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.

Connect with invisible visitors: an overview of Church Connection Cards Resources

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Church Connection Cards
Here links to a video, articles, books on how to make the most of Connection Cards.

The people who visit our churches are often lost souls for whom Jesus died--we cannot let them pass through our church as invisible visitors without making a connection with them, if we are to be disciples who are working to obey the Great Commission.

It doesn't take big gestures and huge budgets to make those connections. As the song says in this and every other situation of relationship building "little things mean a lot."

One of those very important little things in building a relationship with visitors  are Connection Cards. I have experienced many times in personal ministry and have seen at many churches, I've worked with how Connection Cards can grow a church, make people feel cared for, and do more for a church growth than anything else tried at the church. [Read more...]

How Connection Cards improved visitor and prayer request response—true church story

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An encouraging email about connection cards
True story: how connection cards helped a church connect with visitors.

None of us do the work we do in communications without great concern for how it actually impacts the people we want to reach. That's why I appreciate it so much when I hear back from any of you on what worked in your church. Following is an email from Rona Heenk, a church communicator in Washington state. Thanks so much to Rona for her encouraging words to me and all of us—what you do DOES make a difference!

She inspired me to do an ECC training video on Connection Cards, click here to go to it.

PLEASE send me any stories you have of what has worked in your church so I can pass it on to others. Email to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

Here is Rona's story (no editing, all her words):

Yvon,

I wanted to give you some feedback on something unrelated to the webinar, which I thought would be encouraging to you:

Based on the advice in your booklet on Connection Cards, I presented to the senior pastor the idea of a new Connection Card, putting it in the bulletin as an insert, and asking everyone to fill one out each week. He discussed it with the other pastors, and they agreed to the new card, but were reluctant to ask everyone to fill it out, so we continued to do what we were doing, which was to ask visitors to take one out of the chair back and fill it out and turn it in with the offering.

After a few months our response rate hadn't changed--maybe one visitor card turned in per month, and at most one or two prayer requests each week. About half the time we had zero cards turned in. I just kept praying about it, and waiting for a good opportunity to re-visit the idea.

 

Then, the week after Easter during our staff meeting, I mentioned that we had an attendance that was about 70 over our average attendance, yet NOT ONE visitor filled out a card. Our senior pastor sat up and paid attention, and asked if I had any ideas to improve that.... open door!! I "happened" to have the booklet and your latest article from Christian Computing Magazine with me, and presented the idea again, quoting your statement that basically said, "The Connection Card is the only real link we have to reach out to newcomers, and to be able to respond to questions and needs." That seemed to cement the idea that it was time to try something new, and he put into the minutes that our current way of handling the Connection Cards is NOT working, and suggested to the elders that they come to their meeting the next night prepared to discuss it.

Next thing I knew, they came to me and asked me to make it happen!

So, we began by sending out some email communication to the congregation about what we would be doing, and most of all, WHY. Last Sunday, May 2, we tried it for the first time, and guess what? No one complained, we got lots of responses, including TWO that were filled out by people who were first-time visitors. We got more prayer requests and people asking for information than we usually do, and I got three email addresses I didn't already have on file.

I even had a couple of cards come back with notes of encouragement to me, thanking me! (In the emails I had used a statement something like "Remember what it was like when you were the new person somewhere? The last thing you wanted to do was something that would draw attention to yourself, as if to say 'look at me, I'm a visitor!'" and I think that is what resonated with them.)

Anyway, I thought you'd be encouraged to hear how your communication ideas have been put into action! Feel free to quote me on anything here if you want to. I feel so strongly that we who are in the church need to do everything we can to learn to communicate EFFECTIVELY, and your material is one of the few resources I've ever seen that is up-to-date, thorough, and specifically addresses the unique needs of a church communicator.
Blessings!!

______________________

For more information about the book mentioned in this article: Connection cards: connect with visitors, grow your church, pastor your people, little cards, big results, click here.

Back-to-School Backpack Ministry, church communication resources to motivate your congregation

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Back-to-School  is a time with great outreach potential. Backpack Ministry, where your church assembles and gives children backpacks filled with school supplies, now more than ever, is a greatly needed ministry. Children in homeless shelters, kids whose parents have lost their jobs, or whose jobs have been cut back, many of them face a sad and embarrassing time—to be forced to go to school without the required supplies their parents can't pay for and the schools don't provide.

To keep that from happening to any little child in your community, below are PDFs of bulletin inserts (two styles, same content) you can download and print up for your church with the specific details for your church on the backside. First are some links for websites that will give you additional ideas not only on Backpack Ministries for this time of year, but year-round for needy children.

Many families need help on a continuing basis. These backpacks aren’t filled with school supplies, but with food for children who may not eat on the weekend without help. Check out churches in your area who may do this and if none do, consider starting that ministry at your church.

May the Lord burn into our hearts the needs of children and make us motivated to meet those needs. May the Lord give you, the church communicator, the passion, power and prayers to create communications that will link needs with resources.

You may freely download, copy, share, use the following inserts in any way you want.

Backpack Ministry Bulletin Insert, click here to download PDF

 

 

For another set of designs, PLUS a downloadable ZIP FILE of editable MS Publisher files of the new designs, jpg, png and a text file of the content CLICK HERE

Connection Cards, a wonderful example as a tool for ministry interaction

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I knew Connection Cards were great to use as a tool to reach out to visitors and to pastor your people, but one church uses them in a great way to get people involved in the various ministries of the church. A wonderful church communicator sent me this story and I wanted to share it with you.

Hi, Yvon,

I must tell you how valuable your sight has been to me.  Keep up the good work!

Plainfield United Methodist Church has been relying on Connection Cards for about a year.  What a wonderful opportunity to connect people with other people, new ministries, service opportunities as well as learn what’s on people’s minds!  They provide a wonderful way to share prayer concerns of our congregation with our prayer chain.  We keep addresses, emails, phone numbers updated through this media.  Of course attendance is registered by using these cards.

When we first began using these cards, pastors provided time during the service and we all completed the cards at the same time.  Our thinking was that if the pastor set the example and provided the time, we could encourage everyone present to complete a card.  By having our regular attendees continue to complete their cards each Sunday, it serves as an encouragement to guests to complete one.  Therefore, we have the names of our guests along with their contact information.  Most of the time, they will tell us if they are new to the community or just passing through.

The key to making the cards work is to keep the requested information current.  For instance, we have just completed a series entitled “Come Hungry”.  We asked the congregation if they were willing to reflect and share what they learned about themselves through this series.  They could write their comments on the card or they could email a pastor.  Most chose to write their comments on the card, but some indicated they would contact one of the pastors.  We also recruited teachers for our upcoming VBS through these cards.  There is plenty of room for people to make prayer requests.

On Mondays I enter all this information in a table and share that table with the pastors.  The table contains the name of the person making the comment or request, their contact information and the information that is to be shared.  Some of the information is for specific groups such as our prayer chain, our music department, some is for seeking certain information.  It just becomes a matter of copying  and pasting the information into an email addressed to the appropriate person or group of people.  We are very careful to be sensitive to confidential information.  Follow-up to requests is essential – after all, we requested the information, assured them we would be sensitive to how it is used – so follow-up is important.

I will attach two of the two-sided cards to this email for you to see.  They were created in Publisher.  Perhaps they will show better how we update them each week.  We print them here at our church on 81/2 x 11 cardstock that has been perforated in thirds by a local printer.  Having them perforated certainly saves us a lot of time when it comes to inserting one card inside each Sunday worship folder.

Again, thanks so much for all you do to guide our communication in serving.

Blessings, Sue

A second email from Sue (came a week or so later)

I just found out that the Communication Card that we’ve been using originated from a book entitled Fusion:  Turning First-Time Guests into Fully-Engaged Members of Your Church by Nelson Searcy with Jennifer Dykes Henson.  I didn’t realize that the card is pretty much what is on page 168 of the book; however, we have personalized it for our purposes.  I thought that you would need to give credit where credit is due.

I LOVE getting stories of how church communications have worked for you. Please send your stories and samples, along with permission for me to use them to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com. Thanks so much!