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.

An assortment of Lenten Resources including an eBook for Lenten Devotions and two Lenten flyers to share

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Perhaps it is part of getting older, perhaps it is part of traveling for a longer time with the Lord, but my view of Lent has shifted from in the past where I either 1) totally ignored it, or 2) resented having to observe it, or 3) gritted my teeth at whatever I was giving up and couldn't wait until it was over.

That has changed. I now see life as a kind of retreat, a time to slow down, to take time to focus on changes I want to make in my life so that I can better serve the Lord. I look forward to how He is going to work in my life and somehow Lent seems to give me an extra strengthening to do spiritual work.

Some of this shift has taken place as I worked on the Lenten Devotional Journal I'm sharing with you. I started work on it a year ago and as I've gone over various parts of it, many of the quotes in it from Christian saints in the past have challenged me deeply. I need all the help I can get to grow in godliness and to become more like my Lord. I'll be going through the booklet as a reader this Lent and I hope you'll join me.

Lenten Devotional Journal Cover Lenten Devotional Journal

I encourage you to use it in your personal devotions and you have my permission to make as many copies of it as you want for your church. Or you can post it on your website or link to it via social media for people in your congregation to download. Click on the image of the cover here to download it.

I am terribly sorry I didn't get it to you sooner. Health and work issues have been a challenge.

Lenten flyers to give out at any time during Lent

I took two of the devotions in the booklet, modified them slightly, and make them into the single flyer below that I'm going to put with my devotional booklet to remind me of behavioral changes I need to make. Click on the single flyer to download a copy of it and again, for this and the other flyers, you have permission to make as many copies as you want to share. You can see a larger version of the flyers by clicking on them. They have white backgrounds and when you click on them, you'll be able to read them more clearly. 
Fasting to Feasting

 

 

 

Three versions of alternate ways to observe denying yourself at Lent

This flyer reminds us that there are many ways we can say "no" to ourselves and "yes" to God. To download a ZIP file of the flyers, CLICK HERE: Self Denial Options For Lent

To download a ZIP file of the flyers, CLICK HERE: Self Denial Options For Lent

 

Free excerpt of the ebook Halloween, a great time for evangelism

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Halloween & Fall Festivals
This book has articles and advice on how to make the most of this time of year for evangelism.

One of the core teachings of Effective Church Communications is that we can take any seasonal celebration and use it as an opportunity to share the gospel.

It might seem that one of the more challenging holidays to apply that teaching is Halloween but in reality, it is one of the easiest ones. That's because this is the one time of year when people are thinking about the afterlife, of life after death. Granted the secular view of this is distorted, but it does make a great bridge to a discussion about the reality that we are eternally existing souls.

Most people believe they will live forever, but the question is, if we are going to live forever, what neighborhood will we live in?

Halloween acknowledges there is a neighborhood of hellish horror and evil. Though people might make fun of it, they can't help but wonder what truth there is to the existence of demons and everlasting punishment. Along with that is the almost universal belief or wish, if you will, of an afterlife of light reunited with loved ones.

But how can you be sure?

Halloween gives Christians the opportunity to share why they believe that Jesus is the only Savior who conquered death and who can give us eternal life and peace and a home in the neighborhood of joy if we trust Him as Savior.

The book, Halloween, a great time for evangelism is filled with ideas, tips, plans, and communications that will help you do that.

For a free download of an excerpt of the book, click the following link: Pages from Halloween & Fall Festivals

The complete book is part of the Effective Church Communication Library; click the following link to sign up for the ECC Library and download it: https://payhip.com/b/mqoWE

See You at the Pole—challenges for the church to pray—bulletins, flyers, social media images

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Pray for our students while they pray at the pole
Though the pray at the pole is an event organized by and for students, we can pray for them. Here are social media images and printable flyers to help you do that.

Let’s be honest, it would be terribly scary to pray in public around the flagpole of your school. But that is what the organizers of See You at the Pole are hoping that thousands of students will do on Wed. Sept 22, 2021. For one of the previous years, the organizers of the event challenged churches with this:

Did you have the courage as a teenager to meet early one morning outside your school and pray?

Would your courage be strengthened if you knew a group of adults had planned, prayed, and supported you in every way possible for weeks leading up to this day?

Though the organizers of See You at the Pole are adamant and rightly so, that the events of the day should be totally student-led and student-organized, those of us adults who love the students in our churches and communities can support them by prayer. We can pray that they are brave in identifying as people who believe in God, fearless in sharing that prayer is important, and that God uses their prayers to help bring many to know Jesus.

At the end of this post are files of social media images and printable flyers or bulletin insert images you can download and use to inform members of your congregation about what the students will be doing and to remind them to pray for the students while they are praying for their world. [Read more...]

How Christians are like Pumpkins—a fun object lesson for adults and kids to grow as Christians together

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Pumpkin Carving and faith building project
Use this pumpkin carving lesson as a time to teach children about Jesus.

This is just the cutest, fun thing for Halloween!

But first the serious reasons behind it:

In the Old Testament, Jewish parents were commanded to teach their children about God's law during all of life.

Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates. Deut. 6:7-9 MSG

In the New Testament, we are all commanded to do a similar thing—

Let the Word of Christ—the Message—have the run of the house. Give it plenty of room in your lives. Instruct and direct one another using good common sense. And sing, sing your hearts out to God! Let every detail in your lives—words, actions, whatever—be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way. Col. 3;7, MSG

Though we are commanded to make God's Word and doing His will part of every area of life, that isn't an easy command to fulfill.

Holidays can help, even ones we wouldn't normally think would help us to grow in our Christian lives.

How pumpkins can help us understand the Christian life, what Jesus has done for us, and how we can live for Him.

We don't often think of Halloween as a time to learn about the Christian faith, but with a little imagination and creativity, it can be! Here is a pumpkin carving project that will help kids learn about Jesus.  Below is a short video that goes through the project and below the video is a link to a  ZIP file that contains a ready-to-print Pumpkin Project sheet, editable MS Publisher files, jpg images, and an MS Word file of the text if you want to create your own version.

Click on the following link to download a ZIP file that contains a ready-to-print Pumpkin Project, editable MS Publisher files, jpg images, and an MS Word file of the text if you want to create your own version: Pumpkin Project & Poem

What is your church all about? Your communications tell the truth

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bounch house and summer challenges
Summer can be a great fun time, but is what you advertise what you are really about? Here are some things to consider.

What is your church about? Why do you do what you do?

Many churches would answer by pointing to either their church slogan or mission statement. Typically churches spend a tremendous amount of time and prayer coming up with these. Here are some random ones from the web:

Church Slogans:

  • We exist to reach the unchurched and grow the church
  • Reaching out to the World...Preaching to the Unsaved...Teaching the Saved to Serve
  • We strive to pattern our daily lives after the example of Jesus Christ and to lead all members of the body toward this goal
  • Committed to spreading the Gospel of God’s kingdom both here and abroad
  • To reach people in our city and in the unreached nations of the world with the life-giving message of Jesus that they might become fully devoted followers to Christ.

Church Mission Statements:

  • First Baptist Church is a fellowship of believers that purpose to know God through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, to equip believers through discipleship. Showing God's love, we strive to reach a hungry world with Jesus Christ through obedience to the Great Commission.
  •  To bring God's healing love to hurting people. To bring the joy of being a Christian to a sad world. To bring wisdom and knowledge to an unaware world. To bring good news to the poor. To bind up the broken-hearted. To set free the captives. To preach peace, as Jesus did.
  • To grow in faith and share our faith in God with the world around us. We will: Provide opportunities for service, outreach, and improvement in our community as well as in the global community of which we are a part. --Model the body of Christ in our inclusiveness of the gifts of all persons and in our relationships with one another as a covenant community, as well as in our daily living.

But what are you really about?

All of the slogans and statements above are inspiring and worthy of our Lord.

The challenge is what are you doing in your church this week to fulfill them?

I just finished looking at a church summer newsletter that was sent to me (I get sent lots of things from all over the world, so don't think it was from your church) and if I was going to tell you what the church was about from their summer newsletter I would think it was about:

  • Having fun with kids.
  • Summer activities for kids.
  • The senior pastor's vacation and what musical programs will fill in while he's gone.
  • Getting people to volunteer for summer programs and making them feel guilty if they don't.

Nothing evil or sinful and some nice things there, but this was a church with "Bible" in its name and there was nothing anywhere about where or when you could study the Bible, learn about the Bible, be in a group that studied the Bible or even what the upcoming sermon topics were going to be.

The challenge to all of us

What are we really about? If we say, as one of the mission statements above did that the church wants "to equip believers through discipleship" it won't happen automatically. To grow people to Christian maturity as disciples takes tremendous amounts of work, lots of pieces of communication, and lots of time. CLICK HERE to go to an article that describes the importance of discipleship in growing your church.

Regardless of what your stated slogans and missions of your church, take some time to check out if your communications and your actions honestly reflect them.