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.

Church Business/Invitation Cards to use anytime

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Invitation cards are an invaluable outreach ministry tool to help your people's invitations actually get people to church.
Invitation cards are an invaluable outreach ministry tool to help your people's invitations actually get people to church.

One of the most effective ways to ask people to come to church is to pair your verbal invitation with a printed invitation card. Since every member of the church is responsible to do their part to fully fulfill the Great Commission, be sure you always have cards like these available for your congregation.

Invitation cards are essential because we can't assume today, in our post-Christian world, that when you invite someone to church that they know anything about it, where it is, or when it meets. A person may respond very favorably to your invitation, but they may get up on Sunday morning and think: "Now where is that church? And what time does it start? Do they have a place for my kids?"

A printed invitation card can answer all those questions

It can also direct them to your online information (website and social media) that will make certain they actually connect with the church. Without this information, chances are the person will think something like: "I don't want to go at the wrong time and I can't even remember the location. . . . . I hope I run in to that nice person again."

Invitation cards are a tool that take hopeful invitations and wishful thinking to a tangible connection with your church. Below is a set you can download and change on the back with contact information for your church. The invitations are generic and can be used any time. The link to download them is at the end of the article. They are part of a ZIP file that has:

**Ready-to-print PDFs of all the cards
**Editable MS Publisher templates
**JPG images of the cards


[Read more...]

Why a printed bulletin in church is as essential as a menu in a restaurant or a program in a concert hall

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Bulletins are as essential in church as menus are in a cafe
Printed bulletins are as essential in church as menus are in a cafe. In both settings, they tell us what the place is all about.

People's habits don't change that much when they go to church. When we are in a new place or where we don't know ahead of time what is going on, nothing beats a piece of paper in our hands to inform us about what's going on or help us do what we want to do. Though we might use our smart phone for nearly non-stop interactions throughout the day and use our computers for business and school, consider these two situations:

In a restaurant when you sit down to eat

The menu might be on the restaurant website and/or the waiter may have told you about today's specials, but what do most of us do? We look at the menu in our hands and skim it to find the food we want to order. The menu might also tell us about this history of the place and any interesting specials they are known for. We may not want to ask again about specials or strain to look at a scribbled board. We certainly can't remember everything on the website and the social media feeds about what people enjoyed there aren't always what we are hungry for.

We want a menu. Our very own menu. We want it to make sense with accurate descriptions of the food and prices clearly marked.

We don't consider a restaurant out of touch or not with it because they still have a printed menu. We would be highly irritated if they didn't. [Read more...]

Faux code that correctly describes all we should do in digital outreach

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Internet evangelism
Many of us spend lots of time each day communicating digitally. Here are some challenges for how to do it as an effective evangelist.

Tony Whittaker, the founder of Internet Evangelism Day (http://www.internetevangelismday.com) recently sent me this faux code that is a great description of all we should do in digital outreach.

Even if you aren't into computer code, I think the message is clear on what our attitude should be in our Internet outreach. Please read it and then below it, I have some current, practical application challenges.

Finally, if you have ways you currently share your faith online, please share them in the comment section following.

<need digital-evangelists

('writing' = jargon-free;

'tone' = outsider-friendly;

'target' = prioritize-non-seekers; '

condemnation' = off;

'love' = on;  '

preachiness' = off;  '

churchiness' = off; '

cultural-sensitivity' = high;

'contextualization' = high;  '

storytelling-mode' = on;

'empathy' = high;

'popular-culture-parallels' = use;

'felt-needs' = understand;  'sense-of-entitlement'= off;

'politics' = off;

'humor' = use;

'social-media-interaction' = use;

'languages' = multiple;

'location' = worldwide;

'platform-optimization'

= mobile,tablet,pc)>

Current application idea

I was recently talking to a Christian friend who spends a lot of time on Facebook and she was honestly surprised when I mentioned that she could be using those interactions to share her faith.

It's good for all of us to be reminded that the internet provides us with extraordinary opportunities to be salt and light to our world. Particularly in a day when so much online discourse is vile and contentious, we can be gracious, kind, and truthful in all we communicate—in other words to practice the characteristics Tony encouraged us to in the code above.

If you or your church are doing things to actively share your faith or be a witness for Jesus in the online world, (other than church social media announcements or even if you do something special there) please share it in the comments here. It'a an area we all need ideas and encouragement in.

Look inward before you reach outward: make sure your church is ready for holiday and special event outreach guests

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Church
It doesn't matter how gorgeous your church is if the bathrooms are messy. Be sure every part of the church is at its best before Easter.

Around my home and for most people I know, one thing that always accompanies the holidays or any time guests are coming is a flurry of activity—cleaning, putting up decorations, making certain the bathrooms have nice soap and towels, flowers in the guest-room perhaps, and in special cases repainting and major household repairs. With actions big or little, we all do what we can to make guests feel welcome and the holidays special.

This is not only important for our homes when we are expecting visitors, but even more so for our churches. Not only is a check-up and perhaps some improvements important for the sake of a successful event, but if we want to make guests feel comfortable and come back, must make certain our church is ready for them.

Following are some areas that are important for you to check out and perhaps do a bit of renovation on before you invite your guests for holidays and special events so you'll not only be ready for the event itself, but for the growth in your church after it.

The physical plant of the church

The peeling paint in the bathroom, the junk stacked in the corner from a special event that has no permanent storage, the lack of handrails or handicapped access, the plants that need trimming—there are many things that we no longer see, because we see them every week, that are ugly eyesores to guests.

Take a clipboard in hand (or iPad these days) and go around the church asking the Lord to enable you to see the church as a visitor would see it. Note what needs to be done and schedule a "Welcome Home for the Holidays" workday at the church to tackle these tasks. [Read more...]

GIS: Innovative way to invite people to Easter services: “Egg” your neighborhood!

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Egg your neighborhood easter invitation
"Egg" your neighborhood with an invitation and an egg filled with candy--great idea for outreach and Easter promotion!

This is one of the most creative ideas I've ever seen to invite people to Easter. It was sent in by a contributor to our Great Idea Swap . In addition to being a great invitation to Easter, it also gives potential visitors great information about church ministries and outreach activities. It is very important to do this because you are letting your community know that the church is about so much more than holding special events.

They may not attend your church for Easter, but if they are new to the community or lonely, the invitation gives information about regular services and small groups. In addition, the church lists Job Search Support and No Cost Financial Counseling and this is a wonderful way to let the community know the church cares about the whole person.

To the left is a picture of the container for the cares below is what the cards look like:


At the end of this article is a link where you download the PDF and editable file of invitation.

Following, I'll let Stephanie, the Communications Director from the church describe how they use and distribute these great promotions: [Read more...]