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.

Strategic Summer Communications, an eBook and Video to help you make the most of special summer celebrations

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Strategic Summer Communications
Fun is expected at summer events, but we can do so much more at the ones hosted by our churches. This eBook and video will show you how.

Summer is a time when people expect to have fun at special events. When we host events at church, we can do that, but as with every holiday or special event we put on, we can do so much more if we are strategic about our summer communications!

One of the core teachings of Effective Church Communications is to remind you that holidays and special events are key times to both—grow your church in numbers and your people in spiritual maturity!

Doing more than stopping at fun only is what distinguishes how we have fun in the summer from other worthwhile places. There is nothing wrong with fun, but we also have the opportunity to perhaps change the course of the eternity of people in our communities by our strategic use of the opportunities people come to church in the summer.

This eBook and video on Strategic Summer Communications will help you do that. [Read more...]

Three short videos to inspire and equip you for Mother’s Day—and direct links to the resources mentioned!

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Less than 60 seconds each—check out the videos below for ideas and free resources for Mother's Day!

Free eBook for Mother’s Day

Download the eBook CLICK HERE: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Mothers-Day-eBook-FINAL-5-2022-1.pdf [Read more...]

Do more than celebrate! A Free eBook: Strategy for Father’s Day and preview of all resources

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Fathers Day Strategy ebookOn Father's Day, we naturally want to celebrate Dads and we should!

But we can also use this holiday to do more. In Ephesians it tells us to "make the most of our time," and on Father's Day, we also use it as a time to encourage the men in our church to grow spiritually and to connect with resources that will help them become the Father and the disciple Jesus wants them to be.

This eBook is an overview of the strategies and resources that can help you do this. It is available as a free download at this link:  https://payhip.com/b/N4M9n

And here is a quick overview video of it:

This link will take you to the Effective Church Communications Library, a FREE (or Pay-What-You-Want) resource that has an ever-growing library of eBooks and training videos that will help you become a more effective church communicator. This free eBook is an example of some of the materials that are and will be on the site.

What I am doing with eBooks like this is taking a topic, in this instance, Father's Day, and pulling together both new and past materials on it, plus the resources I have for you in one easy-to-access downloadable resource.

Already on the site are class materials from the Effective Church Communications ministry such as the eBooks, The Five Steps of Effective Church Communications and Marketing, Successful Seasonal Celebrations, and Challenges for Church Communicators (formerly Devotions for Church Communicators). [Read more...]

Notes available for first video on Desktop Publishing in the Church, How to Use Your Computer to Create Better Newsletters, Bulletins, and More! by Yvon Prehn

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Cover of How to use your computer to Create Better Bulletins, Newsletters, and More!
The cover of my book on desktop publishing in the church. I found the printed notes that go with the video series (done 27 years ago), scanned them and you can download them. The video is available on YouTube. A link to it is in the article.

Several months ago, I posted the first video I did on desktop publishing in the church, How to Use Your Computer to Create Better Newsletters, Bulletins, and More! 

I uploaded CDs of it that had been created from the original VHS tapes. The quality is not what we expect today, but it was and is interesting to me how the basic principles of good design and communication haven't changed in almost 30 years from when I first wrote the book. Nor have the needs of churches and the still too frequent challenges they have in creating effective church communications. This book was based on Tap the Power of Desktop Publishing which was the first book out on desktop publishing for churches and as far as I know on doing communications with the computer for churches.

The first version of the book was published by David C. Cook and the second edition by Gospel Light. Though both books seemed to do OK, the second one did well enough for the company to do this video series, both companies told me they decided to not continue printing it because they didn't see a future for the computer to be used to create communications in the church. In fact, Gospel Light said they didn't see technology as a whole had any future use in the church.

Well, that was a miscalculation.

But I wasn't deterred--I made photocopies of the book at Kinkos and they sold well at the seminars I taught all over North America for many years.

It wasn't until recently I found the CDs of the seminar and put them on my YouTube Channel .  The link will take you to the first video.

I was frustrated because I couldn't find the notes that went with the videos though I thought I looked all over for them. However, recently, as often happens in my messy office, I was looking for something entirely different and there were the notes, misfiled.

I scanned them and made them into a PDF, which you can download HERE

The book it was based on is out of print, but I retained the rights to it and scanned most of it, and turned it into an ebook. I left out the chapters on computers and software as they were outdated and no longer useful. I renamedCover of Back to Basics, foundational skills for church communicators by Yvon Prehn the book, Back to Basics, essential foundational skills for church communicators. It's part of the soon-to-be-released Effective Church Communications Library, but I wanted to give you a free copy of it to go with the notes. Here is the link to a download of it: https://payhip.com/b/RK9hW
[Read more...]

Modifications for Mother’s Day this year, a FREE ebook to challenge your thinking, and links to the timeless One Mother’s Prayers

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Sad plate
We may not be able to celebrate Mother's Day the way we have in the past, but here are some free resources that may be helpful.

This year we have many challenges with new ways to celebrate special events in our churches.

Yes, it is a challenge and can be difficult, but it's also a great time to stop and think about what makes a holiday truly special, and what are some timeless ways we can celebrate it?

We can evaluate what we've always done because it's a tradition and ask ourselves what do we do that is truly meaningful and honors the Lord and His people as we celebrate?

Mother's Day might be one of the most challenging times of all because it is when we tangibly and in very public ways celebrate the moms in our churches. It can also be a painful time for women who aren't mothers as they silently smile at the service and cry later alone at home.

Past challenges to expand your thinking on Mother's Day

I've often reminded churches that the reason Mother's Day Sunday gets the biggest attendance of the year just behind Christmas and Easter is not because of the moms who are there. They are there every Sunday. It gets the big attendance it does because on that Sunday the unchurched kids and spouses who don't normally come to church will come to make mom happy. [Read more...]