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.

The POWER of PRINT, with FREE POSTCARDS during this challenging time for people

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encouraging postcards to send from churches during the virus
Postcards can reach people that streaming services can't. Please share with those who may be alone.

This morning our church held its first online service. We are a small church, not especially technically advanced, and we don't typically do this type of thing. But here in California, it is a state mandate for the services to cancel and as positively as possible, we complied.

It was delayed for some time because of who knows what difficulties and the final product was a little choppy. Only about a third of the music people had any lights on them at all. Yet I was amazed at how touched I was by the service and how effective it was. Because of the delay, everyone in chat was very talkative while we waited. We are an older congregation and I was surprised at the amount of interaction between all ages. The closeness of everyone was palpable and I felt the reality of the Body of Christ in my heart more than I've ever felt in a service together. All in all, a wonderful experience.

But I was also very aware of the people who were not part of the service.

There are numerous people in our congregation who I know do not have computers at home or smartphones (they have been in my Sunday School classes and I know them well).

In this time where the virus is incredibly isolating, we are able to do great things with technology and it's a fantastic time for churches to stretch themselves in this area. But not everyone has access to the technology to receive what we put out in new ways. Those who can't are some of the most vulnerable, fragile, and isolated people in the church. We must take care of them also.

So what to do for them?

Print is still possible!

The mail doesn't seem to have been affected by the virus and it's an opportunity to take a second look at one of my favorite forms of communication—The POSTCARD!!!!

I'll be doing a series of articles and sharing ideas and FREE TEMPLATES for you in the coming days on how to communicate during this challenging time, but to get you started, I created a set of FREE POSTCARDS for you. They are all simply non-editable PDFs I created using Canva Templates (you have to download them as a complete graphic, that's why you can't edit them). But I did a layout for you in MS Publisher so you can print them 4 to a page and print or write a message from your church on the back.

This set was created to encourage people—fear and uncertainty are pervasive, but it is also an incredible opportunity to encourage people in our great God. When I did the first draft of this post, I made it specifically for everyone who doesn't have access to online materials. However, I then realized that EVERYONE needs tangible encouragement--so make them up for everyone!

Below are pictures of them and below that a ZIP file for you to download, save, and print. Please freely share these with anyone who would find them helpful.

Much more will be coming. Pray for me for the strength and focus to do all that will be helpful for Church Communicators. I am praying for all of you that you step up and serve as never before to equip and encourage your people in our Great God!

CLICK the following link to download ready-to-print PDFs of the Postcards: PDF Quarter Page Encouraging Postcards

CLICK the following link to download IMAGES of the Postcards: Postcards to Encourage

The total file was too big to combine both, but you can use the single images however you might want.

 

PLAN NOW for what you will do for the Sunday AFTER Easter, so people will return

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Invite people to engage with you after Easter
Invite people to engage with you after Easter for a lasting impact on their lives.

One of the biggest challenges for churches is how to get people to come back to church after holidays and special events. There are many things you can do that I'll be sharing but now is the time for the most important thing you need to do to get people to come back after your Easter celebrations.

You need to schedule an event to give people a reason to return.

No doubt you'll do a fantastic job in your Easter celebration, but think about the people who perhaps came to your Easter service because a friend or family member asked them or the church was holding an event for their children. Easter may have brought up questions. People new to the message of Easter may find themselves asking:

Did Jesus really rise from the dead? And if he did, what does it mean to me?

Plan ahead for your church to answer those questions

There are many ways you can do this. Some that have worked well for churches in the past include:

  1. A sermon the Sunday after Easter entitled "Is there really life after death for me?" The pastor of a large church in Colorado Springs preached a similar sermon for many years the Sunday after Easter, they advertised it well at the service and to the community. As a result, they always had as large of a turn out than they did for Easter Sunday. If you've done a good job of presenting the resurrection of Jesus, answering the question of "what does it mean to me" is a natural follow-up.
  2. You can invite them to a series of seeker Bible Studies. They can be something created by your church looking at the life of Jesus or you can use a program like Christianity Explored, which is an excellent presentation of the life of Jesus for people outside the church using the Gospel of Mark. I highly recommend you look at it.
  3. You can invite them to "Latte with the Pastor." I've recommended this a number of times and in many situations, but the basic idea is to follow up with guests (you did use connection cards, didn't you? If not, please see the materials on them and use the free downloads for them) who gave you their information with coupons for a free latte or two and an invitation to join the pastor to "ask any question you want about the Christian faith" at your local coffee shop. I've made a set of postcards to help you do this. Here they are and the link is at the end of this article:

There are many variations of this that you could do: asking people to come to a dessert at church for open-ended discussions, or for people in the church to have small groups in their homes or whatever would appeal to the age group or community you are ministering in. Whatever you choose, the idea is to do something to engage people outside the church to return to ask questions they have about Jesus.

DO THIS NOW

As you get closer to Easter itself and in the midst of Easter celebrations you'll be too busy to think about what to do after Easter. You need to plan ahead. You need to get all the materials done and ready for it or it won't happen.

Of course, you'll be tired after Easter. Exhausted most likely.

Many pastors take the week off. Taking that time off to rest is understandable, but if you do you miss out on an incredible opportunity to make a lasting, perhaps eternity-changing connection with the people who came on Easter Sunday.

This year, push through the exhaustion, remembering Jesus, "who for the joy that was set before him, endured" and connect with the people you challenged at Easter and lead them to an eternal relationship with Jesus. That is what He came to bring about. It's your task to make it happen in your community.

For follow up materials, go to FREE TEMPLATES for Easter follow up here: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/easter-templates/#toc-3

While you are there, look around—there are lots of FREE TEMPLATES you can download and use for all aspects of your Easter Celebrations.

Don’t let August vacations include times away from church–FREE POSTCARD reminders to help

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Summer postcard
A little reminder may be all someone needs to get them to return to church instead of taking a vacation from it!

August is the last month of vacation for many and in many churches the time when attendance drops to an all-time low.

Though understandable, sometimes all people need is a reminder that God doesn't take a vacation and neither does the church. The set of postcards here are part of a FREE ZIP file (link below the images) that you could send out to people who perhaps have been sporadic in their attendance during the summer. The cards are upbeat and encouraging and an easy way to let people know you are thinking about them.

You could also make up extra cards for members of the congregation to address and send to friends that they know may have missed church in the summer.

The FREE ZIP file below the images has ready-to-print PDFs of the cards, an editable MS Publisher file, and images of the cards you could use on your website or email newsletters.

Click the following link to download the cards above: SUMMER POSTCARDS church reminder

Print and Digital—More Powerful Together! videos and studies to show you why

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Print and Digital E-book, more powerful together! by Yvon Prehn
If your want people to respond to your communications, use every tool you can!

People are busy, stressed, and time-starved—what is the best way to reach them? Many voices would answer "SOCIAL MEDIA!"

But if that is the answer, why aren't our churches filled and every event well-attended, when social media costs almost nothing to produce and we can push it out to the world?

Part of the problem could be that we have confused the popularity of social media with effectiveness (source for this idea in the video below). We assume social media is the way most people communicate today, and though that idea is wildly incorrect for many congregations, even among those who do live glued to a Twitter feed, don't necessarily take action on what they see on social media.

What follows isn't about bashing social media

Far from it--keep tweeting, Facebooking, Pinning and Instagramming, as the Apostle Paul said, "we need to become all things to all people to win some" (1 Cor 9:22).

But consider re-introducing PRINT into a more significant place in your church communication mix. As you'll see a number of communication and marketing studies show this is the most effective way to get an audience to respond to your message.

Below are 2 videos--one a more lengthy teaching one about the effectiveness of combining print and digital for any non-profit group and the second one is a series of slides with thought provoking quotes and commentary.

Below each of them are handouts of the presentation.

Below both is PDF e-book that has the quotes, studies listed and more.

Why here, now and free to all?

As I've been working on Fall and Christmas communications I've realized that unless you understand some of the key points in the material that follows your fall outreach will not be as successful as it could or should be.

Either one of the videos would make an excellent discussion topic for your next staff meeting because communication ministry is the foundation of the success of many ministries in the church and it is far more difficult today than it was in the past when you only needed to worry about how many times you printed an announcement in the bulletin.

I'm working on a longer class and book on this topic, but I felt it was too important not to get out now what I did have ready.


CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF of NOTES for the video above: Print & Digital More Powerful Together HANDOUTS


CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF of NOTES for the video above: Slide Show of Print and Digital Quotes, HANDOUTS

Print and Digital E-book, more powerful together! by Yvon Prehn
Click on the image to download a copy of this e-book.