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.

Don’t try too hard to be cool, what a kid’s video teaches us all

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My initial purpose in sharing this was to introduce you to Worship House Kids, a wonderful resource for multimedia resources for children's ministry. But as I was looking around the site, I found this video (CLICK HERE to go to the link--it is a FREE download) and can't encourage you enough to look at it.

Yes,  it has a great message for children, but an equally important one for all church communicators about the importance of simply being yourself, loving Jesus and doing your best to communicate Him to your world. We can make ourselves crazy trying to copy one trend or another, one graphic style or another, getting the latest technology tool or whatever else we think we must do to be a successful communicator when we forget to make sure the website is  updated, that people know childcare is provided for the small groups, and the multitude of not-exciting, but essential details we need to include to make sure people actually connect to life-changing church events.

Don't worry too much about your communications reflecting the latest cool style, but pray without ceasing that they reflect the love of Jesus.

Enjoy the video and do check out the website: http://www.worshiphousekids.com/--lots of great stuff there for your children's ministry (and us big people too).

Church communications give a voice to the silent and shy

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Church Communicators can give a voice to the silent
Church Communicators can give a voice to the silent and shy through the tools we create.

I can be loud--really loud. Not obnoxious loud, not loud when I speak normally, just loud in volume when necessary. I often joke that it's because I'm the daughter of a drill sergeant, but regardless of the reason, if a group of people at church want an auditorium of milling adults and kids to be quiet so we can pray and no microphone is available, no problem.

Though I spend a lot of time quietly writing and putting together resources, love solitude,  and don't consider myself particularly chatty, I never really thought about what it means to be too shy, too quiet to talk about something when necessary. For some reason I assumed that most church communicators were people who didn't have a problem getting their message out when they wanted to and that the tools I create for them simply helped them do, in perhaps different or more professional ways, what they were already doing.

Then I got this comment after creating a series of church invitation cards for Come Back to Church Sunday (CLICK HERE if you want to see them): [Read more...]

What is really difficult about YouTube and what it teaches us about church communication

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The popular perception of YouTube is that it is really simple, easy, and anybody can slap up a video. In addition--if it is catchy, funny, or inspiring enough that the video will go viral and the video creator will gain immediate fame and fortune.

It really doesn't work that way.

I've spent a lot of time on YouTube lately trying to understand how it works and how I can make the most of it to equip and inspire church communicators. Part of that has been to study some of the popular producers and to look the advice YouTube gives on realistically how to make a video channel that will have significant impact on the audience you want to reach. My first conclusion is that it is much, much harder and more difficult than I imagined.

At the same time, if you follow their instructions--which require a tremendous amount of time and precise, repetitive work--chances are you will achieve your goals.

One set of instructions is their Creator Playbook

Without going into details, which I am very much in the process of learning and trust you will see the results of, I want to share the Creator Playbook from YouTube. CLICK HERE OR ON THE IMAGE to go to download the ebook--it's free for anyone who wants it.

The Creator Playbook has 91 pages of how-tos. The book is one of the most useful, well-written and laid out of any ebook I've seen in a long time. It is worth the time to download it simply to study the structure.

More than that, it is a reality check. If I want to use video effectively to help train church communicators (and notice I said help train, not everyone is into video and I will continue to practice what I preach on the need for multi-channel communication) that it will take lots of time, work, focus, and prayer for understanding to make it work. The big and splashy aren't what count--it is learning how to do many new, repetitive, tasks:adding annotations, creating playlists, release schedule, better links, captions, descriptions--learning how to use analytics. Yet when I get past the initial, "Oh, my....how will I ever do this?" --there is also a growing excitement of how powerful the final results can be and awe of the incredible tools the Lord has given us.

How this YouTube experience applies to church communications [Read more...]

Mobile Check-in–a new way to accommodate the needs of young families

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Children's checkin
Make your children's ministry check-in a service and not a bother for parents--check out this system for how.

The church management software company, By the Book. has stepped into the digital age in a big way with their new way of checking in children at church with any mobile device. Here is how they describe it:

Imagine deploying your volunteers throughout your church building, armed with iPads or smartphones ready to check folks in.  Then by the time those same folks walk over to the  printing station, their name tags and security tags are already printed and waiting for them.  Do you have a bus ministry?  Now you can check those kids in as soon as they hop on the bus.  When they get to the church, their name tags are there waiting for them.  Well, this is now available using Roll Call Mobile CheckIn.

What a great way to minister to the tech-savvy families attending your church! It may seem like a little thing, but when so many churches want to meet the needs of young families, a system like this shows you are willing to go the extra mile to accommodate their life-style needs with the systems in your church. We communicate to visitors in many ways and a system like this communicates you want to meet needs.

Below is a video that illustrates the system and following that a press-release with lots more information about it:

 

Unshackle Your Children’s Ministry with Mobile Check In Church Software

Mobilize Your Children’s Check In Routine Using iPad®, Tablets, and Smartphones with Roll Call Mobile CheckIn

BYRON, IL., July 26, 2012– Keeping children secure through the use of a computerized children’s check in system is a prerequisite for nearly all children’s ministries. By the Book has taken children’s check in a step further to provide churches with ultimate flexibility by offering Roll Call Mobile Check In, which allows churches to use iPads, tablets, and smartphones for kid’s check in procedures.

“We feel the mobile check in option will give the church the ultimate in flexibility in how they do children’s check in,” says Kim Conley, co-owner of By the Book, software for churches and nonprofits.“Roll Call Mobile CheckIn allows the church to deploy volunteers throughout their facility to check families into classes or even worship services.”

Imagine a church that offers a bus ministry: Armed with an iPad that has 3G capability, the volunteer could check in kids as soon as they arrive on the bus and have name tags printed and waiting for them upon arrival at church.

The Roll Call dashboard will give ministry workers real time headcounts so the children’s ministry leader will know right away if any classes are getting too full or if they need to enlist more volunteers.

“They’ll also be able to check in visitors right from the mobile device and even walk them to the appropriate classroom if they’d like,” adds Conley.

“This children’s check in system has been the easiest out of any I have used. I love the ability to grow with more computers, tablets, or key cards as our ministry expands,” comments Angela C. from Summit Ridge Church.

Children’s Check In/Out Process

The child check in system in Roll Call allows users to check students into their classes, record attendance, and print nametags and security labels. With Mobile CheckIn, volunteers can check students in using a mobile device by looking up last name or last four digits of their phone number, then print labels at a centralized print station. To check students out simply compare the security code on the child’s name tag with the security code on the parent tag.

Technology Specifications

In order to run Roll Call Mobile CheckIn, churches will need to have Roll Call church management software installed on at least one computer. This computer must be running Windows Pentium 4 (minimum) or Mac (Intel) OSX 5.8 or greater. More details on technical specifications can be found here.

Churches will also need a mobile device such as an iPad, tablet, or smartphone that can connect wirelessly to their local network. If using the mobile device outside of local network, that device must be able to access the internet through a 3G or 4G network. If churches will be checking students in from outside the church’s local area network, they will need a fixed IP address for the Roll Call Server machine.

About By the Book

Founded in 2002, By the Book (http://www.bythebook.com) offers robust desktop and internet accessible church and nonprofit management software. Roll Call Church Management Software meets the needs of churches from small to large through membership management, attendance monitoring, visitor follow up, contribution tracking, and background check management. Roll Call Child CheckIn and Mobile CheckIn add on solutions offer churches peace of mind by securing children through PCs or mobile devices. Honor Roll Fundraising Software offers nonprofits complete donor management tools, pledge tracking, and contact management. Free trials are available of all of By the Book’s software offerings. Email, call, or sign up today: info@bythebook.com or 1-800-554-9116 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting FREE 1-800-554-9116 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.

Press release from: Lauren Hunter, http://churchtechtoday.com/

ebook: Back to Basics, writing and design skills for church communicators

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Back to basics cover
This book will teach you the basics of many needed, but often not taught, communication skills in graphics, design, typography, writing, and managing. If you want your church communications to look more professional, you need this book. Available in print and ebook formats.

Most people who work on communication creation in churches have no training in design, layout, typography, and many related skills they need to do a good job. Training material is not easy to find because many of the materials available on communication design and related areas, require the use of expensive, advanced software and teach a secular, image-heavy approach that doesn't always fit the needs of the church audience.

This book provides basic training that can help every church communicator, even those with no previous graphic arts training create, write for, and manage a church communication ministry. This book is not a how-to on a particular software, but about the basic design and communication principles that form the foundation of effective communication creation.

This book is a scanned reprint of Yvon Prehn's earlier book, How to use your computer to create Better Bulletins, Newsletters, and More! All the examples in the book are from church communications and the advice is practical and Bible-inspired.

To be honest, the quality of the scans in the book isn't the greatest, but I felt the content was worth it to make this book available to you.

To buy a paperback version of the book on Amazon.com, CLICK HERE.

If you'd like the book in e-book, PDF format CLICK HERE