Effective Church Communications
Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission
There have been a number of studies and articles over the last few months promoting the popularity of square screen videos.The primary reason for this is that you can see much more of a video and the content (depending of course on the actual content) may be clearer on a square screen when viewed on your mobile device, which is how most video is viewed today.
I thought I'd try it with a quick overview of Mother's Day communications. I created this video in animoto. I'd love your comments on it.
This short piece, One Mother's Prayer, is a true story that is both an encouragement to pray for children and an assurance of the power of prayer to change a destiny.—
It has been published more times than anything else I've written. It was first published in Today's Christian Woman magazine. It was then published in their Best of Ten Years of writings; it has been reprinted and republished all over the world; and it continues to bring tears to the eyes of any group I read it to. You are free to use it any way you want and share it however you want.
This sample PDF is free to download.You can click here or on the image to download it.
Two more 8 1/2 by 11 plus 4 other versions on half sheet size plus the jpgs of the larger files and an MS Word text file if you want to create your own publication, plus the text file and the link to all the other downloads is after the images below.
This is a great resource not only for Mother's Day, but any time of the year for Mom's groups and prayer groups.
Below are the most current version of the layout:
[Read more...]
This is a wonderful example of how a church communicator took one of the jpg images, available to Effective Church Communications Members for all the holidays, and how she took the one for Easter and used it in her bulletin.
Some churches prefer not to have loose bulletin inserts (either way works, it is matter of what your church prefers) and so this church communicator emailed and asked that I do the inserts in a graphic file format. I was every happy to do that and don't know why I hadn't done it before! The RED arrow points to the jpg graphic from Effective Church Communications. If you click on the image you can download a PDF where you can see the entire bulletin. It is very nicely done and I'm sure you'll get some great ideas from it.
Many of the Template files now have images included with them for you to use either in print or social media. Many have a line drawn around the images so they will stand out from background. If you want that removed, you can go to the original MS Publisher files, remove it from the Master Page and resave that page as an image file.
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 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...]
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:
Following, I'll let Stephanie, the Communications Director from the church describe how they use and distribute these great promotions: [Read more...]
