Effective Church Communications

Halloween and Fall Outreach Resources for 2021

26 October, 2021 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

This is a quick overview of some of the new resources for Halloween and Fall outreach for 2021.

Yes--I am late on getting this out there and I greatly apologize. But PLEASE take the time to check out the FREE handouts that you have enough time to make up for your upcoming Fall or Halloween Outreach. They can be made up quickly and you can put them into goodie bags that you give out.

It is so important that you do more than just give out free candy and provide a good time for people in your community. This season is a great opportunity to connect people with the one Person in all of history who conquered death—Jesus.

Click the following link to go directly to the handouts you can give to people for them to find out more about Jesus: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/templates-harvest-festival-and-halloween/

Click the following link here to go to the video on Who is Jesus Really: https://bible805.com/who-is-jesus-rea...

This video is an in-depth study of what those outside the Christian faith, who lived near the time of Jesus had to say about Him. If you've heard people say that the stories about Jesus were myths that were made up hundreds of years after his death, this should definitively refute those false claims and give you greater confidence that the Jesus we read about in the Bible is the Jesus of true history.

For ebooks on Halloween Outreach & Successful Seasonal Outreach, plus printables on Life after Death, go to: https://www.payhip.com/Bibleverseshop

Free excerpt of the ebook Halloween, a great time for evangelism

20 October, 2021 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Halloween & Fall Festivals — This book has articles and advice on how to make the most of this time of year for evangelism.

One of the core teachings of Effective Church Communications is that we can take any seasonal celebration and use it as an opportunity to share the gospel.

It might seem that one of the more challenging holidays to apply that teaching is Halloween but in reality, it is one of the easiest ones. That's because this is the one time of year when people are thinking about the afterlife, of life after death. Granted the secular view of this is distorted, but it does make a great bridge to a discussion about the reality that we are eternally existing souls.

Most people believe they will live forever, but the question is, if we are going to live forever, what neighborhood will we live in?

Halloween acknowledges there is a neighborhood of hellish horror and evil. Though people might make fun of it, they can't help but wonder what truth there is to the existence of demons and everlasting punishment. Along with that is the almost universal belief or wish, if you will, of an afterlife of light reunited with loved ones.

But how can you be sure?

Halloween gives Christians the opportunity to share why they believe that Jesus is the only Savior who conquered death and who can give us eternal life and peace and a home in the neighborhood of joy if we trust Him as Savior.

The book, Halloween, a great time for evangelism is filled with ideas, tips, plans, and communications that will help you do that.

For a free download of an excerpt of the book, click the following link: Pages from Halloween & Fall Festivals

The complete book is part of the Effective Church Communication Library; click the following link to sign up for the ECC Library and download it: https://payhip.com/b/mqoWE

For Successful Fall & Winter Outreach Publications: Clarify and Coordinate for greater lasting impact

19 October, 2019 By Yvon Prehn

welcoming people — If you are planning a fall or winter outreach event at your church, these tips will help you have lasting success from it.

Fall and winter are two prime times for churches to plan outreach events for their communities. Large amounts of time and money are spent on these events and often the church gets a great community response to the free Harvest Festival or Family Thanksgiving Dinner or Community Caroling and Hot Chocolate Party. But seldom do these activities generate the kind of continuing church involvement a church hopes for. I'd like to offer some suggestions on how to CLARIFY and COORDINATE your message for greater lasting impact.

If you don't want to waste your time and money the following tips are essential!

To help you understand how important this is and to give you a sense of how futile it is to hold events without good communication to clarify and coordinate your message, primarily for the ladies reading this, think about when you buy cosmetics at the department store or online and you are given some free samples. (The gentleman reading this may or may not have some sort of similar situation, regardless the example will make sense.) The company that makes the cosmetics don't have the samples in the middle of the mall set up on a pretty display that says, "FREE FOR ALL." No, you go to the specific cosmetic counter and you know without a doubt who is giving them to you. [Read more...]

A Case Study to help you be more successful in recruiting volunteers, using Trunk or Treat as an example

8 September, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Sucessful fall church outreach — Fall is a great time for church outreach and the ideas here will make sure you get enough volunteers to make your event successful.

Yvon's note: though this material and the video is several years old, it has some extremely useful material that will help you be successful in your fall outreach. Consider the production values and artwork a retro memory and learn from the timeless principles represented.

Recruiting enough volunteers is always a challenge for any church event and few are the churches that report they have enough. When the event takes place and there are not enough people, not only is it tiring for the staff and the volunteers that are there, but it is spiritually trying also. When this happens, we ask ourselves:

Why didn't more people help?
Don't people care about their neighbors?
Doesn't outreach matter?

These and many other questions haunt us and make us hesitant to be enthusiastic about upcoming events.

In evaluating many instances of this kind, I've put together the online Video below that has a Case Study with specifics and samples that I trust will help you be more successful in recruiting people for your next church outreach event.

As you can imagine (this being a church communication ministry) I believe that the primary problem with not getting enough volunteers is in the communication that comes from the church—the problem is not in our people, but in us. Often we don't communicate nearly as well as we think we did to let people know how much we needed their help or even, as you'll see in the case of Trunk or Treat, even what the event is about.

This video would be excellent to watch with your church staff. Remember you can click on the little box of arrows at the bottom of the video to blow it up full size on your screen. Simply hook up the computer to a projector and you can show it to the entire staff. [Read more...]

Get a head start on Fall Communications—many FREE TEMPLATES to inspire you

2 September, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Fall festival card — This is just one of the fall templates free for you-there are many more in the Template Section.

No matter how you decide to hold outreach fall events this year, the following generic templates might be useful.

Following the Link are images of the Templates. They are in both ready-to-print PDF format (where you can personalize them on the back) and editable MS Publisher files.

HERE is the link to the FALL Templates: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/templates-harvest-festival-and-halloween/