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.

How to make the most of Halloween for evangelism, or the negative results of switching from calling it “Halloween” to a “Fall Festival”

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Ghosts aren't real but Jesus is --Resources for Fall and Halloween church outreach
Halloween can be a great time for evangelism and a small handout like this can make a lasting impact at your celebrations.

Halloween—has become such a contentious time in the church. Even mentioning the term "Halloween" upsets some because of its pagan origins.

In response to that many churches have switched from "Halloween" events to "Fall Festivals." I get it; I totally understand but bear with me a minute and consider that changing the name in this way takes away the part of the potential for using this holiday as an evangelism outreach time. This is not another Christian justification as to why you should let your kids go trick or treating, but an attempt to help you see how Halloween can be used as a significant time for evangelism. It really doesn't matter ultimately if you change the name or not but I want you to consider why I even bring up this point.

You can skip my musings on this and just jump down to the free handouts in the article if you want but you might find some of what follows interesting. [Read more...]

25 years ago Gospel Light produced my first Desktop Publishing Training Video–I just found it and am sharing it

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How some things change and how others stay the same! Below are two training videos from around 3 hours of training in creating communications with the computer which was a very NEW thing when I did the videos. I recently found them and decided to share them because it amazes me how the need for BASIC Training in church communication skills and the inspiration and motivation for why we do it in the church continues to be needed.

Below are the two videos and below them are the descriptions I put on the YouTube site. I know they are lengthy, but I do think they will be well worth your time to watch.

YouTube descriptions and background of the videos

This video, How to Use Your Computer to Make Better Newsletters, Bulletins, and More was made 25 years ago but the basic design principles in it are still useful. The description that follows is the same for both PART ONE and PART TWO of the video.

I recently (August 2021) found a copy of this video set in my files and though there is some outdated content and I have no idea what I did to get my hair to look like it does in the video, the majority of the video content is extremely useful. In addition, basic skills training like what is presented here is very hard to find for church communicators.

For training, you can find lots on the latest social media channel you should be using. How to write in a way that reaches busy people, basic design principles for any media, how to manage and stay strong spiritually in this challenging work is much harder to find. All this and much more is in the two videos. [Read more...]

FREE PRINTABLES, images for Mother’s Day in all formats and sizes

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Prov 31:30, to celebrate any woman who serves God
These images can be printed up in a variety of sizes to honor women at Mother's Day or any time.

I'm in the process of a HUGE change in the Effective Church Communications ministry and this set of images is a preview of them.

This is part of a collection of printable images you can download and use in any digital format in 96 dpi and also in high-resolution PDFs and 300 dpi jpgs that can be printed at large sizes through online printing shops. I can only give you some of the smaller sizes here (because of upload size limitations), but the larger sizes are coming.

Please click on the images and a larger view will come up.

I chose this verse because though it is a great one to share for Mother's Day, it applies to all women, biological moms or spiritual moms, or any woman who deserves praise because she fears the Lord.

At the bottom of this article are downloadable files that contain the images in these sizes and formats including:

  • INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK size 96 dpi images useful for any way you want to use them in a digital, social media, or web format.
  • Ready to print PDFs, 2 sizes in one folder for 8.5 and A4—the most common for a full-size sheet printed out in with standard church or office printers. Plus high resolution 300 dpi jpgs.

COMING SOON the Bibleverse Shop

I will have a system and a place (the Bibleverse Shop) where I can also provide a selection of sizes and formats that can be sized from small images to 24x36 and 30x30 in both high-resolution PDFs and high resolution 300 dpi jpgs. You will be able to use these files to have the images printed at your local print shops, or online with Costco, Vista Print, Staples, and many more.

At your home or office, you can print them out and then put them into frames for gifts or for inspiration around your church. The mockups below illustrate some of the ideas. These files (even when condensed) are HUGE which is one of the reasons why I have to have the other system I'm working on to be able to make them available to you. It is coming soon and these images show what you'll be able to do with the files I'll be providing:

Download these files for the Images

Please ignore references to the Bibleverse in the downloads--but it is coming soon!

Click on the links below, the first for Instagram and Facebook, 96 dpi images for all digital uses.

The second one for 8.5 x 11 and A4 files in both hi-resolution PDFs and 300 high resolution dpi jpgs for printing.

Files for Home & Church Printing Files for Digital & Social Media

Files for Home & Church Printing

FREE eBook and links to resources to help you make the most of Mother’s Day–the BEST outreach and discipleship Sunday of the year…..really

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MOTHER DAY Cover--make the most of it for evangelism and discipleship
Mother's Day is THE BEST Sunday of the year for evangelism and discipleship--read this FREE eBook to understand why and for tips on how to do make the most of it.

Mother's Day gets some of the highest attendance of unchurched visitors of any Sunday and it isn't because of Mothers.

The Mothers are always there. The high attendance comes from the unchurched kids and spouses who come to church that week to make Mom happy. To help you make the most of it I pulled together some of my most popular resources and put them into an ebook that will help you make the most of it.

What’s here in the FREE OUTREACH materials for Mother's Day

  • Reprints of materials from the Effective Church Communications website (www.effectivechurchcom.com) that will:
    • Give you a new vision for the outreach and evangelism opportunities of this day and how to make the most of them.
    • Reminders of how to be kind to those who aren’t Mothers.
    • Ideas for how to use Mother’s day as a discipleship opportunity for your entire church.
  • Also enclosed in this eBook are copies of One Mother’s Prayer, a true story that has been reprinted and used thousands of times all over the world to encourage both physical and spiritual mothers to pray for the children they love. You have permission to make unlimited copies of One Mother’s Prayer (I, Yvon Prehn, wrote it and I’m giving permission to you) to use it or reprint in any way you want. It can used it in prayer groups, as a handout for
    Mother’s Day, for Mom’s groups, for Grandparents, shared in print, social media, or
    websites, however you’d like. No linking or attribution required.
  • Tips for communications you can create before, during, and after Mother’s Day, plus links to FREE templates to enable you to do that.

 

[Read more...]