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.
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We are at the half-way point with Lent and here are 40 challenging images for you to use however you want

21 March, 2022 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Lenten Set of images from Effective Church Communications
This is the first of 40 images for you to download and use during Lent or anytime to help people grow in their walk with Jesus.

Lent isn't just for Lent. What I mean by that is Lent is a specific time when we can focus on denying ourselves so we can live more fully for God.

It is about so much more than giving up chocolate or social media or whatever other external thing we choose during this time. At its best, Lent is a time for quiet self-evaluation so we can grow more deeply to become who God wants us to be.

In that self-evaluation, it's time to add virtues, practices to our lives that will help us become more like Jesus.

What I have for you to inspire you during Lent

To guide you through Lent, I created a set of 40 inspirational images and I then wrote a brief challenge or thought-provoking idea to go with them.

I put the challenges into a free downloadable journal for you, plus they are on daily Instagrams, and in my favorite form, on a daily short YouTube video (less than a minute), where I read them to you along with a challenge and prayer. Please check that out--CLICK HERE to go to the channel. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Easter, FREE Materials, Free Social Media Images, INSTAGRAM Images, Lent Tagged With: challenging images for Christian growth, Free Instagram church images, free Lenten images, Lenten resources

Social media images for Easter with challenging messages

19 March, 2022 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Easter message--and free Instagram images
Though a little more wordy than some Instagram images, this challenges people to think about why Jesus is the reason for the Easter season.

Because so many people think that Easter is only about bunnies and brunch we need to share with our invitations and in all our communications about Easter that it is about so much more!

This is a continuation of the topic discussed in Why just "Come to Easter at Our Church" isn't enough--FREE invitations with short, but powerful messages

Because so many people think that Easter is only about bunnies and brunch we need to share with our invitations and in all our communications about Easter that it is about so much more!

These social media images (the zip file has images sized for Instagram) will help you do that. They are free for you to download, share, and use in any way you'd like. The ZIP file is below the images. Click on the first image and they will enlarge for you to read the text more clearly. You can read them fine on your phone.

CLICK HERE to download the ZIP FILE with the images: Easter Social Media Images

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Filed Under: Easter Tagged With: easter social media, Free images for Easter outreach, Instagram for Easter

Why just “Come to Easter at Our Church” isn’t enough–FREE invitations with short, but powerful messages

19 March, 2022 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

The images in this collection are the least important part of them. Much more important is the message that reminds people why Jesus is the reason for the Easter Season.

I'm part of several church communication discussion groups and recently people have been sharing their outreach ideas for Easter. They all look great, but I am concerned that many of them simply say something like "Easter at whatever the church is." Now there is nothing wrong with that if you go to the church and want your people to know what time your services are being held. But there is a challenge with an invitation like that if you want to use Easter as a time to reach out to your community.

Not everyone knows that Easter has anything to do with anything spiritual

We often talk about how we need to remind people that "Jesus is the reason for the season" at Christmas, but no matter how secular the Christmas celebration, most people still know it had something to do with the birth of Jesus even if they don't think of it as particularly meaningful.

It's not like that for Easter. Biola University quoted a Barna study that shared statistics similar to many other studies:

About two-thirds (67 percent) of Americans surveyed related the holiday as something religious or spiritual. But just two percent said they thought it was about the birth of Christ and another two percent said it was about the rebirth of Jesus. Only 1 percent related it to the second coming of Jesus, while 3 percent just thought it was a celebration of spring or a pagan holiday.

Looking at the non-religious segment, 13 percent of Americans said they were not sure how to describe Easter. Many of their recurring answers were spring break, rebirth, hiding eggs, candy, children and bunnies.

http://chimes.biola.edu/story/2010/mar/23/easter-barna/

Don't do a bait and switch at Easter

If, as the above statistics show (and they are a few years old and I imagine the situation has gotten even worse) few people outside your church have a true idea of what Easter is about, if you send out something that only says something like "Come to Easter Celebrations at our Church" your audience will be thinking chocolate and brunch—not a challenging message and celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.

To not only give people an idea of what Easter is all about, but to get them thinking, asking questions about life and death and faith, I created some Easter invitations with thought-provoking messages.

There are many ways to use the invitations:

  • You can print them up as postcards as is or you can use any image you want with whatever message you want. An idea for how to get postcards out to your community without the church paying for postage is below the set of images.
  • You can use a related image and swap it out on the postcard layout.
  • If you have your own branded Easter theme, fell free to use the message part with any image you have.
  • I also have a separate file of just the text. You can use the text message in a newsletter, social media, or any way you would like to get the message out there.

Below the set of images is a ZIP file that has all the invitations in PDF ready-to print format and editable MS Publisher files. PLEASE CLICK on the first image below and it will enlarge to show you the text that goes with the images.

To download the ZIP file of the invitations, CLICK the following link: Easter INVITATIONS 2017

For a FREE file of the text alone that goes with the cards, CLICK HERE.

How to get out Postcards cost-effectively and in a way that will help your congregation grow in their faith

You can print these invitations at your church and then on Sunday put 5 invitations in everyone's bulletin. During the service the pastor can stand and say,

"As you can see you all have 5 Easter invitations in your bulletin. I know you've prayed for friends to invite to our Easter services and here is a tangible way to do it.

You can either mail the invitation or hand-deliver it to your friends. After that continue to pray and follow-up.

Offer to drive your friends to church on Easter and invite them to brunch afterwards to see if they have questions. You can invite them back next week and encourage them to become involved in the church on a continuing basis.

We all know we should be sharing our faith in Jesus and this is an easy and enjoyable way to do it!"

To start the motivation process to get your congregation excited about inviting friends, go to this article: Why it matters if you invite your friends to Easter services

Easter is the most important holiday of the Christian year—let's to all we can to fully involve our congregations and reach out to our community at this time.

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Filed Under: Church Outreach and Marketing, Easter Tagged With: Easter invitations, print your own Easter invitations, printable Easter invitations, unique Easter invitations

An assortment of Lenten Resources including an eBook for Lenten Devotions and two Lenten flyers to share

27 February, 2022 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Perhaps it is part of getting older, perhaps it is part of traveling for a longer time with the Lord, but my view of Lent has shifted from in the past where I either 1) totally ignored it, or 2) resented having to observe it, or 3) gritted my teeth at whatever I was giving up and couldn't wait until it was over.

That has changed. I now see life as a kind of retreat, a time to slow down, to take time to focus on changes I want to make in my life so that I can better serve the Lord. I look forward to how He is going to work in my life and somehow Lent seems to give me an extra strengthening to do spiritual work.

Some of this shift has taken place as I worked on the Lenten Devotional Journal I'm sharing with you. I started work on it a year ago and as I've gone over various parts of it, many of the quotes in it from Christian saints in the past have challenged me deeply. I need all the help I can get to grow in godliness and to become more like my Lord. I'll be going through the booklet as a reader this Lent and I hope you'll join me.

Lenten Devotional Journal Cover Lenten Devotional Journal

I encourage you to use it in your personal devotions and you have my permission to make as many copies of it as you want for your church. Or you can post it on your website or link to it via social media for people in your congregation to download. Click on the image of the cover here to download it.

I am terribly sorry I didn't get it to you sooner. Health and work issues have been a challenge.

Lenten flyers to give out at any time during Lent

I took two of the devotions in the booklet, modified them slightly, and make them into the single flyer below that I'm going to put with my devotional booklet to remind me of behavioral changes I need to make. Click on the single flyer to download a copy of it and again, for this and the other flyers, you have permission to make as many copies as you want to share. You can see a larger version of the flyers by clicking on them. They have white backgrounds and when you click on them, you'll be able to read them more clearly. 
Fasting to Feasting

 

 

 

Three versions of alternate ways to observe denying yourself at Lent

This flyer reminds us that there are many ways we can say "no" to ourselves and "yes" to God. To download a ZIP file of the flyers, CLICK HERE: Self Denial Options For Lent

To download a ZIP file of the flyers, CLICK HERE: Self Denial Options For Lent

 

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Filed Under: Easter, FREE Materials, Lent, Misc. Advice and Articles Tagged With: Free Lenten Devotion, free Lenten handouts, Free Lenten materials for any church

From our vault: Everything you need for Easter: Templates, strategy, inspiration and encouragement for all your Easter communications

21 February, 2022 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Easter Invitation
This is one of the Easter Invitation Templates. You can link to dozens more from this article.

Effective Church Communications has dozens of Resources, including articles, podcasts, and FREE Templates you can use for all the Easter communications you need for before, during, and after Easter.

These are from our Template and Podcast vaults--we will be creating new ones for 2020, but I know many of you want to get started on Easter planning and many of these designs and the strategy linked to them are timeless.

The FREE templates have all the work of communications done for you: the design, layout, choice of type and copyright-free artwork is all done saving you many hours. The Templates are in both ready-to-print PDF format (which you can personalize on the back) and easy to modify, MS Publisher files. Please let others know about these resources. Following is the link to all of them:

All Communications Easter Templates
http://wp.me/PDky9-6Qx

We have much more than the Templates themselves because if you are going to be truly effective in your use of them, you need a wise strategy underpinning what you do. The podcasts, article links that follow, and the Church Communications Training course (link at the end) will give that to you.

Podcasts:

Last minute helps before Easter

In case you missed these—Essential Easter Communications Templates, ready to print and use
https://wp.me/pDky9-7b9

Last minute checklist for Easter Sunday to assure visitor connections
https://wp.me/pDky9-5pu

Social media images for Easter with challenging messages
https://wp.me/pDky9-8

Communications Before

Great card to motivate your congregation to invite and pray!

Why it matters if you invite your friends to Easter services
http://wp.me/pDky9-6YB

Free Church Bunny Easter Invitation to encourage children to be inviters
http://wp.me/pDky9-71c

GIS: Innovative way to invite people to Easter services: "Egg" your neighborhood!
http://wp.me/pDky9-3dI

We've got a great selection of invitations for you for Easter!

Easter Invitations and how to use them effectively
http://wp.me/pDky9-6Il

Effective Easter Outreach: Door-hangers, an invitation you can't ignore
http://wp.me/pDky9-2n0

No time? Little money? Essential Easter Communications Panic Pack to the Rescue!
http://wp.me/pDky9-7b1

Communications During

Last minute checklist for Easter Sunday to assure visitor connections
http://wp.me/pDky9-5pu

Bookmarks and Bulletin inserts that explain what you do regularly for Easter Visitors to return
http://wp.me/pDky9-75C

Effective WEBSITE strategy for Children's Ministry Easter follow-up
http://wp.me/pDky9-ip

Expect and encourage questions at Easter, PLUS ways to answer them
http://wp.me/pDky9-1gQ

FREE Easter Jelly Bean Prayer for Children's Ministry
http://wp.me/pDky9-1dn

Resurrection Cookies, a Free recipe that will teach children and parents about Easter
http://wp.me/pDky9-1dD

Make it OK for visitors to reject Jesus at Easter    
https://wp.me/pDky9

Don't expect unchurched people to feel the same way about Easter as you do
https://wp.me/pDky9-7t

 

You have to get information from people to be able to contact them and invite them back--our connection cards will do that!

Connection Cards, why they work best to get people back to church after Easter
http://wp.me/pDky9-79t

Recipe for Greek Easter Bread, an outreach treat for Easter guests
http://wp.me/pDky9-2oK

Communications After

Easter Follow-up: postcards, email messages for coffee & conversation, latte with the pastor
http://wp.me/pDky9-7cq

Post-Easter communication evaluation tips to help your church grow
http://wp.me/pDky9-7cq

Follow-up after a church holiday outreach event: speed dating or relationship building?
https://wp.me/pDky9-27s

Overall Strategy

Look inward before you reach outward: make sure your church is ready for holiday and special event outreach guests
http://wp.me/pDky9-2Sc

What can happen if you if you work hard on your event, but don’t work on event communications
http://wp.me/pDky9-2T6

Clarify the meaning of Easter in all your communications
http://wp.me/pDky9-5H8

Make it OK for visitors to reject Jesus at Easter
http://wp.me/pDky9-5H5

Tune Up your church technology for Easter—FREE PDF download of Ministry Tech Cover Story by Yvon Prehn
http://wp.me/pDky9-740 [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Easter Tagged With: church communications for Easter, Free Easter resources, List of FREE EASTER RESOURCES, Templates for Easter

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