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; Effective Church Communications can help.

Operation Christmas Child: a fantastic idea from one ECC Member that involves the congregation

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Operation Christmas Child
Photo from Carmel Lutheran website--this church has an innovative way to involve the members of the congregation in this fantastic ministry--read the article to find out about it.

All of you have the GREATEST IDEAS! Following our previous  article that featured Bulletin Inserts to encourage your people to  shop ahead for Christmas Child Boxes (CLICK HERE to go to it) one of our wonderful ECC Members sent me this email.

It shares a fantastic way a church does their Operation Christmas Child ministry, not only getting lots of boxes for the children, but involving the congregation in the project:

I absolutely LOVE OCC, (Operation Christmas Child, from Samaritan's Purse) so your inserts were especially great for me! In fact, I’m in charge of our church’s OCC efforts. Over the last 5 years, we’ve put together about 2100 boxes!

For these last 5 years, I’ve been able to secure a grant from an organization, as well as getting some $$ from our Outreach Team & Lutheran Women’s Missionary League group. I then take that $$ and shop the super-deep discounts throughout the year for school supplies, toys, clothing, etc. (it fulfills my need to shop without my husband getting nervous!).

Then, for 6 weeks in Oct. & Nov., we set up a “store” in one of our classrooms at church that’s open Sunday nights and other arranged times. Small groups, families, kids, etc. from church will come by, grab a shoebox (that’s already been wrapped by some great volunteers!) and go around the store and fill the box.

I ask them to either cover the cost of shipping a box, or donate items. It is just so great to see all ages fill boxes. (Last year, a teen boy went to fill a box for a girl, and I kept hearing him say “Now, what would a 5 year old girl like???” He spent about a half hour carefully deciding. I loved that!) In fact, just today, I got a letter from someone in Uganda, and it included a photo of him holding one of OUR boxes! I almost started crying!

From: Cathy K., Carmel Lutheran

PLEASE SEND additional ideas and we will organize and share them

I'm sure many of you have wonderful ways that you reach out to those with great needs at Christmas and many other times of the year. After reading Cathy's example and after watching the news tonight about the ongoing hunger crisis in Somalia, I realized that as communicators we can do a lot to help meet the needs of those around the world.

We can help with our communications that inspire and encourage people to give and we can then give concrete examples of where and how to give.

Sometimes creating these kinds of communications isn't easy, so Effective Church Communications will start a program to collect them, organize and host communications about meeting needs and make them freely available.

If you are interested in helping, CLICK HERE to go to the article that explains this.

Bulletin Inserts: Back-to-School Backpack Ministry, ways to involve your congregation

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Backpack Image 1
Back-to-school, Backpack Ministries are a fantastic way to care for the children of your community. This article and the one linked to it provide ideas for church bulletin inserts that will communicate your message to the congregation.

Back to School was always a wonderful time of year for me, but for many kids, it can be a time of sadness if they don't have what they need. This is a simple, but powerful ministry your church can do. Below is the introduction to the church bulletins:

Back-to-School Backpack
Ministry
—an opportunity to bring joy to needy kids

School is about to start and it’s a time of excitement, fun, and discovery for many children. But for some children, it means showing up at school without crayons or pencils, notebooks or glue, without the supplies they need. Sadly today, many parents can’t pay for them and schools are unable to provide them.

But the body of Christ can. Our church has a ministry where we provide filled backpacks to little kids who need them.

We have four ways you can help:
......and the inserts go on to give specific advice

Last year's bulletin inserts are free CLICK HERE to go to them.

For a personal article on the meaning of this ministry to me, CLICK HERE.

This year, samples for inspiration and editable files

The samples on this page are new versions of the Bulletin Inserts. At the bottom of this page is a link to a ZIP FILE.

The ZIP FILE contains:

  • PDF ready-to-print files of the inserts
  • MS Publisher editable files
  • MS Word text file if you want to create your own
  • PNG low-res images if you want to promote them on your website
  • JPG hi-res images if you want to print them

Below is the Free ZIP FILE --simply click on it, save on your hard drive, click to open and use as you will!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE ZIP FILE

Last year's bulletin inserts are free CLICK HERE to go to them.

For a personal article on the meaning of this ministry to me, CLICK HERE.

For the bulletin inserts in the video on Sales Tips for Children's Shoe Box, CLICK HERE.

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

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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...]

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

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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...]