Training and free templates, challenges and commentary to equip churches to create communications in print and digital formats that help people come to know Jesus as Savior and grow to mature disciples.

Though churches of all sizes are welcome to our resources, our focus is on the smaller church.

Effective Church Communications

Timeless training from Yvon Prehn on church communication strategy, skills, and seasonal outreach.

Summer Connection and Door Prize Drawing Cards, free MS Publisher Templates

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Free Summer Connection Cards
These cards are a great way to get information from summer guests so you can invite them back to activities year round!

Many of your churches are holding community outreach events in the summer. You have a great expectations for them, but often you don't see much church growth after them because you don't work to intentionally connect with the guests who come. This is VERY EASY to do if you offer a great door prize and have people sign up for it.

Below is a set of combined connection and door-prize drawing cards you can download, run off and use. In the download is a set of Free MS Publisher Templates, ready-to-print PDFs, and images.

Click the following link to download a ZIP file of the cards: Summer Connect & Door Prize Drawing Cards

PLEASE read this article on the incredible difference cards like this made for the summer outreach of one church: Why it isn't enough to be a community-friendly, free event-providing church

Summer Recipe Card, a great way to connect with visitors and invite them back to church

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This is a wonderful summer recipe you can print up and give you to church guests. Put information on the back as a reminder of and invitation to your church.

Everybody loves recipes, especially if they are good ones! This one is fantastic! It is for a BBQ Beef Brisket that will literally melt in your mouth.

It comes from a wonderful Texas cook I knew in the past who has now gone home to be with the Lord. But before she left she passed on a number of incredible recipes.

You can print up this card as a gift to connect with visitors at who summer events at your church. On the back of it you can add church information, time, programs etc. and invite people back to visit you anytime.

You never know when someone might decide to come back to a church and if they have a yummy recipe card to remind them, food for the tummy may become food for the soul.

CLICK on the link here to download the PDF and print out the cards: PDF BBQ recipe card

For more on how to connect with visitors

Please check out the link to this article about successful summer outreach: Why it isn't enough to be a community-friendly, free event-providing church

 

Why it isn’t enough to be a community-friendly, free event-providing church

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Intentionally connect with summer guests
Having great food isn't enough, you need to intentionally connect with your summer guests.

With the best of intentions, churches plan community outreach events in the summer: free food and fun festivals of all kinds, free movies, and events that are tied to local summer traditions. Though they often get a large attendance and everyone has fun, we need to ask ourselves, how can they do more for the kingdom of God?

Being community friendly and providing free events isn't enough if we want to use them to grow our church and ultimately to help people come to know Jesus as Savior. Sometimes we need to remind ourselves why we do all the work we are doing. It's easy to fall into the habit of thinking that just doing good things will help people think kindly about our church and Jesus, but we live in a secularized world, where it takes much more than attending a free BBQ to change the eternal destiny of a soul.

To do that takes often sustained contact with your church and to move beyond a one-time interaction at a fun event, you have to be intentional in your interactions and follow-up with your guests. Here's how you can do that:Continue Reading

Strategy for summer communications, remember visitors, delete hidden jargon

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Summer Image
Your church will have visitors this summer, be sure your communications make sense to them.

This summer your church will get lots of visitors, many of whom are friends of church members who might not regularly go to church. This is a wonderful opportunity to reach out with the gospel and the love of Jesus and here are some tips to help your communications make the most of this opportunity.

Jargon watch

We know we shouldn’t use church jargon terms like justification and sanctification in our church bulletin, web, or social media when we are writing for people visiting our church, but so much of our church jargon we don’t even see. Using acronyms we don't explain, talking about events that we do year after year and assume everyone knows about, insider jokes, assuming people know times and locations—all these things are confusing and unkind to someone visiting. We don't want our language to keep someone with a free night in our city to miss out on an opportunity to learn about Jesus.

What should we do? Awareness is a good first step. Look at your bulletin, web, and social media and ask the Lord to help you see them as a visitor would. Take the time to explain what you know is confusing, even if it benefits only one person. To go further, show your communications to a friend who doesn't go to the church and ask them to tell you what you said. If they have trouble explaining exactly what you are referring to, how to get there, and why they should bother to come you may want to make some changes.

Not for summer only: the above tip is useful to do at least once a year in your church. It becomes impossible for us to see if our communications make sense to anyone outside the church. You have to get that feedback regularly to be sure you are communicating with the people you want to reach.

Ask yourself what would make you feel welcome if you were visiting?

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