Effective Church Communications

Instagram on the Desktop and an Introduction to Microblogging

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There are many things that make Instagram the popular and fast-growing social media platform that it is, but it also presents a challenge to some who work in church offices because. . . . .

Some of us don't like to create things on our phones.

That statement will either elicit horror and disbelief on part of my audience reading this and total understanding and agreement from others.

Since I am someone who both loves Instagram and doesn't like to create on my phone (well, texting is fun....but longer, serious stuff and moving pictures and all that, I prefer my desktop), I was incredibly excited when I discovered "Instagram for Desktop" and even more excited when I discovered the concept of "Microblogging" and how you can do it with Instagram.

I will be doing more on this topic, but I had to put together this short video to introduce you to it:

Free Instagram images and commentary for a comforting message for times of tragedy—a Welcome Home

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Welcome Home, our assurance now and forever
On earth and forever, "Welcome Home" is a comfort and joy when we hear it from Jesus.

Sometimes it seems like we are living in a nightmare with no way out. I'll be in the midst of working on a project and my mind briefly thinks, "I want to eat somewhere or run to the store." Then I remember, I can't do that.

We are living in a pandemic, I remind myself and I wake up mentally and get back to work. But once again the feeling of a waking nightmare flows over me when I think about what so many are experiencing far beyond the momentary frustration of not being able to run to Trader Joes without thinking. Many people have family members and friends who are hospitalized and perhaps dying.

I've been working on things for church communicators to share during this time, what I hope are encouragements, below are links to some I've done:

FREE Spiritual Endurance Encouragement verses in every imaginable format for you to share: Instagram, Facebook, Postcards and more!

A tiny response to a time of turmoil--Media Made for You Encouragements from Romans 8; an idea for appropriate images for today; free images in all formats [Read more...]

A great need addressed—a Video and Instagram images of Prayer for GRACE for all nations

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A prayer for Grace for all nations
A prayer for Grace for all nations is desperately needed in our contentious times.

Grace, unmerited favor and kindness, which we receive from God and should share with our fellow pilgrims on this earth, is something we need now more than ever. To encourage that I created some Instagram images for you, plus the short video below.

Please watch the video as a prayer.

The materials above are an updating of a project a few years ago when I wrote up the acronym GRACE as a prayer to celebrate the 4th of July, taking as my inspiration the line from the song, "America, America, God shed his grace on thee."

You can grab the video from YouTube and use it however you'd like. Below are Instagram images I first made and that are illustrated in the video.

You can download the Zip file for them here: 2020 INSTAGRAM GRACE Prayer for all nations

An ECC Member in Canada modified it for Canada Day and that in turn inspired me to create a series of Free PowerPoint slides and videos using it as a prayer, go to this link to download both of them: https://wp.me/pDky9-7mJ

In addition to them, I created a series of PowerPoint Slides and videos you can use to celebrate the 4th of July for the U.S. and a set as a prayer of grace for any nation. Here is the link to them and they are illustrated below: https://wp.me/pDky9-7mD

You can freely use all these materials however you wish, but please DO PRAY for our hurting world, that God would change hearts and infuse it with his Grace.

A tiny response to a time of turmoil–Media Made for You Encouragements from Romans 8; an idea for appropriate images for today; free images in all formats

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FREE Social Media message and a video from Romans 8
We're all getting tired of many things, but God's Word is there to encourage us and give us hope. Here are social media images for you to use PLUS an encouraging video.

There is a lot going on. The pandemic isn't slowing down. We are all getting very tired, but our work continues.

This week I tried something new to perhaps contribute to a less color-prejudiced world. I'm not sure if it worked or not, you'll have to let me know.

I wanted to do something to encourage everyone with God's Word. We sometimes forget that the Apostle Paul was persecuted in large measure because he associated with people who weren't Jews. Contemporary prejudice is nothing new. In his day, he was beaten and imprisoned for associating with the "wrong" people and even suggesting that there was equality before God. That persecution was a constant in his life and so when you read his words in Romans 8 and trust in God, remember what he faced.

You can use the files below in social media, print, make up postcards and send them out, however you'd like

But I didn't want to simply repeat his words, I wanted to try something new in illustrations I share with you. In many churches it is a challenge to represent all God's people. Much church artwork is too white; and some that aren't look forced, for example, five different racial groups in one small group setting or website banner. Forgive my cynicism.

In addition, almost all people are young, thin, and healthy. Where do they get these people I often wonder because nobody at my church looks like them. I digress, but wonder what if we only used pictures of the real people at our church?

A possible solution—posturize!

Below are some images in the current Media Made for You collection I did on encouragements from Romans 8. They are all in greyscale and started out looking very different than the final images.

I hope next week to get done a video showing you how I created these images. I'm still working on the school project and this is part of it. Without a tutorial, what I did with the images of people (and not using recognizable full-faces), is I took each one and then posturized them in greyscale. What this does is blur out any skin color and you simply have highlights and shadows. Here is what I came up with:

I also did a video on the series of verses with me reading them to you. It follows. Below the video are links for your files of the images to use however you'd like. For the ZIP files, download, save and unzip the files to use however you want. Just download and use the PDFS.

JPG Images Romans 8: JPG Meditation on Romans 8

INSTAGRAM Images Romans 8: INSTAGRAM Romans 8

FACEBOOK Images Romans 8: FACEBOOK Romans 8

PINTEREST Images Romans 8: PINTEREST Romans 8

MS Publisher and PDF Images Romans 8: MS PUBLISHER & PDF FILES Romans 8

POWERPOINT size PDFs Romans 8: POWERPOINT Romans 8

Changes in image usage—the “free” sites may not be what they seem and what you need to do about it

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What to do when disappointed with image usage rules
What it feels like when you are excited about images you think you can use and then you find out the rules changed and you can't. What do about it is what this article is about.

Sometimes it is hard to do the right thing, but as disciples of Jesus, we must try.

As I’ve been working on getting lots of material ready for launching a new Effective Church Communications Membership that includes online Courses, Ebooks, Templates, and an Idea Bank of materials, some new guidelines have come to my attention about the “free images” on sites such as Canva, PicMonkey, and Snappa, where you can use the images they have, plus the free images sites themselves such as Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels, and that many of us (me included) use to create social media and templates. What follows does not apply to sites in which you pay for a membership. But since many churches and organizations make use of free sites, it's important you understand the changing rules.

This has put a delay in releasing the ECC Membership of Courses, Ebooks, & Templates, and more importantly, what I learned has some significant applications for how you and your church can use images and I wanted to explain them to you.

The take-away conclusions from my research and limitations to the use of "free" images

I won’t bore you with listing the number of articles I’ve read recently, but following is the distilled research and application takeaways both for how it applies to you as a church and how you use things and for the Effective Church Communications ministry.

Overall, as a church creating communications that you freely give to church members and that are primarily shared within your church, you have much more latitude than I do in Effective Church Communications. Particularly with the new ECC Membership that has a monthly charge, what I create falls in to the “commercial” area and the usage guidelines for that are much more limiting than your non-commercial uses in the church.

I'll summarize my bottom-line recommendations shortly and then give you details from various sites.

However, and this is a big, However—if your church does something as seemingly innocent as selling a t-shirt for camp, or a cookbook as a fundraiser or selling anything else, you are now in the commercial category also. Sadly, there are some professional groups (Getty Images has a reputation in this area) that love to go after churches if they feel their image rights are violated. For these reasons, in addition to keeping you informed as to why I do what I do for you, you need to be as careful as possible in your communication creations and in the media you use for them. [Read more...]