Challenges, commentary, and free templates to help churches create communications that help people come to know Jesus as Savior and grow to mature disciples.

In other words, to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

Effective Church Communications

Timeless training from Yvon Prehn to help churches create communications that will enable them to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

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

Media Made for You: On the topic of Prayer

Recently I've challenged myself to do more.

I've asked myself and prayed, "what is the most important message we need to communicate at this time, when life is fragile and many are afraid?"

The answer, for those of us who know Jesus, is Jesus and the reality that he is with us and for us, now and forever.

To communicate that reality in all its fullness, I know will take more than one series of images or messages (I'm working on them), but I decided to start with the idea that no matter what happens, we have an eternal home with Jesus. In addition to the Instagram images that go along with this, which to me is summed up in the statement "Welcome Home" I've added a "micro-blog" commentary to go with them.  Both follow and are free for you to use.

In addition to the images and text, I realized this is a new way of doing Instagram for me (beyond selfies and quick quotes) and to explain that, I also created a video that explains it and how to do it, including an introduction to microblogging. The best part of the video for me, is that in it, I show you how you can create Instagram content on your desktop. I'll have the video at the end of this post as well as in another on its own to show you how to do this.

Instagram Images of Welcome Home

These images are sized for Instagram and are in jpg format, so you can use them in any way you want, online, web, email, etc.

To download a zip file of the images, click the following link: Welcome Home In life or death

Microblog on the topic of "Welcome Home" from Jesus

This content can be copied and pasted into Instagram comments or anywhere else you use the images, such as part of an email newsletter.

Jesus talked about welcoming his friends to his home with God just before He died on the cross for them. It was confusing to them because they knew He was talking about a home after this life, an eternal home with God. How could He promise to take them there?

Jesus responded that He could not only take them there, but he was the only way to get there.

That Jesus is the only way to God has been one of the most offensive and confusing claims about the Christian life to the Jesus’ friends then and to people now. But it makes perfectly good sense when you realize Jesus was not talking about some spiritual insider club anybody who was good enough or rich enough could belong to if they wanted to, but about His home with God.

God created humanity to live with Him. God and people walked together in a perfect garden until humanity decided they did not want to believe God or do what He said. We call that action the original sin and the consequences were far worse than they imagined.

The relationship was broken; the Creator and Owner of the Garden had every right to ask them to leave. He did.

Wandering on their own, homeless from God, humanity did not do well.

We have no idea why this is what it took to heal the breach between God and humanity, but Jesus had to die on the cross and rise from the grave to reconcile us to God.

If we accept that as true, tell God we are sorry for our sins, and want Jesus to be our Forgiver and Leader, we become a friend of Jesus and we are reconciled to God. We get to live in His presence on earth and in His home when we die.

We do not have to be afraid of anything in this life because of that and at the end of it, we will close our eyes and when we open them, we will hear:

“Welcome Home—to your forever home.”

Video about Instagram on the Desktop and Microblogging

I was so excited when I figured out how to do this. I do love my mobile phone, but I'm literally all thumbs (and not accurate thumb-typing ones) on it.

I sit at my computer many hours a day creating content for you and to create content for Instagram in this way is great fun for me.

Here's how I do it:

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

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