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.

Invitation cards to invite people to come to church

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This invitation is free for everyone, just click to download a PDF of it.
This invitation is free for everyone, just click to download a PDF of it.

The creation of the cards below was inspired in part by these statistics:

  • "82% of the unchurched are at least somewhat likely to attend church if invited" –Dr. Thom Rainer, The Unchurched Next Door

  • Yet only 2% of Christians EVER invite someone to church!

In addition to the challenge of the quotes above, we know we should all be about inviting people to church as a step on their journey to a relationship with Jesus.

Effective Church Communications has a set of FREE invitation cards in PDF format. You can print your specific church information on the back.

The resources in the ZIP file below are:

  • A PDF file of all the cards, ready-to-print
  • The original MS Publisher file (2007, you can open it in later, but I know a lot of people still have this) so you can modify anyway you want and add your church information on the front or on the back.
  • Hi resolution images of the cards
  • Low resolution images of the cards

A link to download this file is at the end of the article.

Below is a gallery of all the cards from Effective Church Communications:

Back to Church Invitation Cards Card 2 hi res Card 3 hi res Card 4 hi res Card 5 hi res Card 6 hi res Card 7 hi res

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To download the ZIP file that contains all these cards in PDF and original MS Publisher format, click on the link below, download the zip file to your desktop, then click on it and use the files.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ZIP FILE for Back to Church Invitation Cards.

Don’t judge, INVITE! a great video and challenge

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I LOVE THIS! We can preach and preach to encourage our people to invite people to church, but sometimes nothing beats a motivational video. One little note . . . . the impact wouldn't have been nearly so powerful had it not ended with one person sharing a piece of paper with an invitation on it!

Check out the video and below it is a link to a resource that will help you create invitations.

Invitation Cards are great tools to have for times like this

Check out the video at this link that will illustrate and train you in how to use invitation cards effectively:

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2010/04/church-invitation-cards/

Use an invitation card to connect outreach guests with your church

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Summer Business Card Invitation vard
An invitation card can turn your outreach event from a nice time to a lasting connection to your church.

A church communicator told me about a church that held a large community outreach. They had free food and fun activities for children and families and they did it all to show the community that the church and Jesus loved them. They had a great turnout, but it didn't result in an increased response in church attendance.

The church communicator became frustrated when she talked to an unchurched friend about it because when she mentioned that her church sponsored it, the friend responded, "Your church did that? I thought the city Parks and Rec department put it on."

We put in a lot of work for events like that and I understood her frustration, but I had to gently ask her if the church gave out any kind of card or flyer to people know who sponsored it and to invite them to the church. She said, "No."

Your guests are not mind-readers

That is a typical response I hear from church leaders who put on outreach events and are disappointed in the long-term results. But, if you don't give people who attend your outreach events information about who is putting on the event and what else goes on at your church they won't know. Without clear communication and a clear invitation to return all your hard work may give people a great time—but will accomplish little in connecting them to the church or introducing them to Jesus. [Read more...]

Create events that are an “easy ask” for your church members

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how to create "easy-ask" events
Do you make it easy for your church members to ask people to events? This article will show you how.

Question: which is easier for you to invite your unchurched friends and neighbors to? Also which one do you think they are more likely to respond to?

The Sunday morning church service.

or

Summer free movies in the park with free popcorn, lemonade, and frozen yogurt, bounce house and face-painting?

The fairly obvious answer is the second one and that answer is more than hypothetical to me as our church just finished sponsoring the second one of three Fun Free Friday Movie nights this summer.  A professional I do business with attended with his daughter. Though we'd talked about church, he was someone who previously was not interested in attending any church events. But not only did he attend this one, he went out of his way to too thank me and tell me what a great time they had.

As I was sharing his response with one of the leaders at our church, she responded by telling me that one of the reasons they did this is because events like this are such an "easy ask." I'd never heard that term before (probably most of the rest of the world has), but I loved it and wanted to share it with you, along with some related ideas on how your church communication ministry can apply them.

What makes an "easy ask" for a church event?

Here are some characteristics:

  • This is an event that you aren't embarrassed to invite an unchurched friend to attend.
  • There is no cost, no obligation to attend.
  • It is sponsored by your church, but not an obviously churchy event.
  • You have something tangible to remind them of the event. We had postcards/invitation cards with the time, date, location and website link on them. For additional information on how to create invitation cards and how you can use them effectively: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2012/10/church-invitation-cards-why-they-work-so-well-how-to-use-them/
  • The reason this last detail is so important is that it isn't easy to ask someone to something if they don't know how to get there, if there is a cost or not, what is involved. Communications are one of the most important details and one many times forgotten--but remember you can have the greatest event in the world, but if you don't have something tangible (postcard, business card, invitation of any kind) to remind people of the details when they remember it at the last minute, they are not likely to attend.

Why schedule easy-ask events?

In our post-Christian world where few people have a felt need to go to church on Sunday morning, easy-ask events are a wonderful bridge to involvement with your church. You can create these events around any special event (free movies, any fun things for kids and families) or around any holiday or seasonal celebration.

To contact people for further interaction and invitations to your church you can capture names and contact information with sign-ups for free drawings (at our summer events, we have a variety of local business gift cards with the big prize give-away of a $200 Target gift card). There is a lot of additional information on follow-up after special events on this website and one of the most useful articles is: Follow-up after a church holiday outreach event: speed dating or relationship building?

Now it's your turn

You can use any holiday, a fun celebration, or any special event in your community as an "easy-ask" event for your church members.

Please share any ideas or events your church has done in the past in the comment section below--let's make it easy for everyone to invite everyone they know to church!