Effective Church Communications

Graduates Resources, video preview, new and updated

17 May, 2024 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

This may be your last chance to meaningfully connect with and influence the graduates at your church. Make the most of it with Resources from Effective Church Communications.

The video below is an overview of them and below the video links to specific resources mentioned in it.

Video on Graduation Preview

eBook in the Effective Church Communications Library

This eBook is FREE and available on the ECC Library along with dozens of other eBooks and downloadable training videos. CLICK HERE to go to the ECC Library--please ignore anything I may not have changed that refers to a cost of the ECC Library.

Free Templates for North Star for Graduates and Prayer for Graduates

CLICK HERE to go to this and other free templates for Graduates.

Printables for Graduates from the Bibleverse Shop

CLICK HERE to go to an incredible resource where you can download and print out many sizes and varieties of printables.

The Bibleverse t-Shirts and More Shop

CLICK HERE to go to my shop of t-shirts and more for Bible-centered gifts that will encourage your graduates and help support the ministry of Effective Church Communications.

For Graduates: Celebrate but also challenge

7 May, 2024 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Free Graduation Prayer — Graduation is a time for celebration, but don't miss out on it as a time to challenge your students.

Warning before reading: this is one of my more cranky blogs, but for what I hope is a good reason. I know that the following challenges to youth programs based primarily on fun and positive messages do not describe all youth programs, and please forgive me if your program takes equipping youth with Biblical values and a passion to serve Jesus seriously. However, in the lives of the teens close to me I see very little of this today. It makes me especially sad because I know it doesn't have to be like that. I was a youth leader for many years and even then I often doubted if I was doing the right thing because my program was not the most fun one around. It was filled with lots of Bible lessons, challenges, active service to the poor, mission awareness, and very high expectations. It was a large group, friends were invited, the church was pleased—all the outward measures of success were there—but I still wondered if I did the right thing being so hard on my kids. The years have passed. The kids in my group have gone on to become pastors, staff in Christian organizations, community and government leaders reflecting Biblical values. I know many things made them who they are, but I pray their time in the not-always-the-most-fun youth group contributed to it. With a current prayer that this cranky blog may prove beneficial, I offer it to you. You have been warned.

Celebrate, but also challenge your graduates

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A challenge for Graduates—choose your North Star wisely

6 May, 2022 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

What we choose as our North Star, the guiding principle of our lives will have tremendous impact on us and our world. Encourage the graduates in your life to choose wisely.

Graduation seems like freedom—no more school or rules! And though it is a time to celebrate, we also want to challenge the graduates in our lives with the responsibility that comes along with the freedom.

One of the most important decisions they need to make is what will be the North Star of their life? What is the one fixed point around which all else revolves? What you choose for a North Star can determine the direction of your life, whether it will be one with focus and meaning or an endless drifting through unsatisfied dreams and desires.

At the risk of being a buzz-kill at this happy time I wrote a short piece to challenge graduates to consider carefully the focus of their lives.

I created a short piece that challenges graduates to carefully consider this. Below is the text. I also created two half-page sheets in PDF and MS Publisher format you can easily print out and use as a bulletin insert or on the back of a program or whatever you want. One has a colored background like the image to the left and one is blank.

CLICK the link that follows to download a ZIP file that contains them: Graduation Challenges half page

Use the text below any way you want with my permission, however if you reprint it, please do not change the text, use it as a whole.

Choose your North Star wisely

Just as the time-lapse image above shows how all the stars revolve around the fixed point of the North Star, in all our lives we revolve around certain fixed points of belief. That belief will then determine our everyday choices, actions, and the consequences of them.

If we believe that we are the most important person in the world, that the world owes us love and success, our lives will move in directions that will spin a petty, small world with us at the center.

If we believe money is the way to happiness and fulfilment, if we believe our job or hobby or even a person we care for is the most important thing, our lives will revolve narrowly around that.

If we think the most important thing in life is having fun we’ll either spin out of control or move in ever more meaningless directions.

At your graduation, consider that there is only one North Star worthy of the focus of your life now and forever. That is the North Star of knowing Jesus as your Savior and living in obedience to his Word. When you know his Word well your life will have direction, focus, and fulfilment, even though it may be
difficult at times.

When you live like that you play to an audience of One, the Lord Jesus. Though at first it may seem hard, it is ultimately relaxing and fulfilling because only Jesus loves you totally, always helps you make wise decisions, and will always be with you in every moment of life, death, and forever.

Graduation is a great time to make life decisions. Choose your North Star wisely. The direction, fulfilment, and joy of your life and eternity depend on it.

Other Graduation resources: click on the link following the title

Free Challenging Instagram graphics for GRADUATION, download and use
https://wp.me/pDky9-7Xt

For Graduates: Celebrate but also challenge
https://wp.me/pDky9-7XV

A Prayer for Graduates, Free flyer, bulletin insert
https://wp.me/pDky9-7Yt

A Prayer for Graduates, Free flyer, bulletin insert

5 May, 2022 By Yvon Prehn 2 Comments

Christian prayer for graduates — This is part of set of flyers you can download for your graduates.

The most important thing we can give the graduates at our church is our prayers and I created a set of half-page flyers, bulletin inserts, or however you want to use them for your graduates.

I took the first letter of GRADUATE and used them as a prayer, along with verses. Below is a gallery of them and below that the ZIP file that contains PDFs and editable MS Publisher files.

Please know my love and prayers go with all of you as you use this prayer. May the Lord grant us a generation of graduates who will represent Him well and be a joy to their families, communities, and churches.