Effective Church Communications

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

1 July, 2020 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

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.

A health update from Yvon Prehn 10-15-2020

15 June, 2020 By Yvon Prehn 2 Comments

I don’t like to talk about myself and like even less talking about health issues, but many of you have been so incredibly wonderful praying for me for my hip surgery and challenging rehab, I thought it was only fair to give you an update. And to ask for continuing prayers.

The good news is that the hip surgery (which had to be put off numerous times because of Covid, etc., and which the surgeon said he had never had such a bad case of bone collapse) has healed well. No pain in the hip anymore, able to stand on it. I “graduated” Monday from the physical therapy for that.

The challenging news is that because of the severity of issues in the year or so leading up to the surgery I could only get around very painfully using a walker and was bent over at a pretty extreme angle. Being bent over like that and leaning on the walker did some very nasty things to the muscles in my back and I am still not able to walk upright without assistance and significant pain. There are some additional challenges in that the other hip is starting to collapse, but the surgeon wants to wait to deal with it, though it does make putting my full weight on it a bit of a challenge. None of us expected this, the severity of the issues or pain, or what needs to be done to remedy it.

But the great news is in spite of it all, I am doing great! I’m excited about the Effective Church Communications ministry and am launching some new resources this week and more to come. In spite of physical challenges, I am fine sitting at my desk and working which I am incredibly thankful for! I feel great when I’m working.

Today I go in for a back evaluation at physical therapy (they are a talented and helpful group) and six weeks of new therapy, exercises, and challenges to get me walking and standing upright. I am so thankful for the healing gifts God has given to people and that I can access them.

The most important thing to me and what to pray, please

I’d very much appreciate your prayers that I can get the work done I want and need to do. I am very excited about redoing and launching some of the resources for Effective Church Communications that I’ve prayed for and wanted to do for many years.

Some specific prayers:

That I can focus on the work and get the courses and books done to help church communicators. I feel God has given me the vantage point of many years of experience and I want to do all I can to equip and encourage many who struggle with huge responsibilities and little training.

That I can finally make Effective Church Communications self-supporting. I am launching a subscription library and training school that should be able to do that, if the Lord chooses to bless it. Having to work another job to support my family and the ministry while attempting to keep up with ECC has been physically and mentally exhausting. I love to work; I probably work too much, but I would like ALL my work hours focused on church communications ministry.

If you can help me tell people about the resources I am launching—the Effective Church Communications Library and improved YouTube Channel now; the Effective Church Communications Training Academy in about a week— and then signing up for or buying a subscription yourself would be fantastic.

Please especially tell people about the resources available to them, tell groups you are in, your denominations, your mission partners. My fees are extremely low and if someone can’t afford those, I will give them a free subscription (just email me at yvon@effectivechurchcom.com). I want to help as many as possible. So much of what I see as “training” for church communicators these days (and some charge a lot of money) are dreary, or snarky surface lessons on how to use social media, Facebook groups, etc.—all valid, yes, but there is so much more to being a truly effective church communicator. Doing this for over 50 years does give me a valuable perspective I trust.

That I do all I need to do to get as healthy as possible (the exercise, physical therapy and ….sigh….yes, I do need to lose some weight for my fragile joints) so that I can do all the Lord wants me to do.

Finally, to borrow some of what Paul said in Acts 20:24….

But that (physical issues, income issues) matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me.

Please pray I do that and do it well.

Praising God for you and blessings to you,

Yvon

PS If you'd like to see my personal devotions journey, go to www.instagram.com/yvonprehn. I've been taking verses from my devotions time, illustrating them in Canva, and then adding some additional thoughts. With the Covid restrictions, our church isn't doing Sunday School classes now and for most of my life (literally, since I was a kindergartener helping out) I've always taught the Bible in some sort of class. So now I do it on my Instagram account and am also starting back doing my Bible podcast and blog at www.Bible805.com

One Mother’s Prayer, a free and inspiring story for however you want to use it for Mother’s Day

21 April, 2020 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

This short piece, One Mother's Prayer, is a true story that is both an encouragement to pray for children and an assurance of the power of prayer to change a destiny.

It has been published more times than anything else I've written. It was first published in Today's Christian Woman magazine. Then in their Best of Ten Years of writings, it has been reprinted and republished all over the world, and it continues to bring tears to the eyes of any group I read it to. You are free to use it any way you want and share it however you want.

Below is a Free ZIP FILE of PDF formats: 2 more 8 1/2 by 11 plus 4 other versions on half sheet size plus the jpgs of the larger files and an MS Word text file if you want to create your own publication. The text file and the link to all the other downloads are after the images below if you want to use it in a newsletter or social media.

This is a great resource not only for Mother's Day, but any time of the year for Mom's groups and prayer groups.

Last year (2019) I also made a PODCAST recording of it. Here is the embed code if you want to put it on your website or any kind of social media:
<iframe src="https://anchor.fm/yvon-prehn/embed/episodes/SPECIAL-PODCAST-Yvon-Prehn-reading-One-Mothers-Prayer-e3usu0" height="102px" width="400px" frameborder="0" scrolling="no">

You can listen to it here:

Full Page Size Print versions of One Mother's Prayer

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Half-page size One Mothers Prayer (two additional ones on Members PDF that aren't shown here)

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Text of One Mother's Prayer--

Her worst fears had come true. Her son had become involved in a strange mystical religion. She had such high hopes for him. Since his infancy she prayed God would touch his life. Her husband wasn’t a Christian and sometimes, in a temper, would taunt her praying, but she kept on.

Her son grew up in a small town. The family owed their home, but they weren’t wealthy. Determined their son would have a good education, they scrimped and saved to send him to school. Somehow his brother and sister didn’t receive the same attention or prayers.

He did extremely well in school. People began to notice his brilliant mind. A prominent citizen of the town set up a scholarship for her son’s graduate studies. She was so proud. Her joy diminished with worries about his spiritual health. He attended church some, but he refused baptism. And there were little incidents—stealing, things like that. She worried and she prayed.

He excelled in graduate school and finished with high expectations. But his religion . . . his letters contained long explanations of finding true reality and speculation how reality divided into darkness and light. Jesus was not truly God incarnate, he said, but an example of pure light entrapped and suffering in matter. He had always been good with words, but these words wounded her.

She decided to visit him. She thought her heart could stand no more pain, but she was wrong. He was living with a girl and they weren’t married. They had a son. She was a grandmother, but she couldn’t be proud of it.

In desperation she explained the situation to her minister. He told her that the son of so many tears could never come to destruction. Somehow the message seemed from God.

The years passed. Her son was unhappy with his job; he was often ill. He left the girl but kept the son. Finally he became disillusioned with his mystical religion and began to question her about God. He started to go to church again. There he found Christian friends and questioned them. He began to read the Bible.

Her prayers increased. Her husband died, but he had become a Christian in his final illness. She, too, grew weaker, older. She feared she would die before the prayers for her son were answered.

Her grandson was a teenager now and she went to visit. A changed son met her—a son hungry to know about God, asking questions, requesting prayer. A son who would one day rush to tell her he had given his life to God by trusting Jesus as his personal savior. At Easter her son and grandson were baptized.

Their times together now were so precious, talking about the Lord and praying together. Her prayers overflowed with thanks but still she desired much more for her son. She knew her son as a Christian less than a year. In the August after his Easter baptism she breathed her last and went home to the Savior, to whom she had spent so much of her life talking.

She never saw with earthly eyes the great man of God her son became. She never heard his great sermons or read writings that determined much of Christian theology. She never knew her son’s insights would jog Martin Luther into seeing that one is justified by faith alone. She would never hear her son’s words that caused so many hearts to consider Jesus as Savior:

“Thou hast made us for thyself, oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”

Every part of this story is true—the mother who prayed was Monica, the mother of St. Augustine.

Download section:

CLICK HERE to download a ZIP file that contains:

* All of the One Mothers Prayer versions
*MS Word text file of the text for you to use in any way you want
* MS Publisher Original files (you must have MS Publisher to use this file)
* PDF Files
* Resizable jpg files

After you download the file, SAVE it to your computer, then click on it to "unzip" it and the files are ready for you to use.

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