example of this is in a number that has been advertised recently from the Barna organization. They are launching a new series of books on various topics and one of their primary selling points seems to be the short length of the books. They seem to base their decision to produce these, at least in part, on the following statistic from a recent survey they conducted that said:

When it comes to books, one of the most conventional informational format, more than one-third of adults (35%) say that while they enjoy reading, they feel most books are too long.  From: https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/641-3-trends-redefining-the-information-age#.UmcK3BCXaSo

It's fine to want to produce short books and short books can be of great value to busy, stressed people, but the statistic above is anything but a reason for short books because if you simply reverse it, just under two-thirds of adults (65%) don't feel books are too long. When you reserve the statistic, it shows most people are happy with the length books are now.

Length is not the only challenge to reading

Length is only one of the factors that determine if a book will be read or not. The importance or interest to the reader is one of the most important.  No matter how long or tedious a textbook might be, if our passing a class that determines if we get a degree we need, we'll read it. For leisure reading, skill of the author determines whether we lose ourselves in the words or are bored after a chapter or two.

Any content can be made harder to read if the print is too small and the layout is cramped. Conversely, even the most dense content is more accessible (and we'll stick with it longer) if the layout if pleasing, if there are subheads, captions, and illustrations to guide us.

If you don't need a statistic to make your point, you probably don't need the statistic

When you are tempted to use a statistic in your writing, remember the example here and always reverse it. If reversing the statistic shows the opposite of the point you want to make, leave out the statistic.

Sometimes statistics shed light on issues or offer insights we wouldn't see any other way, but always look at all sides of one before you use it so that readers won't be able to turn it around to prove the opposite of the point you are attempting to make.

How to equip and encourage your volunteers before Fall outreach season starts

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Directoring volunteers is essential for outreach success
Your volunteers need encouragement and direction before the busy holiday outreach season starts.

We’ve all been there—to an event, perhaps at church, perhaps not, but one that had incredible food, fabulous decorations, and great music—but it was one that we left early because of the people. Maybe they were rude, or ignored us, or simply didn’t seem to care about anybody new, so we wandered around quietly munching until we slid out the door.

No matter what else is going on, people are the most important part of any event. We need remind ourselves of that reality as we prepare for  seasonal and special event outreach at our church. We can, and I hope your churches will do all you can to make your facilities and programs the best they can be before outreach events, but if you don’t take time to make sure your people are in top shape in training and attitude before special events, all your hard work on the externals will mean little.

Take some time now to plan how you will make certain your people are as wonderful as the rest of the resources for your outreach and holiday celebrations. Following are some links on the website that will help you:

Video: How to get all the volunteers you need for Halloween Outreach (and other outreach events)

Ed. note: if you have trouble getting people to volunteer for your seasonal outreach events, PLEASE take time to watch this video! It will help you make changes that will result in more volunteers.

For outreach at Halloween or any time to be successful, you need a lot of volunteers. This is especially true when you put on an event like a Halloween Trunk or Treat. But how do we get all the people we need for all the work that needs to be done? This video shows you how through:

  • A case study of a flyer that won't work and then a brochure that will work to recruit volunteers. The example used here is for a Halloween Trunk or Treat.
  • Step-by-step instruction on what you need to say and the order you need to say it in for your information to make sense to potential volunteers
  • Specific advice on what you need to be careful to do and not do when recruiting volunteers.
  • Encouragement to do all the work that needs to be done and the eternal results that can come from it.

The video is below, but I recommend you watch it on YouTube or blow it up full screen so you can read the materials I'm taking about.

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Overall articles on volunteer development, recruitment and retention

Why the 80/20 situation isn't true for the recruitment and retention of church volunteers

We’ve all heard: “80 percent of the people do 20 percent of the work.”  Those who are in the over-worked 80 percent console themselves that is simply how life is and in the church we suffer for Jesus.
Though trials are part of the Christian life, this is not an inevitable part of them. The 80/20 statement is merely a business observation—it is not scripture. The Bible tells us we are to have 100 percent involvement in the church.  We make up different parts of the Body of Christ, but everyone has a job to do.

To read the rest of the article: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/why-the-8020-situation-isnt-true-for-the-recruitment-and-retention-of-church-volunteers/

Why upbeat interviews work better than desperate pleas for recruiting volunteers

Desperation isn't pretty in volunteer requests. If you feel like shutting down the children's ministry if new people don't sign up or closing the bathrooms on Sunday morning if no one helps the facilities team—you probably won't get sign-ups by sharing your frustration.

To read the rest of the article: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/why-upbeat-interviews-work-better-than-desperate-pleas-for-recruiting-volunteers/

Communications for a good continuing relationship with your volunteers—please don't suddenly become Mr. Grumpy

Every church is desperate for volunteers. It's not only important to effectively recruit them, but after they are recruited, it is equally important to work hard to keep them. Unfortunately, the difference between how we treat volunteers when we are recruiting them and after they volunteer is sometimes similar to the difference with some couples between courtship and marriage. Before the wedding the groom is all flowers and candy; after the wedding he becomes Mr. Grumpy.

Don’t become Mr. or Mrs. Grumpy to your volunteers. Be as kind, caring, and thankful to them when they have been around for 6 months as you are the first week. Not only is this the proper response for a disciple of Jesus, but volunteers can easily quit if you make it difficult or unpleasant to serve. You can express that thankfulness to them through a variety of church communication projects such as:

To read the rest of the article: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/communications-for-a-good-continuing-relationship-with-your-volunteers-please-dont-suddenly-become-mr-grumpy/