Effective Church Communications

Notes to Boomer church leaders as you prepare for Easter

9 April, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

We may be shocked at today's culture and amazed at what people don't know about Easter, but we can't let those attitudes make us less effective as we reach out to our world with a clear message about the resurrection of Jesus. This article has some practical tips to help.

You don’t have to be an astute analyst of the culture to understand that we live in a far different world than Baby Boomers grew up in. Many Boomer church leaders may be aware of the changes in life, technology, and culture (“You can show that on TV now?), while at the same time planning for Easter church celebrations the same way they did when Ozzie, Harriet and family was the target audience. Being shocked about TV is one thing, sticking with outdated and ineffective ways to promote and celebrate Easter has far more serious consequences.

If you want share the power of our risen Lord in ways that will change people today and forever, you may need a new strategy, but before we get into that, let me be clear. . . .

This isn’t about Boomer bashing, any age group can make the same incorrect and ineffective assumptions

The mindset that needs a new strategy isn’t confined to any one age group, though many leaders in the Boomer generation seem to be stuck in it. I’m not bashing Boomers, this is my generation and many of my peers in ministry provided the inspiration for this article. The mindset (not the age range) that I see with Boomer friends and church leaders of various ages, but similar mindset, assumes:

People outside the church know the basics about the Christian faith and what’s in the Bible.
Your community members know the story of Easter and are looking for a place to celebrate it.
All we have to do to get them to get saved and be part of our church is to have the biggest, loudest, most colorful Easter service in town, complete with a petting zoo for kids and brunch served on the premises.

These assumptions range from totally incorrect to ineffective.

As we plan Easter outreach and celebration, we need to realize that contrary to the assumptions above:

[Read more...]

PODCAST: Connection Cards—What really works best to get people back to your church after Easter is one of the least impressive things you do

2 April, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Easter Connection Cards — This is one of a downloadable set of Connection Cards for Easter. They are one of the most effective tools to make sure people come back after a special service.

Following is a text version of the PODCAST

Many churches go all out for Easter celebrations: special music, drama, free food, an Easter egg hunt or petting zoo for the kids. Though all these things are fun and may impress visitors with the ability of your church to put on a special event, there is one thing they probably won't do—get people to return to church the next Sunday. Almost every church experiences disappointment the Sunday after Easter because few of the visitors return.

It doesn't have to be this way. Following are 3 Reasons why big, special, Easter events won't get people back next Sunday. That's the bad news. The good news is that one of the least impressive things you do, the lowly communication tool of a Connection Card, can do what the big events can't. The big events might get people there on ONE Sunday, but it's the quiet link the Connect Card provides that will help them come back.

What follows is a little bit brutal, but done to shake us from our complacency. We have an opportunity to change the eternal destiny of people who visit our churches on Easter Sunday and we need to be honest with ourselves why they often don't come back.

Reason #1: Your special activities weren't very special to your unchurched audience

A painful reality check is necessary here. In the days when many people lived on farms and TV options (if you had a set) were limited to three choices, the music and special events put on by the church were a big deal in the community. In the days when no one had attended a live concert or watched a streaming one, the Living Nativity Scene (complete with animals) at church was awe-inspiring and the Easter Musical was magical. Not so much today. [Read more...]

PODCAST: Beyond the Easter Egg Hunt—ways to involve children in Easter outreach and evangelism

24 March, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

What are you planning for children at your church and community this Easter?

In addition to fun, have you thought about how the children themselves can be involved in Easter outreach and evangelism?

Hi, I’m Yvon Prehn and welcome to the Effective Church Communications Podcast!

I’ve got some ideas for how you can do that in today’s podcast:

Beyond the Easter Egg Hunt—ways to involve children in Easter outreach and evangelism

Following are notes from the Podcast, along with links to the free templates talked about in it. [Read more...]

Free Church Bunny Easter Invitation to encourage children to be inviters

23 March, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Easter Church Bunny Invitation for kids to invite friends for Easter — An invitation like this can encourage kids to invite their friends for Easter.

Not only is Easter a wonderful time to host events for children, but it's a great time to train children to invite their friends to church. Seasonal celebrations are not only a time where you can grow your church in numbers, but you can also intentionally use it as a time to grow your people in discipleship when you provide tools for them to invite their friends.

In addition to the invitations, you can encourage them to pray for unchurched friends, offer to pick them up for Easter events, and invite them back in the following weeks. Not only adults, but children can be part of this and you can work on instilling life-long habits in them of inviting, praying for, and involving friends in church.

To help you do that, here is a FREE Church Bunny Easter invitation. If you click on it, you not only get the ready-to-print PDF as we've done with FREE church communications in the past, but you get a ZIP file that has the PDF and the editable MS Publisher file. CLICK HERE or on the image to go to it.

More choices available for the children at your church

In addition to the FREE Church Bunny Invitation above, there are additional free options below. To see a larger version of the invitation, click on any of them and you'll see an enlarged slide show.

Click on the link following to download the Church Bunny Easter Invitations above: Church Bunny Invitations

FREE Easter Jelly Bean Prayer for Children’s Ministry

23 March, 2019 By Yvon Prehn 1 Comment

By using the colors of Jelly Beans, this prayer is a visual way to share the gospel message to children—and to the adults with the children—sometimes candy isn't nearly as intimidating as a sermon.

It is useful at Easter to enclose in goodie bags, to use as an invitation, use as an illustration during a lesson or children's sermon.

The one to the right is an easy download for everyone, just CLICK HERE or on the image to download a ready-to-print PDF of it. Additional designs are illustrated below.