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; Effective Church Communications can help.

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: [Read more...]

Canada Day bulletin insert on GRACE for the nation and one for the U. S.

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Georgia Bamber, an ECC Member, sent me a GREAT example of modification of the bulletin insert and prayer for the 4th of July that used the acronym GRACE as a prayer for America. She took the same idea and applied it to Canada Day!

She was then kind enough to send me a PDF of her creation which I've attached as a PDF and which you can download by clicking on the image at the beginning of the article.

4th of July Bulletin Insert
Georgia took this publication and modified it to apply for Canada Day.

You have both my permission and my encouragement to do the same for your country. Make it your own—modify the text and the headers to apply to where you live.Use this to remind your people who God wants all nations to experience His grace and to remind your people to pray for it.

Here are the words on the flyer that you can use as a prayer guide, bulletin insert, or an encouragement to pray for your nation either at your national celebration like Canada Day or the 4th of July or anytime your people need a reminder of the need for God's grace in the affairs of our world. If you do one for another country, please send me a copy and I'll pass it on! Send to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

[Read more...]

Summer ministry opportunities—ideas from many churches

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Summer outreach
There are so many fun festivals your church can do to reach out to your community. Pick one from this article and do it!

Communicating with scores of ministry assistants throughout the country, I’ve learned many churches are using the exceptional evangelism and fellowship opportunities of the season to full advantage. Said one, “God’s work through our church does not take a sabbatical when it gets hot out.”

Some of their summertime activities:

  • Mega yard sale. All church members contribute; the community is invited; church music provided; free lemonade; brochures about church activities distributed; members mingle.
  • Day trips for parents and kids. Church bus used to take group to art museum, zoo, and other local attractions. On the ride: skits and sing-alongs.
  • A huge sprinkler party on church grounds each Saturday. Teens hand out flyers throughout the close neighborhoods—along with free snow cones—on the Wednesdays before.
  • Dads and kids cook out and camp out at a local park. Extra “Dads” are provided for kids whose parent is not available. Our church member Dads circulate and make sure everyone feels connected.
  • Outdoor tournaments. Softball, volleyball, horse-shoes, basketball, bocce—all can be organized as tournaments. Members serve as coaches, making sure everyone gets an opportunity to compete.
  • more......

[Read more...]

How to edit MS Publisher Templates provided by Effective Church Communications

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The video below shows you how to edit MS Publisher Templates. The set used as an example is a collection of Summer Postcards. The sets of communications created for Effective Church Communications typically have one example available for everyone. That is in a ready-to-print PDF format. For Effective Church Communication Members there is more--not only in the number of PDFs that you can download and print, but the downloadable ZIP file for members has the original MS Publisher file in it. This file allows you to edit the communications and modify them however you want for your church.

This ability greatly expands the usefulness of the ZIP files for Effective Church Communication Members because you can modify them for many uses and situations beyond the specific use or season they were created for. What makes this especially useful for you is that the basic layout work, the artwork, the typefaces--all that has been done and you simply need to change or add the details about events for your church. There are hundreds of templates available for ECC Members that can all be edited in ways similar to the ones shown on the video following.

For more information about Effective Church Communication Membership and to sign up, CLICK HERE.

Note: this is an older version of MS Publisher, so your exact location of commands might be a little different, but the basic instructions are the same.

How to edit Effective Church Communication Templates in MS Publisher


The video below is