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.

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...]

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

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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

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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