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.

Dos and Don’ts for a successful launch of a men’s ministry

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Men's Ministry Do's and Don't
Father's Day is a great time to launch a Men's Ministry and here are some tips to help you do it effectively.

Father’s Day is a great time to focus on and do PR to grow a Men’s Ministry. Growing a Men’s Ministry is one of the most challenging tasks for church communicators, but it can be done and Father's Day is a great time to work on it. Below is advice that goes through the true story of what an otherwise large and successful church tried and didn't work and what they needed to do to make a Men's Ministry launch successful.

The following excerpt is from my book, Ministry Marketing Made Easy.

Real life story about the limitations of prayers and good intentions

True story here: a church, in a town which shall remain unnamed, was experiencing great numerical growth. It had grown from 600 to over 1800 in attendance in three years. The Sunday service was spectacular, with seeker-sensitive music, drama, and powerful need-centered preaching. Individuals were making decisions to become a Christian every week and the church was growing in numbers. They were doing many things right. Though grateful for the growth, the church staff was concerned because the growth was primarily in the Sunday morning service.

The leadership realized that people also needed to grow in Christian maturity as well as their primarily passive involvement in the Sunday service. The staff decided to address this issue by beginning a men’s ministry, where they could intentionally work to develop the men into mature disciples. They decided that the kick-off event for the men’s ministry would an evening when they would start a new men’s Bible study group. They felt that getting the men of the church into an in-depth Bible study was an important foundation for discipleship. So far, so good. Now, how to get them there?

The staff prayed about the kick-off event. They advertised it for four weeks in the bulletin and newsletter, on PowerPoint and through lively announcements from the pulpit every Sunday. After all their promotion and prayer, the staff expected at least 100-200 men to show up. The night came for the event. The twelve men from the church staff and the planning leaders enthusiastically set-up tables and chairs for 200, expecting a great response. Three men came. What went wrong? The staff did all the right things, spiritually. They followed a biblically sound ministry model, they planned and prayed, and then they prayed some more. They held more meetings and prayed more. They advertised the way they advertised other events in the church, but admittedly the church was doing little else other than Sunday morning. [Read more...]

A tasteful, subtle card to help deal with a big problem—pornography addiction in the church

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You can be free card
No matter what, we have freedom in Jesus and here is a practical card to help members of your church find it.

You don't need another listing of statistics to  convince you that many men, even in your church have a problem with pornography. The challenge is how to help them in a graceful and effective way.

The solution is very simple and I can't take credit for it, it is an idea from a church communicator who attended one of my seminars. I was thinking about this as I was preparing the materials for Father's Day and thought it would be a good time to share it

Here is how she described the ministry solution for porn addiction used by her church

We realized that we wanted to reach the men of our church with solutions to pornography issues, so what we did is we created business cards with websites on them where they could get help. We also had information about the programs our church had on the cards. The challenge then was then how to get them to the guys.

What we did was install the small, stick-on business card holders inside the men's restroom stalls. That way they could pick one up, put it in their pocket, and no one else would know.

It seems to have worked—we refill the card holders often.

With that as inspiration, I created the card to the left. It is simple and gets to the point.

You could also add additional resources from your church, pastoral or counseling help, or support groups that minister in this area. Assure members of confidentiality in any interaction in the church and be sure you stick to it.

To download the Free for everyone  ZIP files that contain the MS Publisher and PDF files for the basic cards, click on the following link: Problem with Porn Business Card Image

Bonus for Effective Church Communications Members

Though the plain card will carry out the goals, for this card or for others you use to promote ministries that help people, I created the following set of cards that you can use for the front of these cards or for any others you create. Here are images of the cards:

Below is the link to download the ZIP file for these cards.  [Read more...]

INSPIRATIONAL Postcard invitations for Father’s Day

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Free Fathers Day Invitation
Click on the image to download this Free Invitation.

No matter what your church as planned for Father's Day, you need invitations to get them there and we've got some for you.

These invitations,  which are half of an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet and that print 2 per page, have a challenging verse for Dads on the front and then on the back you can add whatever details you want about what your church has going on for Dads. They can be printed on light-weight cardstock and mailed or given out.

If you want just one, the one to the left is free as a downloadable PDF. Click on the image to download it.

All the designs below are part of a ZIP file below the gallery of additional images. The file has ready-to-print PDFs of all the designs, plus editable MS Publisher files and jpegs of all.

CLICK the following link to download the ZIP file of the invitations shown above:Fathers Day Invitation

 

How to make Mom REALLY Happy!

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Mother's Day make Mom really happy cards
Though a fun way to share the message, it is a very serious one and here is a selection of cards to help share it. CLICK on the image above for a FREE PDF of this publication.

This communication is fun and always makes people smile, but it has a serious message because what each of the cards below illustrate in various ways is that, "What makes mom really happy....is for you to come back to church next Sunday!"

The cards below can be used as an insert for Mother's Day or they make great follow-up postcards sent out after Mother's Day to the visiting spouses and children who attended to make mom happy. Need some Connection Cards for Mother's Day to collect those names? A set of them is below the Make Mom Happy Cards.

The one to the left is a FREE PDF for everyone. CLICK HERE or on the image to download it. The other options and the zip files you can download with both ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files are below.

Make the most of every opportunity on Mother's Day and you'll find it can be not only one of the highest outreach Sundays of the year, but one of the most successful outreach Sundays!

Make Mom really happy cards

Below is the link to a zip file where you can download the publications above in both ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files.

Click the following link to download the zip file: Make Mom Happy MDay Come Back to Church

Here are some specialized Connection Cards for Mother's Day

Below is the link to a zip file where you can download the publications above in both ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files.

Click the following link to download the zip file: MDay Connection Cards  and Mothers Day Invitations Landscape 1

Better than roses—an essential communication piece for Mother’s Day

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Bulletin insert for Mother's Day
Help a mom say what she wishes she could say to her child about Jesus with this bulletin excerpt.

As we've talked about before, the biggest reason Mother's Day has such a large turn-out isn't because of the Moms. They are always there. It is because of the unchurched children and spouses that show up that day to make Mom happy. To make the most of it, the church needs to say to that audience what Mom can't—that the most important gift you can give her is a relationship with Jesus.

Here is a publications that will help you do that.

Mother's Day Bulletin insert

This insert doesn't pull any punches, but makes it clear that more important than anything else to a Mother is her child's relationship to Jesus. A bulletin insert can challenge, but also gently guide to websites and sources (please add your own from your church) so that a piece of paper, quietly put into a pocket, may be looked at in a quiet moment and an eternity changed.

Here are images of the insert. Click on one for a larger view.

Below is the text as a free gift to everyone to use however you want: a link for more is at the bottom of the page and you can download a large file that has lots of inserts you can personalize.

Above all PRAY for open hearts for the children and spouses who attend Mother's Day services that they will be convicted of the need to draw close to Jesus. [Read more...]