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.
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Video and article: How to create full-color FREE church postcards, business cards and other publications with VistaPrint

28 July, 2011 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Please note: Videos are at the end of this article. This article is a few years old and the system has changed a little, and they may not have the free offer, but the material following should be useful.

Most of the printed publications we do in the church are done with either the copier or a digital duplicator. Sometimes we use color if we have a good color copier. These machines work for most of the products we create, but sometimes we long for full-color or glossy printing on our church business and invitation cards or church outreach postcards.

Many churches justify the cost of special projects for major holidays, but most wouldn't think of doing a full-color business or invitation card for a Sunday School class, children's or women's ministry event in the church because of the short run and the cost. But you might think about doing it--if the price was FREE. FREE or almost (there are a few little charges I explain later) is what is honestly available through Vista Print. Remember what follows is my experience and opinion, only, not anything from the company, but I trust will be useful to you. What prompted me to do this article and the associated videos is that I wanted to get some full-color, glossy business/invitation cards done for the Sunday School class my husband and I teach. There is no way I could go to my local printer and afford to get that done, but then I got one of the special discount emails from Vista Print. As I was putting together my order, I realized I could share it with all of you.

About Vista Print

Vista Print (www.vistaprint.com) is an online printing company. There are a number of them out there today and many churches use them successfully to create high quality print items at a low-cost. They are in NO WAY a substitute for your copier or digital duplicator, but when you want 100 business cards or a vinyl banner or a couple of full-color yard signs they are great.

Vista Print has been around a long time and they do a reliable job. I've used them for church and business jobs and have been happy with all the results.

You don't have to use Photoshop to get professional results!

Many of the online print companies (Vista Print does this also) recommend that you use Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator to create your products.  At  first look, it seems like if you don't use these products you won't get quality results. But that is not true! As the video below will show you can easily create a publication using MS Publisher that is extremely simple to load up and have created with Vista Print--and the results are great! [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Church Business Cards, Church Invitation Cards, Production, Web-based printing companies Tagged With: church business cards, church printing, Communications, on-demand printing for churches, yvon prehn video

Request for advice from a new missionary, how to communicate?

22 June, 2011 By Yvon Prehn 5 Comments

Missionary communication advice
Missionaries today must communicate in many formats, here are some ideas.

I recently got an email asking for communication advice on how to communicate as a missionary. Though I shared some ideas (I did missionary communications for years for two Christian organizations), this is an area that both I and Rusty, the missionary who asked, would greatly appreciate your comments--either for him as a missionary, what to write, but also what you as a supporter of missionaries have found useful.

Enter your responses in the COMMENT area below this article and THANK YOU in advance!

Email to Yvon Prehn

My family and I are now serving as missionaries in Budapest, HU. We find ourselves trying to communicate even more than we did as youth ministers.

I wondered if you might have, or know where we could find, some information that deals specifically with missions updates and letters. there are so many ways to communicate now beyond a typical/traditional monthly newsletter. I'm wondering what is most effective, though i suppose we are all wondering that.

I look forward to your response, thanks.

From Rusty

My response:

Great question! I have a couple of ideas on this and I am going to post it as a question on my site and ask for comments. Initially here are some ideas that I have:

Background, it would probably be helpful to let you know why I'm sharing: In the past, I worked for both Compassion Intl. and Young Life and a big part of my job for both was to write fund-raising, missionary updates etc. From what I was told, my materials were very successful in raising support. With the assumption that people vote with their pocket books (as well they should--wise stewardship in giving to worth causes), it seems that my methods were successful. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Church Newsletters, Missionary or support communications, Social networking, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Tagged With: how to write missionary letters, misionary letter, missions communications, support letters

Online Video, Foundation: The Uniqueness of Church Communications

12 June, 2011 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Welcome to the Video: Foundation: The Uniqueness of Church Communications, including the Five Steps of Effective Church Communications and Marketing and why marketing is not evil

If you are serious about wanting to create communications that will not only look professional, but will make a significant impact on growing your church in numbers and your people in spiritual maturity, this video and the other videos on this site will enable you to do that. It is not quick or easy, but it will be effective. This video sets up the important foundation for what we do and why we do church communications.

Below the video is a PDF of notes and one for more resources.

PDF of the Notes

Click on the image to download the PDF

Foundation Handouts PDF

Welcome to the first of our Online Video, Foundation:  The Uniqueness of Church Communications, including the Five Steps of Effective Church Communications and Marketing and why marketing is not evil

If you are serious about wanting to create communications that will not only look professional, but will make a significant impact on growing your church in numbers and your people in spiritual maturity, this video training series will enable you to do that. It is not quick or easy, but it will be effective. This video sets up the important foundation for what we do and why we do church communication

PDF of Additional Resources

Click on the image to download the PDF

Additional Resources Sheet PDF

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Filed Under: 5 Steps of ECC, Basic Church Communications Training, Church Outreach and Marketing Tagged With: church communications foundation, church communications training, church marketing, Communications, yvon prehn video

Social media advice from Proverbs

4 June, 2011 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Social boom book cover
This isn't a specifically "Christian" book, but church communications will find much useful advice in it on how to use social media.

QUOTE:

Those who work their land will have abundant food,
but those who chase fantasies have no sense.
Proverbs 12:11, NIV

COMMENTARY:

As I read this verse in my morning devotionals, I thought about my current ministry strategy in social media, especially in Facebook and Twitter. I've tried to be more consistent in these communication methods because I finally have a motivation for it that makes sense to me, here's how that came about:

In many ways I am a very private person and the public sharing about daily activities done by many in these communication channels, especially on Twitter (Facebook is more social and chatty, fine for personal family and friend interaction, that's understandable), did not appeal to me. I do not really care when a person that I follow for his or her ministry advice gets an ice cream cone or has problems with air travel. We all eat and move from place to place--not exactly news flash events. In addition, having to wade through them to find useful information is, it seems to me, a waste of time.

Facebook is more social and chatty, fine for personal family and friend interaction, that's understandable. On Facebook also, you can separate personal, family updates from ministry or professional ones.

I prefer Twitter and Facebook when I can read them as more of a news feed--a running commentary of  useful updates and information coming from a person, business, or ministry rather than as an online diary.

What changed how I now use social media

The above opinions were floating unfocused in my head until I read a little book, Social Boom by Jeffery Gitomer. It is not a Christian book, but a book on sales and marketing, but it totally changed and inspired me for how I use social media. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: communication channels, Facebook, ministry updates, social media in church communications, Twitter

Social media, it’s just one more tool, not the savior

22 April, 2011 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

I just bailed out of participating in a social media survey. I started out wanting to be helpful, but as page after page after page scrolled on, I not only got irritated with the length, redundancy and poor design of the survey, but also with the implied importance of social media in its content and how the material was going to be used.

I could envision the end results of the survey when it is presented at an upcoming event:

  • the oh-so-serious pronouncements of how social media is being used by churches and ministries
  • the insightful quotes and comments from the survey
  • the audience awe in the face of the implied power of statistics
  • the nagging guilt in the audience that their church or ministry isn't doing enough
  • conclusions profoundly offered by company who humbly will help your church or ministry be social media effective

We are all deceived by these performances and we shouldn't be.

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: church communciation warnings, church communication surveys, social media, survey flaws, yvon prehn

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