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.

Canvas Salvation Book, a tangible way to share the gospel

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Good News 1Note from Yvon:  This is one of the most wonderful and caring ideas I've ever seen on how to share the gospel. For those of you who remember the "Wordless Book," a little booklet that told the gospel story through colors as you explained it, this is an expanded version of it, done up in cloth and decorated with lace, buttons, jewels and decorations. Below are complete instructions as well as pictures of the entire book. There are so many ways this can be used in evangelism at nursing homes, hospitals, many other places.

In addition, making them could be a great project for Ladies Circles and other church groups. Changing production methods in churches make the groups that used to collate the bulletin no longer necessary in some churches, but getting together to work on projects that serve others is always a joy.

I cannot thank enough, Joyce Joseph, who sent these samples, the pictures and instructions. Her mother (age 85) does a lot of the sewing for her.  She told me to please pass on her information and to contact her with questions concerning construction of the booklet at jwjoseph320@yahoo.com.

Canvas Salvation Booklet

Taking a cue from the song “Tell Me the Story of Jesus”, this canvas booklet spells out the ABCs of salvation: admit, believe, commit. Follow the plan below to make your booklet today and start sharing the good news story.

Create A Canvas Booklet in 8 Steps

1. Copy and laminate story cards (found at womenonmission.com). If printing a large quantity, go to a copy center. Otherwise, use the church copier. Lamination can be done at a copy center or school supply shop.

2. Cut 20 14-inch canvas circles. Purchase a 14-inch circle shape, or use a plate or bowl. Duck Canvas is a good thickness and stiffness. Each page is separate and sewn to the page in back of it. Pages need to be made and decorated separately (this step hides stitching) and then sewn together by hand or machine. Again, sew the buttons, jewels, and decorations on BEFORE sewing the book together.

3. Cut two large red hearts.—One for the GOOD NEWS page and one for the HOW CAN I BECOME A CHRISTIAN.

4. Cut nine smaller hearts of the correct colors for the story cards. (See photos on womenonmission.com.)

5. Cut all letters from felt. Use 1-inch, 1-½-inch, and 2-inch letters. Use precut letters or trace on the felt with wood letter shapes or stencils.

6. Cut the correct color shapes on felt for the letters to be sewn on. The exact shape is not that important as long as the letters fit on it and the shape fits on the page. Use your creativity. Search craft shops (JoAnn’s, Hobby Lobby, Michaels, Wal-Mart) for wood shapes that will fit.

7. Decorate the pages with sparkly sew-on jewels, buttons, sequins, etc. Glue-on felt and jewels will work, but they will not be as sturdy and permanent. Make the page attractive, bright, and attention grabbing.

8. Make this a joint effort and project—organizing, designing, cutting, and sewing. Women who do embroidery or appliqué work can really use their imagination.

—Instructions by Joyce Joseph, Tennessee. Contact her with questions concerning construction of the booklet at jwjoseph320@yahoo.com. The booklet has now been translated into Spanish and she will be glad to help you with story cards and photos for that translation.

Use Canvas Salvation Booklets for:

  • Overseas or stateside missions trips
  • Vacation Bible School
  • Children’s Sunday School classes
  • GA® and RA camp
  • Day camp
  • Migrant camp
  • Homeless shelters, women’s shelters
  • Nursing homes
  • Retirement centers/assisted living facilities

Here are pictures of the booklet.
Good News 1Good News 2-3
Good News 6-7Good News 8-9Good News 10-11Good News 12-13Good News 14-15Good News 16-17Good News 18-19Good News 20

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If you have ideas, project, communication tools of any sort that you would like to share with others to encourage and enable them to better communicate in the church please read about our Great Idea Swap (Click here to so to that section) and send materials via email to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

Ministry opportunities your website may be missing

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Every church knows they need a website and most churches have them today. Sadly, however, many churches buy a website creation program and do little more than fill in the blanks needed to make sure that something is on all the template pages.

Sadly that something is often no more than a paragraph, that once entered is often forgotten.

The church can say it has a website, but a website like this misses many ministry opportunities, including:

The staff misses the opportunity to become real people to their community.

Is the pastor a real person? What does he or she really think about God or problems or people? Are they in touch with the real world? If the pastor writes a blog or articles, people checking out the church can get a real sense of what that person is like. Not only the pastor, but Bible class teachers, the staff, ministry leaders, small group leaders, all would benefit from an online presence. People in your community are looking for real people with the answers to spiritual questions. The web provides a priceless opportunity to allow people to get to know you.

One caution: NEVER have your blog written by someone else—blogs or online articles do not have to be perfect literary masterpieces to touch people, but they do have to be honest. [Read more...]

The best way to get visitors to attend Christmas church events–the practical tools to do it

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What would you say is the answer to the challenge of getting unchurched visitors to come to your Christmas events? Is it to purchase a national outreach campaign of postcards? Is it to spend lots of money on advertisements in the local newspaper? Is it to create colorful website banners for the holidays?

Though all of those methods may bring in a few visitors, the most effective way to get visitors to attend hasn’t changed from the days when Jesus walked on this earth—it is a friend telling a friend:

The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, “We have found the Messiah” (that is, the Christ). And he brought him to Jesus. (Jn. 1:41-42).

1 UP Why invite clipart bulletin insert
Just click to download PDF to encourage your church members to invite their friends for Christmas

Below is a Bulletin insert for everyone and following that is a selection of materials for ECC Members. Click here for information about ECC Membership.

An encouragement to your people to invite their friends

Nothing works better than a personal invitation, but for that to take place, your people have to be motivated to invite their friends to the events your church is hosting this Christmas season. We’d like to think that people will naturally want to invite their friends, but with all the demands of the holidays, it’s easy to forget that an invitation to a church event is not just one more option on the calendar.

If your church event is (and I am assuming it is) more than simply an entertaining Christmas tradition and is one that clearly communicates the gospel, you need to remind your people that inviting friends to your events could literally change their eternity. In an upbeat way, the bulletin insert here will remind them of this truth and encourage them to invite their friends.

This PDF is a free download for everyone. Click here or on the image to download it.

Additional options and outreach reminder materials for Effective Church Communication Members.

If you are an Effective Church Communication Member, by clicking the link below the following description, you can download a ZIP file that has:

1 UP Why invite photo bulletin insert
This version of the bulletin insert, plus the other one, plus PDFs, MS Publisher files, PNGs, and MS Word text file is available in a ZIP file for ECC Members. To download the ZIP file, go to the end of the article.

***Another design of the Bulletin Insert.

***PDFs of both designs, ready to print.

***MS Publisher files of this design so you can modify them it you want to. I did not include a file of the clip art one that is editable because when I checked again, I was not sure of the source of the clipart. But this template could be modified with clipart if you chose to use it.

***MS Word file of the text of the bulletin insert with permission to use it in any publication or website use you’d like.

***PNG-image files of each of the flyers for you to use in bulletins, websites, handouts, PowerPoint presentations where you encourage your people.

Becoming and ECC Member will save you hours work because you don’t have to create all of these items—simply download, modify and use! Lots more are coming for the Christmas season and all through the year, so join now so you don’t miss out!

For more information on how to become an ECC Member, Click here.

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Click here to download the ZIP file that contains all of the materials above. Save it to your desktop and then just click to open and use all the materials.

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MS Publisher Templates: Church Business & Invitation Cards

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Image of Templates of Bus cardsTo make it easier for you to put into practice what you just learned (if you attended the Webinar or watched the video) about Church Business and Invitation Cards, we have some MS Publisher Templates for you. You need to have MS Publisher, but the images you see are all templates ready for you to edit, personalize and use.

Click on the image to download a larger PDF full-page preview of the images.

To be able to use and edit them, they are in a zip file below

Just click to download, save to your hard drive, open and enjoy!

For more information on Church Business & Invitation Cards, to watch videos about them and read more articles, click here.

Click here to download the zip file.

 

Video: How to create resizable maps for Church Invitation Cards and other communications

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Church Business and Invitation Cards can be powerful outreach tools, but to accomplish all they can and should for your church you need to pack as much useful information in them as possible. One key piece of information is a map to your event.

Even in these days of Google Maps, Mapquest and GPS, a simple, paper-based map is invaluable to give people an immediate and practical way to get to your church or event. It is a challenge to provide one because if you try to use one of the maps from the Internet they have too much information to shrink down in size.

You need to create your own simplified version. This is very easy to do with MS Publisher and the short video below will show you how.

IMPORTANT NOTE before you watch the video:

This video shows you how to take a screen capture of a map and then use it to easily create your own map in MS Publisher. I used Snagit, my favorite screen capture program and one I highly recommend to do the screen capture. If you do not have Snagit or any screen capture software, here are two options:

  1. Get a free trial of Snagit at www.snagit.com
  2. Go to this excellent article about free screen capture software and download one of the products. I have not used these (keep wanting to try one, but love Snagit so much....), but this is a trustworthy site just click the URL and it will take you to the site: http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-screen-capture-utility.htm