Effective Church Communications

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators. 

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators.

Free Christmas graphics inspired by Christmas Carols, formatted for Instagram and Postcards

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Free Christmas Card Social media images based on Christmas Carols
Christmas carols are inspirational for more than singing. They can also inspire our Christmas communications.

Christmas carols are not only wonderful to sing this time of year, but many of the lines in them are both inspiring and encouraging to our faith.

My pastor recently preached a sermon challenging up as to whether we had room in our lives for Jesus. In addition to finding it personally motivating, I also realized it would make a great theme for a Christmas graphic, Instagram image, and postcard.

As is usual with these things, one thing led to another, and I created an entire set of images that you can use for whatever you want, plus they are formatted for Instagram and postcards. In addition, I did a layout of the postcards in MS Publisher and created ready-to-print PDFs that you can print off and use.

Below are pictures of the images and below the images are links to download a ZIP file that has them in various formats.

If you would like to create your own Christmas communications using Christmas Carols

Little Christmas angel
This is another one of the images in the Christmas set below.

All of the wording for the images below came from Christmas carols that are now in the Public Domain and that you can quote freely. Following is the link to a website that has a useful list of Christmas carols, both those that are in the Public Domain and those that are still under copyright protection:

https://www.easysonglicensing.com/pages/help/articles/copyright-law/christmas-songs-in-the-public-domain.aspx

Note: if a song you want isn't on the list above, simply google it, as I had to do for one I wanted.

After you know which ones are free to use, it is then helpful to have the words printed out. Here is a site that has that for you:

http://ldsguy.tripod.com/Christmas.carols.html [Read more...]

A Free Template of the Christmas Story and short gospel presentation based on “Hark the Herald Angels Sing!”

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Christmas evangelism bulletin insert size
This is a set of bulletin insert-size Christmas evangelism publications--please share!

This has been one of our most popular communications for Christmas—it's an upbeat, but thought-provoking presentation of the good news about Jesus for Christmas based on the popular hymn, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing!" and I wanted to share it with you this year.

When I first created the piece it was a full-size sheet and in a 3-panel brochure format, but after sending that out (CLICK HERE for original article and for 8 1/2 x 11-inch size flyers and for brochure size) I got a request to create a bulletin insert-size piece. What a great idea! And I was happy to do that. The images are below and below them a ZIP file for everyone to download ready-to-print PDFs, the editable MS Publisher file, and images of the pieces.

I wrote it and created the communications and you have my permission to share or use it in any way you want.

Be creative in how you use it

Of course, you can print them up and use them at Christmas outreach events or as a bulletin insert.

You can also copy the text or the entire communication and share it on social media for your church or personally.

It's also useful to make copies for your congregation to put into their Christmas letters. Either with the templates here or the ones in the link above (where there is a full-page version), you have my permission to upload any of the PDFs to your church websites for your people to download to print at home and share with their friends and family. I've printed them out for my Sunday School classes and people have greatly appreciated it.

Encourage your congregation to put them into their Christmas cards or enclose with gifts (remembering Jesus is the greatest gift of all!).

[Read more...]

A Christmas letter you can use to share Jesus with your church, friends, and family

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8.5 x 11 size Christmas Evangelism PDFs images_Page_2
A Christmas letter that explains the true meaning of Christmas is an essential outreach tool for your Christmas events.

We want our people to share their faith and this communication gives them an easy and non-threatening way to do it. One year, I posted the material below on our Adult Sunday School Class website and gave out a sample to our adult class. I printed the black and white image on a blue parchment-type paper. I encouraged them to go to the website and print it out for their Christmas letters and to share with friends. You are welcome to copy any or all of it and you can put them on your church or class website for your people to share.

Below the sample that I shared with my class are some color versions, spot-color separations, and versions that are in a tri-fold brochure format. All of these are available in two ZIP files at the end of this article. This letter/brochure or any other piece that clearly explains the reason for Christmas and the meaning of salvation in Jesus is essential for your church to share at all your holiday outreach events. Jesus came to save us from our sins, not to give us reasons to buy stuff or even so we can have wonderful family celebrations. We need to be clear about the true Christmas message to people who may only come to our church at this time of year--this piece gives you an easy and effective way to do it. [Read more...]

How to motivate your people to invite their friends to come to Christmas church events

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You need to motivate your people
Our outreach at Christmas can literally change the eternal destiny of someone. This piece will motivate your people to be inviters.

NO printed or created invitation will do what a person can do. A friend inviting a friend is the most effective invitation. In addition, they can offer to bring their friend to the event, they can introduce them to people at church, and follow up later to invite them back.

Most of us would agree with all the previous statements, but how do we motivate our congregation to do that inviting? This flyer will help you do just that!

In addition to the motivation, the back of it has a place where people can write down a prayer list of the people they want to invite.

This church communication, which can take the form of a printed flyer or bulletin insert or text for a newsletter or email, is a reminder that:

  • Life is scary
  • People are lonely
  • Everyone needs a purpose
  • We're all going to live forever—with a clear message that what we decide about Jesus matters in our personal eternal destiny

The format you get out the message in, digital or on paper isn't important the most important thing. What is most important is that you motivate your congregation to make the most of this opportunity.

Having just said the format isn't the most important, one encouragement to PRINT this piece is that you could make it a bulletin insert and during the service have people take it out because on the backside of the motivational material is a place for a PRAYER LIST for people to list those they want to invite. Take a minute to have people write down, while there in the church service, one or two names of people they want to invite. Tell them to take the list home and either post it on the refrigerator or put in it their Bible where they will be continuously reminded of it.

To emphasize the importance of this, you could later send out an email with the same text reminding them to keep praying and inviting. By using both the print AND digital channel you have a much greater chance that your people will take this challenge seriously and follow through on it.

[Read more...]

Invite visitors to interact with you after Christmas

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After Christmas follow up materials
Either on social media or in the mail, do whatever you can to follow up with Christmas visitors and to help them connect with the church and learn more about Jesus.

If you want to get visitors to interact with your church after Christmas you need to invite them to do that.

Few people will take the initiative to reach out to your church with their questions about the meaning of Christmas, but they might be willing to do so with a gentle invitation from you. In the file below is the card illustrated here, plus more simple and generic ones that invite visitors for coffee and discussion.

The following are communications you can use in either postcard or social media format. Below the images is a ZIP file that contains them as jpg images and in ready-to-print PDF format, and editable MS Publisher format.

Below is the text from the card that you have permission to use in any way you want:

Christmas a bit much?

After all the food, festivities, ho, ho, ho, and perhaps a church service thrown in, do you ever wonder why all the bother?

It certainly doesn’t seem worth it for the commercial excesses all around us.

But what if it was really about God
becoming human?

What if the ancient prophecies that God would be with us to show us what God was like and how to live in a way that pleases him were true?

That would be worth celebrating.

We think that is what Christmas is really about and we’d love to discuss it with you. On the back of this card are ways we can connect.

CLICK following to download the ZIP FILES: Christmas Follow Up Cards