Fourth of July & Summer celebrations

Don’t let August vacations include times away from church–FREE POSTCARD reminders to help

5 August, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Summer postcard — A little reminder may be all someone needs to get them to return to church instead of taking a vacation from it!

August is the last month of vacation for many and in many churches the time when attendance drops to an all-time low.

Though understandable, sometimes all people need is a reminder that God doesn't take a vacation and neither does the church. The set of postcards here are part of a FREE ZIP file (link below the images) that you could send out to people who perhaps have been sporadic in their attendance during the summer. The cards are upbeat and encouraging and an easy way to let people know you are thinking about them.

You could also make up extra cards for members of the congregation to address and send to friends that they know may have missed church in the summer.

The FREE ZIP file below the images has ready-to-print PDFs of the cards, an editable MS Publisher file, and images of the cards you could use on your website or email newsletters.

Click the following link to download the cards above: SUMMER POSTCARDS church reminder

Back-to-church invite cards for late summer events–Free Templates and PDFs

5 August, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Summer Back to Church Invitation Card — If you are holding a summer community outreach event, these cards are essential to bring visitors back to your church.

Many churches hold end-of-the-summer events. Ours ours does a Lemon Festival with a free community BBQ and a huge lemon dessert contest. We are a neighborhood church that was built in a former lemon grove and the festival is a fun and fitting way to invite the community to the church one more time.

If your church is doing something like that, make the most of the event by giving everyone an invitation card that invites them back to church. If you are truly reaching out to people who don't normally attend church, they have no idea what else you do or when you do it.

A card that gives details and links to your website and social media can make all the difference.

Below are some FREE templates for you to use to make business-card size back-to-church reminder cards and you can personalize them by putting your information on the back. The ZIP File for them has a ready-to-print PDF, plus editable MS Publisher files and image files in hi and low resolutions.

To download the ZIP file that contains the cards above, click this link: Back to church invite cards for summer events

Please take a few minutes to make up something like this for your end-of-summer events, it can make all the difference for a guest who needs to find the Lord.

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For more SUMMER Templates: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/summer-themed-templates/

DON’T EVER HOST A MONEY-DIVIDED EVENT!!!!

7 July, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Don't let your event pricing hurt children — We don't ever want a child to be embarrassed or left out because of our insensitive pricing at a church summer event.

Ed. note: this is an excerpt from a longer article on summer communication strategy, but I feel the topic is so important, I wanted to post it on it's own.

Yes, that is all caps and I am shouting. I'm going to sound very harsh now, but I feel strongly about this and I think the extensive Biblical support for caring for the "least of these" and being concerned about the poor supports my concern.

Here is the situation I've seen in the PR of some churches (and as is the habit of our ministry, we don't name names of bad examples):

The church hosts a summer event but states clearly (or sometimes not at all, which is horrid) that everyone is welcome to free popcorn and punch, but there will be a charge for hotdogs and burgers.
Or there will be free chips and salsa, but there is a significant charge for tacos.

How do you think that feels for a family that might have taken a huge step to go to the event they heard that was going on at the church but they have four kids who would love a hotdog or a taco, but then they find out that there is a charge for food (popcorn and chips do not a meal make) and they simply don't have the money for it. What will they do?Continue Reading

Strategy for summer communications, remember visitors, delete hidden jargon, don’t host a money-divided event

5 July, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

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, some of whom are friends of church members who might not regularly go to church, others may be from the surrounding community, and we can't forget out of town visitors. This is a wonderful opportunity to reach out with the gospel and the love of Jesus and here are some strategic tips to help your communications make the most of this opportunity and some strong cautions about what not to do.

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.