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.

We are at the half-way point with Lent and here are 40 challenging images for you to use however you want

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Lenten Set of images from Effective Church Communications
This is the first of 40 images for you to download and use during Lent or anytime to help people grow in their walk with Jesus.

Lent isn't just for Lent. What I mean by that is Lent is a specific time when we can focus on denying ourselves so we can live more fully for God.

It is about so much more than giving up chocolate or social media or whatever other external thing we choose during this time. At its best, Lent is a time for quiet self-evaluation so we can grow more deeply to become who God wants us to be.

In that self-evaluation, it's time to add virtues, practices to our lives that will help us become more like Jesus.

What I have for you to inspire you during Lent

To guide you through Lent, I created a set of 40 inspirational images and I then wrote a brief challenge or thought-provoking idea to go with them.

I put the challenges into a free downloadable journal for you, plus they are on daily Instagrams, and in my favorite form, on a daily short YouTube video (less than a minute), where I read them to you along with a challenge and prayer. Please check that out--CLICK HERE to go to the channel. [Read more...]

Free Christmas graphics inspired by Christmas Carols, formatted for Instagram and Postcards

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Free Christmas Card Social media images based on Christmas Carols
Christmas carols are inspirational for more than singing. They can also inspire our Christmas communications.

Christmas carols are not only wonderful to sing this time of year, but many of the lines in them are both inspiring and encouraging to our faith.

My pastor recently preached a sermon challenging up as to whether we had room in our lives for Jesus. In addition to finding it personally motivating, I also realized it would make a great theme for a Christmas graphic, Instagram image, and postcard.

As is usual with these things, one thing led to another, and I created an entire set of images that you can use for whatever you want, plus they are formatted for Instagram and postcards. In addition, I did a layout of the postcards in MS Publisher and created ready-to-print PDFs that you can print off and use.

Below are pictures of the images and below the images are links to download a ZIP file that has them in various formats.

If you would like to create your own Christmas communications using Christmas Carols

Little Christmas angel
This is another one of the images in the Christmas set below.

All of the wording for the images below came from Christmas carols that are now in the Public Domain and that you can quote freely. Following is the link to a website that has a useful list of Christmas carols, both those that are in the Public Domain and those that are still under copyright protection:

https://www.easysonglicensing.com/pages/help/articles/copyright-law/christmas-songs-in-the-public-domain.aspx

Note: if a song you want isn't on the list above, simply google it, as I had to do for one I wanted.

After you know which ones are free to use, it is then helpful to have the words printed out. Here is a site that has that for you:

http://ldsguy.tripod.com/Christmas.carols.html [Read more...]

Father’s Day and Men’s Ministry INSTAGRAM Images

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FREE Father's Day Instagram ImagesI made two versions of the following images for you not only for Father's Day, but for anytime for Men's Ministry. Below each image set is a ZIP file that has the images.

For a large selection of materials for Father's Day and Men's Materials are all on the TEMPLATE section on Father's Day. Go to the link: HERE. Flyers, slides, business cards--many things are free and downloadable for you.

Father's Day Images

To download the ZIP file of the images above, click the following link: Happy Father's Day, INSTAGRAM 2020 [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

The PERFECT VACATION—FREE Instagram and other media–and an encouragement for your congregation, when you can’t do traditional vacations

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The Perfect Vacation in Jesus, images and commentary
Though it might be challenging to take the vacation we'd like, in Jesus, we can always find the true rest and renewal our soul needs.

Staying at home isn't so hard when it's windy or rainy and there are schoolwork and chores to be done.

But it's a whole different situation when school is out, the sun is shining, and it's time for a vacation! We want out! We want fun! We want anything but feeling guilty about leaving the house.

But. . . . . . no, the virus is not going to magically disappear. So what do we do when everything in us screams we want to get out of the house, but our sensible mind, considerate of long-term health and family, says, stop and think a minute?

This is very real to me

After being a virtual prisoner in my home for almost two years because I couldn't walk, after my surgery to fix things, I couldn't wait to get out.

But. . . . . .

I won't give away my struggle and spiritual resolution (that's in the Caption/Commentary below), but it motivated the Media Made for You set included today. I am going to be moving these to a paid section of the website in a while, but I'm still moving pretty slow so it's all free for now. Below are

  • Thumbnails of the images. These are available in ZIP files with formats and sizes for Instagram, Pinterest, Presentation size, Facebook post, 600 x 600 jpg files, and MS Publisher Ready-to-Print PDFs.
  • A copy of the Caption/Commentary I did for Instagram. You have my permission to use this in any way you want if you want to use the images on a newsletter, print, or email or whatever. Please, however, if you use it, do not edit it. I am going to be doing more of this. Somehow the images and the microblog format of the caption space works for what I feel the Lord wants me to communicate now. It isn't the usual use of INSTAGRAM for many I know and I'll be experimenting with it. If you want to simply capture and share the image and caption, you can follow my INSTAGRAM account: https://www.instagram.com/yvonprehn/
  • Of course, you can also use the images in any format you want and write your own caption or commentary, or not even use one if you don't want.
  • Below the commentary are the ZIP Files for you to freely download

[Read more...]