Effective Church Communications

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators. 

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators.

FREE Instagram Images & Inspiration for Random Acts of Kindness Day

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Set of kindness images for instagram
Kindness is a characteristic of our God and one He expects us to develop in our lives. Use these images to encourage kindness in your congregation.

Feburary 17, is Random Acts of Kindness Day and in celebration of it, I've created a set of free Instagram images for you. Click on the link below them to download and use the set however you'd like, not only to celebrate today but anytime you need encouragement for kindness.

Unless some of the random "day of" whatever holidays, this one has an unusually serious organization behind it--please check out the information below the images for more information on Kindness.org.

Click the following link to download the images:  KINDNESS Images for Instagram

An organization, research, and resources dedicated to kindness

Kindness.org is their website and though it contains some things you would expect--suggested acts of kindness, stories of people doing kind acts, etc., there is an unexpected (at least it was to me) depth to it.

The site was started by Oliver Scott Curry, a PhD who teaches cognitive and evolutionary anthropology at the University of Oxford. He is part of a group called the Kind Lab that conducts research and creates programs on kindness.

This joint endeavor is a partnership between Oxford and Harvard University and joined by what they describe as a "multidisciplinary team of scientific advisors and have a community of over 400 Citizen Scientists in 45 countries.

Take time to go through their studies and programs for practical ideas on ways we can obey the Biblical commands on kindness. [Read more...]

Instagram Images to remind you of God’s love

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A set of Instagram images to remind us of how much God loves us
We can never have enough reminders of God's love. Here is a set of Instagram images to encourage you.

I created these as an update to some of our templates for Valentine's Day.

I wanted to remind us all of God's love, but as I was working on them I realized that if I didn't put hearts and flowers on them, they could not only be used at this time of year but anytime we need a reminder of how much God loves us.

God's love is our foundation no matter what the challenges of life and forever.

Feel free to download and use these any way you want to encourage yourself and others.

Below are images of the images. In the zip file, below the images, they are sized for use in Instagram. Just click on an image for a larger size preview.

CLICK the following link to download a Zip File of the images: Gods love Instagram Images

 

Snappa: Review and How-tos of a GREAT program to create social media graphics

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Snappa is a great program for the fastest, easiest ways to make social media and online graphics! I've used it for some time (in fact, all the graphics you see in the sidebars of this website were created with it), but I like to use something for a while before I recommend it because I'm sure that many of you have had the same frustration I have where someone does this raving recommendation of a program and with great excitement you go to it and after paying for it realize it is a piece of junk and not only that you signed up for something that keeps wanting you to upgrade or buy more junk from them. That won't happen here as we don't take any advertising or affiliate payments (often the motivation for rave reviews).

Below is my little overview of it.

Here are some additional videos done about Snappa, just click the link below them to go to them.

A video comparison of PicMonkey, Canva, and Snappa
https://wp.me/pDky9-8il

Snappa: The easiest way to create social media verses
https://wp.me/pDky9-8mw

Snappa: How to create a side-bar ad
https://wp.me/pDky9-8mB

 

Instagram Images for Backpack Ministry to remind and motivate your congregation to give

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FREE Backpack Ministry Instagram images
It is tremendous fun getting supplies for kids--and even greater fun for the kids who receive them!

There are few projects in the church as much fun as getting supplies for kids when they are heading back to school. To me it's a little like the fun of putting together the Christmas Shoe Boxes—and remember you can buy lots of supplies for them at this time.

To help your congregation remember to do this, or to start to motivate them to think about it, I created a set of FREE Instagram images for you. Below is a gallery of them and below that is the ZIP file you can download to use them. There is also a set of PowerPoint Slides that go with them here: https://wp.me/pDky9-88N

Fun aside, this is such an important ministry to children--please pass on any and all the resources linked to it so that no child in your area or in any mission you are involved with will do without.

Click the following link to download the ZIP file that goes with them: Backpack Ministry Instagram Images

Additional materials on Backpack Ministry:

PowerPoint Slides for Backpack Ministry to remind and motivate your congregation to give: https://wp.me/pDky9-88N

Bulletin inserts and Flyers for Fall Back-Pack ministries: https://wp.me/pDky9-7rX

My personal motivation for Backpack ministry—my memories and prayers about crayons and little kids in need: https://wp.me/pDky9-pL

 

Print and Digital—More Powerful Together! videos and studies to show you why

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Print and Digital E-book, more powerful together! by Yvon Prehn
If your want people to respond to your communications, use every tool you can!

People are busy, stressed, and time-starved—what is the best way to reach them? Many voices would answer "SOCIAL MEDIA!"

But if that is the answer, why aren't our churches filled and every event well-attended, when social media costs almost nothing to produce and we can push it out to the world?

Part of the problem could be that we have confused the popularity of social media with effectiveness (source for this idea in the video below). We assume social media is the way most people communicate today, and though that idea is wildly incorrect for many congregations, even among those who do live glued to a Twitter feed, don't necessarily take action on what they see on social media.

What follows isn't about bashing social media

Far from it--keep tweeting, Facebooking, Pinning and Instagramming, as the Apostle Paul said, "we need to become all things to all people to win some" (1 Cor 9:22).

But consider re-introducing PRINT into a more significant place in your church communication mix. As you'll see a number of communication and marketing studies show this is the most effective way to get an audience to respond to your message.

Below are 2 videos--one a more lengthy teaching one about the effectiveness of combining print and digital for any non-profit group and the second one is a series of slides with thought provoking quotes and commentary.

Below each of them are handouts of the presentation.

Below both is PDF e-book that has the quotes, studies listed and more.

Why here, now and free to all?

As I've been working on Fall and Christmas communications I've realized that unless you understand some of the key points in the material that follows your fall outreach will not be as successful as it could or should be.

Either one of the videos would make an excellent discussion topic for your next staff meeting because communication ministry is the foundation of the success of many ministries in the church and it is far more difficult today than it was in the past when you only needed to worry about how many times you printed an announcement in the bulletin.

I'm working on a longer class and book on this topic, but I felt it was too important not to get out now what I did have ready.


CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF of NOTES for the video above: Print & Digital More Powerful Together HANDOUTS


CLICK THE FOLLOWING LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE PDF of NOTES for the video above: Slide Show of Print and Digital Quotes, HANDOUTS

Print and Digital E-book, more powerful together! by Yvon Prehn
Click on the image to download a copy of this e-book.