Effective Church Communications

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission

Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and a Biblical Perspective to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. Our tools constantly change; our task doesn’t; we can help.

One Mother’s Prayer—essential encouragement, handout, bulletin insert for Mother’s Day and always

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One Mother's Prayer
This piece a perfect handout for Mother's Day or any time you want encourage people to pray for children.

This short piece, One Mother's Prayer, is a true story that is both an encouragement to pray for children and an assurance of the power of prayer to change a destiny.—

It has been published more times than anything else I've written. It was first published in Today's Christian Woman magazine. It was then published in their Best of Ten Years of writings; it has been reprinted and republished all over the world; and it continues to bring tears to the eyes of any group I read it to. You are free to use it any way you want and share it however you want.

This sample PDF is free to download.You can click here or on the image to download it.

Two more 8 1/2 by 11 plus 4 other versions on half sheet size plus the jpgs of the larger files and an MS Word text file if you want to create your own publication, plus the text file and the link to all the other downloads is after the images below.

This is a great resource not only for Mother's Day, but any time of the year for Mom's groups and prayer groups.

Below are the most current version of the layout:

[Read more...]

Don’t be mean on Mother’s Day

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Sad faceA woman walks into the church. It is Mother’s Day and the church is handing out flowers. But before a woman gets a flower, she is asked, “Are you a Mother?” if the answer is “No” the woman is informed that the flowers are for Mothers ONLY. She turns around and walks away.

What the church forgot

Many women who attend your church on Mother’s Day are not moms. The reasons for that pain are many: they may have lost a child; they may be unmarried and with little prospects of a future marriage. They may be infertile and may not have had enough money for adoption or fertility treatments. They may have prayed for children for years, but for some reason the answer received was “no.” The reasons are many, but the pain felt daily by many of these women is deepened significantly on Mother’s Day. Often this pain is intensified by unintentionally unthinking and unkind actions of churches on Mother’s Day.

Not meaning to be mean doesn’t make it less unkind

Of course you don’t mean to be mean, but consider: in some churches only Moms are clapped for, receive a free brunch, are acknowledged as significant or given other public affirmations. It is obvious and on display if a woman is not a mother. If a woman has spent many private hours crying over her inability to have children, imagine her feelings at that time.

These reminders are not meant as a suggestion not to honor mothers, but honor can be done sensitively and with the feelings of the childless women in mind. One way to do this might be to focus briefly on the joy of physical children but then to shift into a challenge for spiritual parenting that all can be part of. You cannot take away the pain of childlessness, but that pain can be transformed into a vision for ministry. [Read more...]

Training course: How to use Mother’s Day to Grow your Church, Evangelize, and Disciple

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For specific ideas and communications to make the most of Mother's Day, check out the course on the Effective Church Communications Training site: How to use Mother's Day to Grow your Church, Evangelize, and Disciple. CLICK HERE to go to it.

 

 

Mother’s Day Resource List

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From motivational videos and e-books to invitations, postcards, bulletin inserts and one of our most motivations pieces for prayer, Effective Church Communications has materials for you. We have ideas and samples, ready to print PDFs, editable templates, graphics, everything you need for outreach and celebration for Mother's Day at your church.

Following each area is described, just click on the title to go to that selection.

***CLICK ON THE TITLES below to go to the resource.

VIDEO: Mother's Day, communications that will help you make the most of the outreach opportunities, Webinar On-Demand

Take a few minutes to watch this and you'll never look at Mother's Day at your church in the same way.

Mother's Day has the third highest attendance of any Sunday and it isn't because of all the mothers there. It's because of the unchurched spouses and kids who come with mom!

This is a fantastic day for outreach, but you have to intentionally make the most of it. Below is a short video that will give you great ideas on how to do this. I STRONGLY recommend you take a few minutes in your staff meeting to discuss this and plan how you can make the most of this day for outreach.

Included with the video is a PDF of the handouts for the presentation. [Read more...]

How to use Mother’s Day to grow your church

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Mother's Day can be a great time to grow your church!
Though it may be a new thought to many, Mother's Day can be a great time to grow your church.

Most church leaders don't think of Mother's Day as a time for potentially great church growth—but you should. This is because Mother’s Day Sunday is the third highest day for attendance(because of added unchurched people) in North America, running slightly behind Christmas and Easter. Though most churches know this and work hard to make it a special Sunday, many miss significant church growth opportunities for that day— because of the day’s exclusive focus on mothers. Following are some ideas on how to change that in positive ways.

Don't ignore Mothers, but expand your vision

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying churches shouldn’t honor mothers on Mother’s Day. They should; it is an important time to praise mothers and to thank God for them. What I’m recommending is that churches not make mothers their exclusive focus, but that they take advantage of the extra church growth opportunities made possible that day because of mothers.

The growth opportunities come from the visitors. It is easy to forget who these visitors are and why they are there. The reason that churches are so full on Mother’s Day is not because it is the only time of year mothers come to church. Most of the mothers at the church are regular attendees. The reason so many people come to church on Mother’s Day is the unchurched people in the lives of many mothers (spouses and children) rarely, if ever, come to church, but they will come on this day to make mom happy.

This is a great evangelism and church growth opportunity for your church!

Following are some ideas on how to make the most of it:

· Assemble a prayer team to pray, or add to your prayer list, requests specifically for the unsaved, unchurched, and straying family members who will come to church with mom on this Sunday. Pray for sensitivity to their needs. Create attractive invitations for your members to give family members.

· On Mother's Day as a church leader or pastor, acknowledge the visitors who come on Mother’s Day to please an earthly parent and affirm it was a commendable thing to do. Follow that commendation with a lesson/sermon about how they have a heavenly parent who is longing for them come home in faith even more than their mom wanted them to come to church.

· In your sermon, say for the mother what she would want to say to her child. Be honest that an eternity without Jesus means eternal separation from those we love. Acknowledge this is not easy to say and it is not at all comfortable to talk about on this happy day, but to not say things that can make an eternal difference is not expressing love. Love is honest about the consequences of a life lived apart from God.

Do more than preach—additional actions and events can provide great impact and encourage visitors to return

·   Be sure to use connection cards so that you have follow-up information to invite visiting family members back to church next week. At the end of this article are links to some cards that can help you, plus bulletin inserts with the theme of  "Want to make Mom really happy? Come back to church next Sunday!"

· Schedule a very upbeat, outreach-oriented Ministry Fair for that day so visitors can experience and explore what your church does on a regular basis. For example, many single adults (the unchurched adult children who come to church only on Mother’s Day) often don’t have any idea that many churches have fantastic single adult ministry programs. A table with literature, food, and fun people might be just the thing to get them to attend on a regular basis.

·For the unchurched husbands to see the men of your church around a literature table that talks about upcoming construction projects, work days, golf outings or sports events and that is staffed by men who reach out, welcome and engage visiting spouses in conversation is an incredible gift to give to the mom who comes every Sunday on her own.

· Challenge visiting adult children and spouses to make this Mother’s Day the most memorable one ever for their mom by giving her the gift of faith in Jesus—the one Mother’s Day gift that will give her joy forever.

In addition, in your bulletin have a link to information on your website for those who would like to explore the Christian faith in more detail and have the contact name, number and email of people for unchurched and children of people they can contact confidentially if they have questions or would like to discuss your church, the Christian faith, or what a relationship with Jesus is all about.

So much better than a rose

It may be nice to give the Mother's in your church a rose or other toke gift of appreciation, but for you to pray for and actively pursue the Mother's family members who don't know Jesus and to invite them back to church and the Christian faith is far more meaningful. Many of the unchurched family members will come back if you plan, pray for, inform them intelligently and gracefully about the faith, and connect with them for invitations to come back.

Doing those things is much more work than handing out roses, but instead of flowers that fade, you'll not only make the Mothers happy, but you will grow your church.

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For links to a short video that discusses the outreach opportunities around Mother's Day, a FREE ebook about this and additional links to connection cards, bulletin inserts, recipe cards, invitations and other publications related to Mother's Day, click on this link: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2012/04/mothers-day-resource-list/