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.

PODCAST: Why just “Come to Easter at Our Church” isn’t enough in your Easter Outreach materials

By Leave a Comment

We have an opportunity to challenge people with the real meaning of Easter from the start with our invitations--this podcast has some messages you can use in your invitations and other communication resources.

What do you think it is in your Easter Outreach materials that will draw people outside the church to your Easter Services?

We know many people will visit our churches for Easter events—how can we connect them not only with the church, but with a relationship with Jesus?

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.

This podcast will remind you that many unchurched people have no idea why Churches celebrate Easter. They think it's all about bunnies and brunch; chocolate and Spring. We have a great opportunity from the time we send out our first invitational materials to remind them that Easter is about so much more.

[Read more...]

FREE: Thought-provoking text you can use for Easter Communications

By 2 Comments

Explain in WORDS the meaning of Easter.
Though inspiring to believers, we need more than images to explain Easter to unchurched people.

It takes more than inspirational pictures to communicate the extraordinary truth of Easter and to convince people to accept the Jesus of Resurrection as their Savior and Lord.

Though your church might take months to interact and instruct explorers of the Christian faith, I wrote the text for our set of invitation cards to, I hope, to start them down a truthful path by letting them know from the beginning that this day is about more than music and chocolate (though both are wonderful parts of our celebrations). After looking them over, I thought they might be useful to you for social media, on the web, in your bulletin or any other Easter communication. You are free to use them in any way you want without attribution.

As powerful as images might be, we need WORDS to explain the Christian faith. Especially if you are reaching out to unchurched people, they know little to nothing about the images of Easter that are meaningful to you. The image might grab their attention and the words pique their interest to explore.

For the invitations that go with the text below, CLICK HERE.

Looking for something this Easter?

We all are.

It may not be as obvious as a child’s search for candy and Easter eggs, but we all search for something often undefined, but never gone from the whispers in our mind when all around is quiet.

To satisfy our search we collect experiences, toys, relationships, but after all that, often come to the same conclusion as did C.S. Lewis:

If I have found a desire within myself that no experience in this world can satisfy; the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.

Easter is about the other world, the other life Jesus makes possible.

Join us this Easter to find out more.

 

BE FOUND

Most of us go through life searching for something—

Success

Love

Experiences

Self-fulfillment

….all good things, but seldom do we quit searching even after we find them.

The extraordinary news of Easter is that life is that we can quit searching and allow ourselves to be found by Jesus.

That’s what He died and conquered death for—to bring the creation He loved back into a relationship with our Creator.

This Easter join us and learn to rest and learn what it means to let Jesus find you.

 

Easter is about so much more than you can imagine

What do you think your life would be like if you believed in the Jesus?

Boring? Constricted? An endless series of don’t do this or that? Intellectual suicide?

At Easter, consider. . . .

Christians claim that Jesus conquered death. If that’s true imagine what it would mean to become a friend and
follower of Jesus, Someone, totally and eternally ALIVE?

Someone who spoke and the worlds, galaxies, stars and starfish, came into being?

Someone who, when he walked the earth, played with
children, was a great party guest, healed sick people, loved enough to die for all of us.

Challenging, exciting, never-ending and never alone—more than you can ever imagine is the life you can
discover this Easter, in Jesus.

[Read more...]

New and FREE set of 11 Easter Invitation Cards—equip your people for Easter Outreach and inviting!

By Leave a Comment

Free Easter Invitation Cards
Your people inviting their friends is your BEST method of outreach for Easter. This business card size invitation with your church's specifics on the back will work well.

In a recent podcast and blog, I strongly encouraged you to focus on the people in your church as your primary way to reach out to your community at Easter (and for every other seasonal celebration).

In doing this you will help your people be obedient to the Great Commission—to go into all the world and share their faith. This is a natural method of evangelism and helping your people grow as disciples when they pray for, ask, perhaps take to church, and go out to brunch their unchurched friends. It's a tremendously effective, Biblical alternative to buying an anonymous mailing and sending it out to strangers.

(SIDE NOTE: there is nothing wrong with mailings or postcards—I've got a lot of free designs for you and they can be very effective. It is the anonymous part that is bothersome. If you create your own postcards and YOUR PEOPLE mail them out or give them away with a personal note, and best of all follow up on the sent invitation, they can be very effective.)

Though we have many free templates for the holidays and there will be more new ones for Easter in the coming weeks, I just finished a set of business-card-size invitation cards. Below are pictures of them and below that a ZIP file of the cards you can download, modify, and use. The cards are in ready-to-print PDF format and in editable MS Publisher files. All the artwork is copyright free and legal to use and the designs are mine and I freely grant the rights for you to do with them whatever you want.

When putting together these cards, take time to make sure the website and social media you link to is up-to-date and welcoming. Even better would be to have links to sites or blogs or videos from people at your church that explain the Christian faith and why Easter is so important. Be sure you have a contact person (or a team) who will answer the phone, text messages, or emails if people have questions.

This is a fantastic opportunity and time to equip your people for Easter Outreach—be sure you make the most of it!

To download the ZIP file with the cards, click on the following link: Easter Invitation Cards, Bus Card Size

 

What Tesla can teach us about successful church marketing

By 6 Comments

What Tesla has to teach the church about advertising
Yes, a Tesla is a great-looking car, but did you know they outsell EVERY other luxury car brand WITHOUT any advertising? The church can learn something from how they do it.

Did you know that Tesla sells more luxury cars than any other company?
I think the challenge of that question is so important, I did both a blog and article on it. Below is the podcast and then the continuation of the blog:

I was surprised when I read that statistic, but even more interested when I read how they did it. Let me share the terlerati.com comment on it, a chart that illustrates their success, and then I'll talk about how this inspired me about discipleship and church marketing. Then I've got some spiritual challenges for you and then at the end of this some practical tools you can use to put into practice to make your seasonal marketing more successful than ever.

Quickly, name one advertisement you’ve seen recently from Tesla Motors themselves? OK, name any advertisement you’ve seen from the company, ever? Tesla’s marketing strategy is as disruptive as its business model. It lets you and I advertise for them, for free. . . . . Tesla does not spend millions of dollars in a traditional ad campaign. They let you and me discuss it, rave about it, hate on it, or rejoice in the spirit of going electric in a Tesla, be the catalyst to a viral and brilliant marketing campaign. At the end of the day, Tesla advertising is free.

[Read more...]

How to involve your congregation in Easter Outreach and why it is so important to do that

By Leave a Comment

Bulletin insert for Easter
This FREE bulletin insert will motivate your people to invite their friends to come to church this Easter. Just click on the image to download it.

Ed. note: Our most recent podcast, What Tesla can teach us about successful church marketing talked about the importance of people who love a product talking about it and how understanding this can help us be more effective in outreach marketing. This updated article will help you with Easter communications that you can use to motivate your congregation.

 

You are no doubt busy planning how you will get a big turnout for your Easter Week activities and that is vitally important work—but you shouldn't have to do it alone.

Why it matters to involve your congregation

It doesn't matter much if you merely think of Easter as a time for chocolate and brunch. It isn't really important if your Easter service is primarily about fun things for kids and a musical extravaganza as uplifting as that might be.

But it does matter tremendously if you believe the message of Easter that Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human died on the cross to pay for the penalty of sin and that He rose bodily from the grave and is our living Savior and coming Lord.

It does matter tremendously if you believe that those who do not trust him as Savior will miss far more than a petting zoo and free candy if they don't attend your church on Easter. The Bible says those who die without Jesus will spend eternity in darkness, pain and conscious regret. Your Easter message can change all that.

We don't like to think about these things in a day when so much of the media message of the Christian faith is about how to entertain people and make them feel good and prosperous. But closing our eyes to eternal realities doesn't make them any less true.

Boldly proclaim the truth of the gospel this Easter and equip your people to invite their friends to hear you.

It isn't only important for you as a church to do this, but by equipping your people and encouraging them to invite their friends, you are helping them grow as disciples of Jesus. You are helping them to evangelism by giving them the tools and coaching to reach out to their friends and you are doing it in a way that is solidly Biblical. One of the best ways for people to come to faith in Jesus is for them to do it in the context of a church family and by introducing friends to the church family through your Easter events they can become part of a group where they can learn about Jesus. [Read more...]