Effective Church Communications

Someday the iPhone won’t be cool—a gentle reminder to those enamored with cutting-edge technology

6 December, 2009 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

It will happen.

Someday there will be a technology that you don't understand. You will find yourself hanging on to a communication system because that is the primary way you and the friends your age prefer to interact with your world. But your numbers will grow less with each year and some day perhaps your church will look at was once cutting edge and risky. Discussions will take place as to whether it should be continued.

At that time one of two things will happen:

Possibility number one:

The leadership may decide that your favored, older method of technology needs to be abandoned. They will give reasons of money and efficiency.

You will remind them, "But that is the only way.....certain people interact with the church."

They will smile, briefly voice concern, and promise to do something about it once they get the new technology functional.

Possibility number two:

The leadership may decide that your favored, older method of technology needs to be abandoned. They will give reasons of money and efficiency

But at the same time, they will point to decisions made long ago at the start of technology challenges where the church decided to not abandon any technology in the church if even one person would not be able to receive communications from the church without it. Back then it meant sending out postcards to those without email and printing large print bulletins and newsletters for those who needed them.

What future will be at your church?

You are making the decisions today in how you treat people as you change technology that will set a pattern for how you and many others in the future will be treated.

Don't let the seeming need to adopt cutting edge technology too quickly cause you to forget the needs of the people the technology is supposed to serve.

Remember Jesus went after one little sheep in need. Today that one little sheep might be the elderly person without a computer.

A few years from now the person who doesn't want to participate in the new technology might be you—still clutching your first iPhone and vowing you'll never give it up—no matter what those young kids think.

A giant postcard is used for successful promotion of a Christian Camp

3 December, 2009 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

This BIG postcard worked well as great PR for a Christian camp, and an updated one can serve all sorts of PR purposes for your church

This PDF is from a number of years ago and you'd definitely want to upgrade the design. We have come a long way since the early days of desktop publishing in the kind of designs we are able to create.

But regardless of the way you design your postcard the ideas in this are timeless and two of the key ideas are: 1) the value of a postcard and 2) the impact of a BIG postcard. Even in this age of digital technology, a big postcard with ONE message is certain to make an impact.

Today for postcard creation and production, check out www.morguefile.com for free artwork and www.vistaprint.com (or other online printers) as a way to get full-color, free images and cheap printing.

To download the PDF of the article, click here or click on the image.

note: this PDF is from Yvon Prehn's archives and is the only format of this article available presently. Not the greatest quality to be sure, but shared with the belief that the content is useful.

Don’t dump the TV ministry, it may not be as unimportant as you think

2 December, 2009 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Recently I heard about a church that wanted to discontinue its television ministry. Though they acknowledged it was watched primarily by the elderly and shut-in, they did not feel it was cost-effective any longer. They wanted to direct all the funds to their internet ministry. The situation prompted me to remember....

More than a lifetime ago for my nephew who is grown, married and has a son of his own, I was religion reporter for the Colorado Springs SUN newspaper. In this Vatican of America, home to over 100 Christian organizations, reporting on religion involved much more than retelling stories about the variety of pies at the local church supper. Sometimes I got to interview interesting people in the Christian world and one week my assignment was to interview Robert Schuller.

I was ready for it, with what in my mind were insightful, cutting questions, that would expose what a disgrace he was to the Christian faith. I was a reader of the Wittenberg Door, a sort of counter-culture Christian magazine of the 1970's, that had recently done an article on the financial excesses of the building of the Crystal Cathedral, with the numbers on how many hungry kids each pane of glass would feed and similar statistics. The guy started his church in a drive-in theater for goodness sakes, what kind of a pastor was that, I thought in the passionate judgementalism that comes from inexperience in real-world evangelism.

My editor told me I had to go to a bookstore where he was signing books and I could interview him when he was finished. I got there and was directed to a chair near his book signing table and told I could wait there until he was finished. I'd called ahead, he had been signing books for hours already, it was late in the day and I figured he was almost done. I was highly irritated and impatient when I saw the line out the door, around the block . This was going to take hours I groushed; Schuller must be tired, he'd been at it all day I thought, but it didn't seem like he was going to send them away.

For almost three hours I watched him sign books. His daughter was helping him, she would open the book and pass it to him. He would pause, look up at the person, ask their name, chat a bit, sign the book. This is going to take forever at this rate, I realized.

Most of the people were not well-dressed. Many were older.

Again and again the older people would say, "You are my pastor, I don't know what I would do without you."

"I can't get to church," another would say, "But you encourage me."

Schuller would tell them it was his privilege to be their pastor. Sometimes he would stand up and give an elderly lady a hug. More than a few wanted their picture taken with him and he gladly obliged.

He never rushed anyone. He would hold a trembling, older hand and pray. He prayed as if there was no one else in the room, but that person in front of the book-signing table and the Lord. A large Latino family came up to the table and the father said something I couldn't hear to Schuller. Schuller stood up, walked around the table, laid his hands on the heads of the children and prayed. He was their pastor. It was obvious, he took that responsibility very seriously.

I was trying very hard not to dissolve in tears. When it finally came time for our interview, I babbled and could only ask in a rather inane way why he did some of the seemingly outrageous things he did. He laughed and said, "People don't understand, I'm very conservative at heart, but that is what the people need in Southern California--I'm their pastor. I do what I need to do to reach them for Jesus."

I think it would be a sad ministry mistake if that church (or any other church so enamored with current technology it forgets the older folks who don't even know the meaning of the term podcast) does drop its TV program. But if they do, I hope they tell their homebound folks about Robert Schuller. He's still on TV, and I'm certain, still ready to be their pastor.

Designated donations, a biblical way to fund needed technology

20 November, 2009 By Yvon Prehn

As the year draws to a close, many people consider giving year-end donations to a church or ministry, in part as a wise way to reduce their tax liability. Most churches strongly support this practice. Where questions and concerns enter, is in the area of "designated giving" where the giver specifies to what area he or she wants the money to be spent. Since much potential giving for the technology and equipment to support communication ministries can fall into this area, let's look at the Biblical basis for special, designated gifts.

The Biblical context of giving

Be assured it is not the intent of this article to in any way to distract from or to take away from regular giving to churches. Most churches have fairly clear teaching and expectations on giving and tithing to the church are taught on a consistent basis to their membership.

But where does designated giving fit in? Is it Biblical to give to special projects? All of us doing communications or other work with technology are doing it first and foremost to please our Lord and we don't want to do anything that would go against what the Bible teaches. For you to be able to raise money for technology and communication projects with proper Biblical support is the purpose of this article.

In both the Old and New Testaments there are clear precedents for special giving projects for special needs. In the sections below, I'll first give the Biblical citations that apply and then follow it up with suggested practical applications.

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My background might be helpful here

Some of my readers may wonder why the church communications lady is teaching on Biblical giving and what background or authority does she have to do it. To answer, let me share: I have been for many years (and still am) a regular Bible teacher in our church. I have an MA degree in Church History; I have attended seminary; in the past I taught Church History at a Jesuit university. Bible teaching is my first love and what got me into computers initially was that they were a better way to do the writing and study I needed to do for my Bible teaching and ministry, which is what I still consider the most important thing I do.

In everything I do in church communications, I work very hard to have a solid Biblical base for it. One of my books, The Heart of Church Communications, goes into and teaches a Biblical basis for church communications and I strongly encourage church leaders to read it. To continue with our topic:

Old Testament Giving

The Jews in the Old Testament lived in a theocracy where the civil and religious law and economics were combined. The tithe (Lev. 27:30) was not the only offering required. Additional offerings were required for sacrifices, both for sins and for joyful times (see Lev. 6, 7). In addition, the tithe was used to care for the Levites (the priests received their income from a percentage of the offerings for sacrifices) and to care "the alien, the fatherless and the widow, so that they may eat in your towns and be satisfied" ( Deut. 26:12). The tithe in this way was part of the social care system. In addition, part of the tithe was to be used for celebration (Deut. 14:22-29).

In addition to these regular and expected offerings to God, at numerous times the Israelites were asked to give over and above them, for special projects. Most often these special projects had to do with the building or restoration of the tabernacle or temple.

Some passages that talk about this type of giving include: Ex. 35:4-9, where an offering was asked for the building of the tabernacle; 2 Chron. 29:1-9, where David and the people's gifts are listed and commended for the building of the temple; 2 Kings 12, where money was raised for Josiah's repair of the temple; Ezra 2:68, when the families who returned from exile gave freewill offerings to build the temple. Lots more examples could be given, but these show a pattern of extra giving when a need is there.

Current day application

The tools of technology and communication production are some of our most effective tools we can use to build the church. Whether it is new computers, programs, training, networking, web development—if churches gave resources to make these things possible many churches could be significantly grow and their ministries expand.

In addition to the building materials themselves, you notice from the passages above, that special giving was also used to pay the workers. This is a good precedent to follow. Many times people doing technology work in the church do it as volunteers. They may love what they are doing, but a technology minister is just as worthy of his or her hire as is the music minister. Many churches honestly can't afford to pay technology workers, but far more churches don't because they do not seek the funding to do it. It is biblical to pay people for the work they do to build the church.

New Testament giving

If we read the New Testament without preconceived notions, we find some rather interesting things. First of all, one of the few records we have of how the early church actually gave is in Acts 4:34, 35, but there are few churches today that follow the example of giving to the point so that "there were no needy among them."

That aside, it is interesting that most of the other examples of giving in the New Testament had to do with special, designated offerings. The primary example of this has to do with the special offering taken up at a number of places in Paul's journeys to help the saints in Jerusalem. Many of the passages used to guide giving in the church today, do not and were not written in the context of how giving should be done as a continuing pattern. That is not to say that the concept of consistent regular giving isn't a good one, but to be historically, textually and Biblically honest, the following verses were written on how to conduct a special needs giving campaign, not how to support the church on an ongoing basis. Verses included are:

1 Cor. 16: 1 Now about the collection for God's people: Do what I told the Galatian churches to do. On the first day of every week, each one of you should set aside a sum of money in keeping with his income, saving it up, so that when I come no collections will have to be made.

2 Cor. 9: 1 There is no need for me to write to you about this service to the saints. 2 For I know your eagerness to help...5 So I thought it necessary to urge the brothers to visit you in advance and finish the arrangements for the generous gift you had promised....6 Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. (read all of 2 Cor. 8,9 for the entire context).

Current day application

As the passages above show, if read in context and true to their original meaning, special designated giving campaigns are not only acceptable, but projects to be undertaken with great care and biblically correct when the proper need was there. Again, to support a special giving project is not in any way to take away from regular giving to the church, but in addition to that, I trust the study above can help put your heart at peace if you need to raise funds for your ministries in technology and communication resources.

Consider the place of communication in church building

Sometimes churches do not raise money for the communication ministry and equipment because they do not value the contribution of the print/we/overall communication ministry to the church. Sadly, it has been my experience from working with thousands of churches over the years that if a church does not place a high value on communications and have the funds, people, and equipment to support it, the church will never grow in size or in the power of their ministries as much as they could if they valued communication.

If you are a leader in the communication ministry of your church, prayerfully, respectfully and gently ask the church consider a campaign to fund communications ministry in the areas you need most in the coming year. Very carefully track the difference it makes when you communicate more effectively in the turnout of events at your church over the previous year when you did not have the resources you needed. If your experience is like many other churches and ministries, increased communications will mean increased ministry and church growth. When that happens, tell the stories, dream big, and be ready for next year—there are always more resources that can make your church communications program even more effective!

11-14-09 announce exciting things

14 November, 2009 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Here is where I'll talk about the new things on the site, new resources, etc. would be good for feeds! Maybe new RADIO--got to get that going.

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; we can help.