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.

Church Signs, what works and what to be careful about

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Church signs, important tools for ministry
Church signs are important tools for ministry, here are tips to make the most of them.

 

Recently a church communication elder asked me about the effectiveness of electronic church signs.  She sent this link in reference to the sign their church was considering: http://curbappealled.com/. She added that a church member had donated the money for it and asked for my comments on it. I'm always happy to respond to requests from church communicators and though I can't guarantee how quickly I will respond, please send questions or suggestions for content on this site to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

First, I'd like to offer some comments on a sign like this and then on signs overall. If you have any more comments on signs, examples of effective signage, or sources for good ones, please add them to the comments below.

As to my answer whether or not to get a professionally designed electronic sign—the answer to this is easy—go for it! Particularly, if the other businesses in your area have similar signs, you want people to be able to clearly find you as a church. Having said that a sign like this can be very good for your church, following are a few other comments that might be helpful.

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Tips for a productive New Year in the church office, part two

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Gayle Hilligoss Picture
Article by Gayle Hilligoss

The start of a new year is an appropriate time to evaluate performance, to identify personal practices hindering professionalism, and to replace old habits with new and better ways to work. As Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, “Now is the day, and now is the hour.” Here are three more good habits to acquire in 2011. (to see the first three, click here)

 • Excellence

Excellence is not perfection. Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. Realistically, few things are worth a shot at perfection. The wisdom of spending an hour looking for the “perfect” clipart or typeface for a bulletin insert is questionable. Very likely your responsibilities demand more productive uses of your time. While aiming for perfection is impractical, never settle for mediocre. Excellence is rewarding and attainable.

 • Organization

Physical clutter slows everyone down. Time and effort are wasted locating what is needed. Tempers may flare. Mental disorganization perpetuates a cycle of working hard while accomplishing little. Planning where things should be kept, how jobs should be accomplished—timeline, methods, and available resources—encourages effectiveness, efficiency, and smiles.

 • Decisiveness

The inability or unwillingness to make a decision about what to do or how to do it absolutely hinders productivity. Often any decision is better than no decision. Fretting over possibilities is a decision in itself, one that creates a backlog of work and frustrates coworkers.

Start the decision-making process by identifying precisely what you want to achieve. Gather and evaluate relevant information. Finally, choose your course of action. Taking days to consider options may reveal a perfectly clear choice, but very likely it will not. When stalled, ask yourself what you will know in a day or two that you don't know now. If the answer is “not much,” trust your instinct, make your decision, and act.

How to become a missionary and other church communication conference notes

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One of the challenging statements from the Shaddleback Church Communication Summit 2015
One of the challenging statements from the Saddleback Church Communication Summit 2015

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Saddleback Church Communication Summit 2015 (also called "marcom2015" for church marketing and communications).

I wasn't sure what to expect. I hoped it wasn't led by a bunch of young, snarky tech types who had huge church budgets and were enamored with how cutting edge they could be in their social media wizardry.

Also, I had just injured my hip and would be hobbling around with a cane and felt hugely self-conscious because of that. I came close to cancelling at the last-minute.

But I went because I wanted to see what they had to say that might be useful for all of you--the members and readers of Effective Church Communications and I wasn't disappointed.

How I'm going to share what I learned at the conference

I'm going through my notes slowly, thinking and making notes about them. Some of the material will end up as articles on this website, but a number of things I learned are shorter and more of a conversational nature and I'll be putting those on the Effective Church Communications Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/EffectiveChurchCommunications

Please go to the page and "Like" it and you'll receive automatic updates when I post something new there.

About the illustration on this page

The conference started with one of the pastors from Saddleback Church and his challenge to base our church communications on a healthy, balanced vision for discipleship in the church. And the quote in the illustration was a challenge to all of us to prepare our people to be the kind of Christians that can walk outside the church and share Jesus.

When he said that I was reminded of the verse in Hosea 4:6 ". . . my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." In this passage and similar ones, the importance of teaching people God's will and ways and the consequences if we aren't faithful in our calling is emphasized. That is the job of church communicators—from pastor who communicates the Word of God clearly to the volunteer who creates clear descriptions and directions to discipleship small groups—our primary message is to help people first find Jesus and then grow to mature disciples of Jesus.

To help you remember the importance of equipping missionaries (all your church) in your communications, I made a PDF of the image above. CLICK here to download and print it out. It's 4-per-page and an odd size, but with a little trimming it would make a good handout or bulletin insert.

One of the most important things I learned from the conference

One more reason I hope you go to the ECC Facebook page and one of the most important things I learned at the conference is the importance of sharing with each other. We need each other's ideas, insights, comments, and questions. Church Communicators so often work alone--we especially need people to exchange ideas with, to ask questions, to make comments. Social media like Facebook is the perfect place to do it.

I haven't been the most involved person on Facebook—but after the conference and seeing how many of the church communicators I met use it in positive ways, I have a new vision for its value in creating a community. I will be posting on it lots more, so please go to the page, comment, post your ideas and questions and together we'll all grow in our effectiveness as church communicators.

How to cite Bible verses

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Just a quick note here to go along with Gayle's useful article about how to use numbers in print. Following are some of the ways you can cite Bible verses in text:

The first link will take you to the most common ways to cite Bible verses. The second link gives a variety of how various style guides apply the rules.
http://www.wikihow.com/Cite-the-Bible#Following_General_Bible-Citation_Guidelines_sub
http://www.wikihow.com/Cite-the-Bible