Effective Church Communications

Lent is for everyone, Templates, text, and a variety of ways to communicate it

By Leave a Comment

Observing Lent isn’t about a denomination, or whether your church is liturgical or not. Lent helps us to put the Christian life into a biblical perspective. It’s a time to practice saying “no” to ourselves in little things so we can say a bigger “yes” to God in the bigger decisions of life.

We know the value of discipline to achieve our goals in every other area of life and this time of year reminds us of the importance of discipline in the Christian life.

The PDFs pictured below are appropriate for any church. You can use them as bulletin inserts with perhaps some additional verses on the back side or invitations or reminders about your Easter schedule. You can post them in newsletters or online, whatever works best for you to encourage your people.

These can be used at the start of Lent or anytime during the Lenten season as a devotion or challenge.

Not only are there already finished templates for you in these sets, but at the end of this post is the text content so you can make your own, or copy and paste that into any church publication you want.

CLICK on the first image in the sets below and you'll see a larger one that you can read.

[Read more...]

The different preaching styles of Peter and Paul and why it matters for Easter follow-up

By Leave a Comment

CLICK on the image to download the FREE ZIP file that give you a PDF and an editable MS Publisher file of this handout to help people explore the Christian faith after Easter.

UPDATE NOTE: This was written in the days of church services where everyone met together and this was designed to be printed as a bulletin insert or handout. However in 2020 with the challenges of Covid19 and many Easter services having taken place online, you can use this same free Template to create a postcard to send to people or as an email or social media piece to send out to people who attended your virtual service. Our service format may have changed, but the questions of people who aren't familiar with the good news of Jesus hasn't. Here is a way to reach out to them.

When people come to your church at Easter for some of them it may be the first time they hear that Jesus died on the cross so they could be forgiven of their sins and be at peace with God. This is not an easy message to understand if you have not grown up in the church. That's why using these bulletin inserts (now postcards or social media) that encourage them to continue an exploration of the Christian faith is so important.

The Apostle Paul preached to an audience with much in common with many of the people who will come to your church this Easter. They were part of a world that held many religious beliefs; they may have even heard of Jesus. But again and again you find the same pattern in the book of Acts—Paul would preach a sermon, but then he followed it with extensive discussions as Acts 18: 4 tells us: "every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks." He didn't just preach and leave, he reasoned, he taught, he got into arguments and debates.

Unlike the Jewish audience where Peter could preach one sermon and because his audience knew who he was talking about and were expecting the Messiah, many would respond immediately as they did at Pentecost when Paul preached it was often to an audience totally unfamiliar with the Old Testament and God's plan of salvation. A positive response took time as this passage in Acts 17 illustrates:

So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.

As the passage says, he took time; once again, he reasoned with and debated the people he was preaching to. We don't know how long he did this, but we know he realized one sermon alone would not convince them of the truth of the resurrection of Jesus.

It won't for a first-time visitor to your Easter service either.

Don't take a lack of immediate response at Easter as an insult, but as an opening to a discussion about and further exploration of Jesus and the Christian faith. These bulletin inserts can help you do that. Below are a choice of designs and following that some ideas for what to put on the back to encourage people to continue in their exploration of Jesus. Below them is a ZIP file of ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher Files.

To download the ZIP file of the bulletin inserts/flyers above click the following link: Still have questions

What to put on the back of the handouts to encourage further engagement and exploration of the Christian faith

[Read more...]

Resurrection Cookies, a Free recipe that will teach children and parents about Easter, and it’s something you can do at home now

By Leave a Comment

Res Cookie Bunny Verstion
Resurrection Cookies are a wonderful way to remind both children and parents of the real meaning of Easter--the Resurrection of Jesus. Plus it's a fun and yummy project!

For a great strategy to teach children about Easter, involve parents, and provide an outreach tool, NOTHING beats Resurrection Cookies.

When you make the cookies, you visually illustrate Jesus suffering, burial, death and resurrection. Because you are doing it with cookies, it is much less intimidating for people who don't go to church to be involved with it.

In other years you can do this with friends and neighbors. This year with everyone staying home it is a wonderful activity for a family.

Below are pictures of a variety of designs for the Recipe. To see larger images of the pages, click on the first image and a larger slide show will come up. The file below them has both PDFs and MS Publisher files for you to download.

Various designs for Resurrection Cookies:

To download the Resurrection Cookie File, click the following link: Church Bunny Resurrection Cookie Files

Later in this article is the text for the handouts, including the introduction, recipe, and Bible verses if you choose to create your own verses of the handouts or if you want to put the material on your website or in a church newsletter. You have my permission to use it freely. The text is the same for all of them—choose a style that suits you best or use the text below to create your own version. [Read more...]

Why inviting people to “Easter” at your church may not get a great response and what to do about it

By Leave a Comment

A simple Easter card
Many of the church outreach pieces I've seen this year are similar to this. They might look nice, but what do they communicate?

A number of years ago, George Barna released one of the results of his studies where he found that over 46% of the random audience surveyed did not know the true meaning of the word "Easter."

I would imagine that statistic hasn't changed much if at all since then.

To most people, Easter is about bunnies, chocolates, and spring flowers. And though we enjoy those things, it's important to remember that Easter is about the pivotable event of cosmic history when the incarnate son of God rose bodily from the grave after giving his life as a payment for our sins.

I'm not writing this as a hand-wringing, oh isn't the world awful observation. For church communicators, it poses some serious challenges. Let's look at them along with some suggested changes.

We need to remember that our audience probably doesn't give the same meaning to religious terms we do

Let's get practical. In looking at many designs church communicators are sharing online, including the ones from some of the major marketing groups, it seems like the majority of them prominently feature the word "Easter" with a variety of designs often surrounded by flowers or colored designs. They all look good, but what do they communicate? [Read more...]

Clarify the meaning of Easter in all your communications

By Leave a Comment

It's not just about Bunnies!
It's not just about Bunnies! We need to be intentional to explain the true meaning of Easter to our communities.

It starts with candy. When shopping for Easter basket goodies, you may notice that you seldom see the chocolate crosses that were sold in the past—today, it's all bunnies and chickies and happy little candy eggs.

Even more than at Christmas time, we need to remind our communities that Jesus is the reason for the season. Easter is the pivotal point of our faith. It is the turning point of all history, when the God who became man in Jesus died on the cross and ROSE from the grave. That is what we celebrate, not a bunny dispensing chocolate eggs. [Read more...]