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; we can help.
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Resources for Church Communicators

The articles and lists in this section are of two types: First, Materials created by Effective Church Communications. Our books are the primary resource here. Second, Resources from groups we use, like, want to recommend. We want to emphasize that we DO NOT take any advertising or referral fees from any of the Resources listed. We feature the Resources we do because we feel they will be useful to other church communicators.

Send me your favs! If you have resources you've found especially helpful, please send me information about them and I'll check them out and list if I feel they are appropriate for this site. Send info to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

Changes in image usage—the “free” sites may not be what they seem and what you need to do about it

30 May, 2020 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

What to do when disappointed with image usage rules
What it feels like when you are excited about images you think you can use and then you find out the rules changed and you can't. What do about it is what this article is about.

Sometimes it is hard to do the right thing, but as disciples of Jesus, we must try.

As I’ve been working on getting lots of material ready for launching the Bibleverse collection of related ministries some guidelines have come to my attention about the “free images” on sites such as Canva, PicMonkey, and Snappa, where you can use the images they have, plus the free images sites themselves such as Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels, and that many of us (me included) use to create social media and templates. What follows does not apply to sites in which you pay for a membership. But since many churches and organizations make use of free sites, it's important you understand the changing rules.

The take-away conclusions from my research and limitations to the use of "free" images

I won’t bore you with listing the number of articles I’ve read recently, but following is the distilled research and application takeaways both for how it applies to you as a church and how you use things and for the Effective Church Communications ministry.

Overall, as a church creating communications that you freely give to church members and that are primarily shared within your church, you have much more latitude than I do in Effective Church Communications. What I create falls into the “commercial” area and the usage guidelines for that are much more limiting than your non-commercial uses in the church. I have changed many things I charged for in the past to free when I wasn't sure exactly of what drifted into the commercial area.

I'll summarize my bottom-line recommendations shortly and then give you details from various sites.

However, and this is a big, However—if your church does something as seemingly innocent as selling a t-shirt for camp, or a cookbook as a fundraiser or selling anything else, you are now in the commercial category also. Sadly, there are some professional groups (Getty Images has a reputation in this area) that love to go after churches if they feel their image rights are violated. For these reasons, in addition to keeping you informed as to why I do what I do for you, you need to be as careful as possible in your communication creations and in the media you use for them. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Blog, Free image sites, Graphics, Images, Image editing, Social Media Tagged With: copyright rules for churches, free church sites, Free image sites, free image use for churches, Image usage rules

Updated Resources added: Clickable List of 23 FREE & LEGAL Image Resource Sites

22 November, 2019 By Yvon Prehn 2 Comments

Free & Legal image sources
We never seem to have enough resources for our church communications. This list will help and it's all FREE & LEGAL.

Update note: Tis the season of needing lots of images and below is a clickable list of FREE Image Resource Sites. I've added several new sites and along with them a short video and preview of the sites.

These are truly, totally free. No attribution required, no copyright infringement, they are all OK to use for commercial purposes (and for churches that means you can sell a t-shirt with an image used and be legal). I've spent many hours reading the fine print so you don't have to.

I did this because it really bothers me when you run across the frequent list of "free" images, but then you read the small print and you can't use them for anything but "personal use" (whatever that means) or that you have to print an attribution. I do understand why that is important to many people, but for many of the church communications we create, it simply isn't practical. Or it would look strange on an invitation card or similar communication.

There are thousands and thousands of images here and I recommend doing searches for what you need ahead of the time you need them. Just save in files under the categories you know you'll be working in (holidays, various ministries, etc.) and you'll have your own store of images when you are on a deadline to produce communications.

Here is the new updated list of video sources

  • https://www.freebibleimages.org/
    • Incredible collection of photo and illustrations
    • Cannot use for commercial purposes, ministry & educational only
    • For an example of a video you can create with these images go to one I did about the Prodigal Son: https://wp.me/pDky9-3Fh
  • burst.shopify.com
    • hi and low res options
    • lots of images related to coffee!
  • https://www.reshot.com/
    • I just really like them
  • negativespace.co
    • All CC0 license

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: RESOURCES Tagged With: FREE & LEGAL image sources, free clip art for churches, free clipart, Free Image Sources

Free resources, images, videos, photos for church communications

10 May, 2015 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Free video footage resources
Many churches are willing to share video footage they've created--check out the resources here.

"Wouldn't it be great if people who created church videos would be willing to share them?" commented a man at a newly formed committee for church communications. When the comment was passed on to me, I responded that many people have already done that and here are some of the resources I passed on.

This first site is primarily a subscription site, but each week has free images and a monthly free video:

https://www.lightstock.com/  really good images and video footage, sign up for their weekly free images and monthly free video

The sites below are all collections either from very large churches or people who contributed—lots of material, challenge is that it takes some time to screen through them—but they are free! [Read more...]

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Filed Under: RESOURCES Tagged With: church video, church video creation, free church video footage, free church video resources

Resources: Recommended Ministries to support

9 January, 2012 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

There are many great ministries doing wonderful things in our world today. Here are some we support.

If you are looking for great organizations to support who are doing incredible things for the Kingdom of God, below are the organizations we recommend. Just click on the name to go to a description of what they do, their website, and Yvon's comments about them.

Ministries Recommended by Yvon Prehn and Effective Church Communications

    [Read more...]

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    Filed Under: RESOURCES Tagged With: ECC recommendations, Good organizations to give to, trusted charities

    Faith Resources for seekers that you need to put on your communications

    6 December, 2009 By Yvon Prehn 1 Comment

    Resources for more information about the Christian faith
    Here are resources for more information about the Christian faith--use in your communications.

    This page has links to explain the Christian faith and that help seekers explore what it's all about. In our post-Christian world we want to make sure that when we challenge people to make a decision to trust Jesus as Savior that they know what it means.

    There are many other sites that are very useful in clarifying the Christian faith--check out recommendations from friends and your denominations. PLEASE add any you have found useful in the comments section below.

    But whatever resources you use, please use links like this on your website, your bulletins, newsletters and on your outreach communications. 

    Even if they only make a brief connection with your church at a special event, give seekers opportunities to explore the Christian faith,  Links like this could change their eternal destiny.

    Websites for those exploring the Christian faith: [Read more...]

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    Filed Under: Bible & Faith Resources, RESOURCES Tagged With: Bible Resources, Communications, Faith Resources, yvon prehn

    Link to Easter Templates of all sorts

    Seasonal Templates

    • OVERVIEW of TEMPLATES for Church Communicators, please read first
    • Valentine’s Day Templates
    • Lenten Templates
    • Easter Templates
    • Mother’s Day Templates
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    • Graduation Templates
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    • 4th of July, Canada Day, and GRACE for All Nations
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    • Harvest Festival and Halloween Templates
    • Christmas Templates

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    FREE Bible Verses and Sayings in both print and social media format at Bible805Images.com
    FREE Bible Verses and Sayings in both print and social media format at Bible805Images.com
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