Seasonal | Effective Church Communications

New and FREE set of 11 Easter Invitation Cards—equip your people for Easter Outreach and inviting!

10 March, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Free Easter Invitation Cards — Your people inviting their friends is your BEST method of outreach for Easter. This business card size invitation with your church's specifics on the back will work well.

In a recent podcast and blog, I strongly encouraged you to focus on the people in your church as your primary way to reach out to your community at Easter (and for every other seasonal celebration).

In doing this you will help your people be obedient to the Great Commission—to go into all the world and share their faith. This is a natural method of evangelism and helping your people grow as disciples when they pray for, ask, perhaps take to church, and go out to brunch their unchurched friends. It's a tremendously effective, Biblical alternative to buying an anonymous mailing and sending it out to strangers.

(SIDE NOTE: there is nothing wrong with mailings or postcards—I've got a lot of free designs for you and they can be very effective. It is the anonymous part that is bothersome. If you create your own postcards and YOUR PEOPLE mail them out or give them away with a personal note, and best of all follow up on the sent invitation, they can be very effective.)

Though we have many free templates for the holidays and there will be more new ones for Easter in the coming weeks, I just finished a set of business-card-size invitation cards. Below are pictures of them and below that a ZIP file of the cards you can download, modify, and use. The cards are in ready-to-print PDF format and in editable MS Publisher files. All the artwork is copyright free and legal to use and the designs are mine and I freely grant the rights for you to do with them whatever you want.

When putting together these cards, take time to make sure the website and social media you link to is up-to-date and welcoming. Even better would be to have links to sites or blogs or videos from people at your church that explain the Christian faith and why Easter is so important. Be sure you have a contact person (or a team) who will answer the phone, text messages, or emails if people have questions.

This is a fantastic opportunity and time to equip your people for Easter Outreach—be sure you make the most of it!

To download the ZIP file with the cards, click on the following link: Easter Invitation Cards, Bus Card Size

What if your church did NO advertising for Easter? Or other seasonal outreach times? Try this Biblical alternative!

9 March, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Equip your people --free Easter invitations — You may not want to be this obvious, but when your people believe this and want to tell their friends, it's the most effective form of church outreach you can do.

Ed. note: In updating this important blog for Easter preparation, I wanted to do more than send out a blog, so I made a podcast related to it. The two have similar ideas, but expressed in somewhat different ways. Below is the Podcast Intro, the Podcast and then the blog.

The Podcast:

What if your church did NO advertising for Easter? No sending out of postcards purchased from some national company that end up looking like the several other churches produce.

Hi I'm Yvon Prehn and welcome to the Effective Church Communications Podcast!

Today we'll talk about alternatives that you can do in-house--by your people that can accomplish much more.

As I mentioned in the intro—Far too often, when a church is planning a major holiday outreach, a catalog of professionally produced postcards are selected, purchased and mailed out by the church. This can cost a lot of money, but sometimes a smaller church desperately wants to try something that might result in growth, so they spend money, that perhaps could have been used for other things and try it. Statistically, as the companies will tell you a certain number ought to respond and though we rejoice if even one new person comes and ultimately comes to know Jesus as Savior because of that process, let me suggest another strategy that is more biblical, more successful, and that will probably save your church some money also.

A new strategy—Involve the whole church in seasonal communication

Everyone in the church needs to be involved for holiday and special events to be successful. Everyone needs to be part of and feel responsible for the outreach and growth of your church. When Jesus said:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:18-20)

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

He did not qualify these commands by saying:

"The command to be my witness and to reach your world is only for pastors and for the communication director of the church.”

No—outreach, witnessing, sharing your faith is every believer's task and seasonal celebrations and special events are a great way to be obedient to Jesus' command to be his witness and reach our world. The tools of technology available to us in ministry today make it possible for everyone in the church to have a significant part in the outreach of the entire church.Continue Reading

What Tesla can teach us about successful church marketing

4 March, 2019 By Yvon Prehn 4 Comments

What Tesla has to teach the church about advertising — Yes, a Tesla is a great-looking car, but did you know they outsell EVERY other luxury car brand WITHOUT any advertising? The church can learn something from how they do it.

Did you know that Tesla sells more luxury cars than any other company?
I think the challenge of that question is so important, I did both a blog and article on it. Below is the podcast and then the continuation of the blog:

I was surprised when I read that statistic, but even more interested when I read how they did it. Let me share the terlerati.com comment on it, a chart that illustrates their success, and then I'll talk about how this inspired me about discipleship and church marketing. Then I've got some spiritual challenges for you and then at the end of this some practical tools you can use to put into practice to make your seasonal marketing more successful than ever.

Quickly, name one advertisement you’ve seen recently from Tesla Motors themselves? OK, name any advertisement you’ve seen from the company, ever? Tesla’s marketing strategy is as disruptive as its business model. It lets you and I advertise for them, for free. . . . . Tesla does not spend millions of dollars in a traditional ad campaign. They let you and me discuss it, rave about it, hate on it, or rejoice in the spirit of going electric in a Tesla, be the catalyst to a viral and brilliant marketing campaign. At the end of the day, Tesla advertising is free.

How to involve your congregation in Easter Outreach and why it is so important to do that

3 March, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Bulletin insert for Easter — This FREE bulletin insert will motivate your people to invite their friends to come to church this Easter. Just click on the image to download it.

Ed. note: Our most recent podcast, What Tesla can teach us about successful church marketing talked about the importance of people who love a product talking about it and how understanding this can help us be more effective in outreach marketing. This updated article will help you with Easter communications that you can use to motivate your congregation.

You are no doubt busy planning how you will get a big turnout for your Easter Week activities and that is vitally important work—but you shouldn't have to do it alone.

Why it matters to involve your congregation

It doesn't matter much if you merely think of Easter as a time for chocolate and brunch. It isn't really important if your Easter service is primarily about fun things for kids and a musical extravaganza as uplifting as that might be.

But it does matter tremendously if you believe the message of Easter that Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human died on the cross to pay for the penalty of sin and that He rose bodily from the grave and is our living Savior and coming Lord.

It does matter tremendously if you believe that those who do not trust him as Savior will miss far more than a petting zoo and free candy if they don't attend your church on Easter. The Bible says those who die without Jesus will spend eternity in darkness, pain and conscious regret. Your Easter message can change all that.

We don't like to think about these things in a day when so much of the media message of the Christian faith is about how to entertain people and make them feel good and prosperous. But closing our eyes to eternal realities doesn't make them any less true.

Boldly proclaim the truth of the gospel this Easter and equip your people to invite their friends to hear you.

It isn't only important for you as a church to do this, but by equipping your people and encouraging them to invite their friends, you are helping them grow as disciples of Jesus. You are helping them to evangelism by giving them the tools and coaching to reach out to their friends and you are doing it in a way that is solidly Biblical. One of the best ways for people to come to faith in Jesus is for them to do it in the context of a church family and by introducing friends to the church family through your Easter events they can become part of a group where they can learn about Jesus.

How this insert can help

I have a free set of inserts that will help motivate your congregation to invite their friends. You can use these with a sermon or series on the importance of inviting friends to church for Easter and always. On the back is a place for people to list friends to pray for.

In addition to the Bulletin insert above, there is a larger collection with the same text and idea of motivation to pray for and invite friends to Easter services. They are illustrated below and are in 1/2 and 1/4 sheet of paper sizes. You can download a ZIP file that contains ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files of the images below. It also contains an MS Word file of the text only if you want to create your own publications or use it on the web or in email newsletters or other materials. The link is below the images.

CLICK on the following link to download the ZIP file that has the PDF, MS Publisher, and MS Word files: Easter Why Invite Friends Motivational Materials

Don't think about spending lots of money for purchased church outreach this Easter season. YOU CAN equip and inspire your people to be inviters with materials you create in the church! Have them pray for their friends, bring them to church and be part of introducing them to God's forever family. In other posts and upcoming articles, we'll have lots more ideas and communications to help your congregation invite their friends. CLICK HERE to sign up for notification of new materials.

To get you started, CLICK HERE for a set of Easter Invitations.

GO to the podcast, What Tesla can teach us about successful church marketing