Challenges, commentary, and free templates to help churches create communications that help people come to know Jesus as Savior and grow to mature disciples.

In other words, to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

Effective Church Communications

Timeless training from Yvon Prehn to help churches create communications that will enable them to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

DON’T EVER HOST A MONEY-DIVIDED EVENT!!!!

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Don't let your event pricing hurt children
We don't ever want a child to be embarrassed or left out because of our insensitive pricing at a church summer event.

Ed. note: this is an excerpt from a longer article on summer communication strategy, but I feel the topic is so important, I wanted to post it on it's own.

Yes, that is all caps and I am shouting. I'm going to sound very harsh now, but I feel strongly about this and I think the extensive Biblical support for caring for the "least of these" and being concerned about the poor supports my concern.

Here is the situation I've seen in the PR of some churches (and as is the habit of our ministry, we don't name names of bad examples):

  • The church hosts a summer event but states clearly (or sometimes not at all, which is horrid) that everyone is welcome to free popcorn and punch, but there will be a charge for hotdogs and burgers.
  • Or there will be free chips and salsa, but there is a significant charge for tacos.

How do you think that feels for a family that might have taken a huge step to go to the event they heard that was going on at the church  but they have four kids who would love a hotdog or a taco, but then they find out that there is a charge for food (popcorn and chips do not a meal make) and they simply don't have the money for it. What will they do?Continue Reading

Strategy for summer communications, remember visitors, delete hidden jargon, don’t host a money-divided event

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Summer Image
Your church will have visitors this summer, be sure your communications make sense to them.

This summer your church will get lots of visitors, some of whom are friends of church members who might not regularly go to church, others may be from the surrounding community, and we can't forget out of town visitors. This is a wonderful opportunity to reach out with the gospel and the love of Jesus and here are some strategic tips to help your communications make the most of this opportunity and some strong cautions about what not to do.

Jargon watch

We know we shouldn’t use church jargon terms like justification and sanctification in our church bulletin, web, or social media when we are writing for people visiting our church, but so much of our church jargon we don’t even see. Using acronyms we don't explain, talking about events that we do year after year and assume everyone knows about, insider jokes, assuming people know times and locations—all these things are confusing and unkind to someone visiting. We don't want our language to keep someone with a free night in our city to miss out on an opportunity to learn about Jesus.

What should we do? Awareness is a good first step. Look at your bulletin, web, and social media and ask the Lord to help you see them as a visitor would. Take the time to explain what you know is confusing, even if it benefits only one person. To go further, show your communications to a friend who doesn't go to the church and ask them to tell you what you said. If they have trouble explaining exactly what you are referring to, how to get there, and why they should bother to come you may want to make some changes.

Not for summer only: the above tip is useful to do at least once a year in your church. It becomes impossible for us to see if our communications make sense to anyone outside the church. You have to get that feedback regularly to be sure you are communicating with the people you want to reach.

Ask yourself what would make you feel welcome if you were visiting? 

For local visitors:

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4th of July, Canada Day and GRACE for all nations: slides, videos, handouts

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There is a lot here--slides and videos for you to use both in America for the 4th of July and for all other nations that we pray for God's grace to touch our world.

"God’s love in action towards men who merited the opposite of love."

is one of my favorite definitions of grace and as Jesus's disciples, grace is an attribute and action we can share with a world currently so desperately in need of it.

A few years ago I created a bulletin insert for the 4th of July that uses the acronym "GRACE" as a prayer. Following that, a member of ECC created one for Canada Day. (CLICK HERE to links to both)

That inspired me to take the same acronym of GRACE and make it into a set of PowerPoint Slides you can use however you want and as a prayer video not only for the 4th of July in the United States, but for the many members of Effective Church Communications in other countries around the world.

In the midst of all the rancor and strife that overwhelms our world, one of the most powerful things we can do is to remind our people to pray and encouraging them to exhibit grace to a hurting world by guiding them in prayer for lives that reflect the grace of God.

Below is a set of slides for both the U.S. version of the video and then the world-wide one. Only the intro slides and the last one are different, the ones for the acronym GRACE are the same. Just click the zip file below the slides to download them.

Below the slides are videos of each set with a voice over of me reading the slides to you and one with the music only. Below each video is a DROPBOX link where you can download the video to use for a guided prayer time in your church.

Please use and share with others and pray God will grant us grace to be his people in every situation to those who deserve it and those who don't and desperately need it.Continue Reading

ECC PODCAST: Father’s Day—Beyond celebration—how to make the ministry most of it to grow Dads spiritually

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It's easy to look at Father's Day as just another holiday to do up a special bulletin and social media for and to say a few nice things about Dads during the church service. But did you know you can do so much more as communicators for Jesus?

We need to constantly remind ourselves in the crush of trivia and distraction that our job is not to be a holy version of Hallmark where our goal is to have the most appealing Father's Day social media and PowerPoint ever, but that our primary job in communications, as in all of life if we are followers of Jesus, is to grow as his disciples and to share his message of salvation—in other words, to fully fulfill the Great Commission. Below is our podcast where we explain how Father's Day can be used to grow men in their faith and following the podcast are notes from it and links to the resources mentioned in it.

You might wonder why a church communication article starts out by reminding you of the importance of discipleship, but as followers of Jesus that is the most important aspect of our lives and our work as church communicators is simply the arena in which we carry it out.

Ephesians 5:16-17 reminds us of this and challenges us in this way:

So be careful how you act; these are difficult days. Don’t be fools; be wise: make the most of every opportunity you have for doing good. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to find out and do whatever the Lord wants you to.

At Effective Church Communications, my goal is to remind you to "make the most of every opportunity for doing good" and to give you practical opportunities to do that.Continue Reading

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