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.

Sample: Flyer for volunteer recruitment for a Thanksgiving outreach, a useful example for any seasonal ministry

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Thanks Giving Volunteer Recruitment flyer
This is a copy of a flyer used to recruit volunteers for a Thanksgiving outreach. We need to communicate clearly all we've planned if we want people to help. You can download a PDF of this flyer at the link at the end of this article.

It is challenging to plan a ministry outreach for any holiday and even more so when we want to recruit volunteers to help with it. Because there are so many things to do for successful outreach and our minds are pre-occupied with the event, it is easy to short-change our congregations in how we communicate to them about what is going on and what we need them to do.

Here is a flyer we created to remedy that situation

As a very practical example, at our church, with the Adult Sunday School Class we are hosting a Thanksgiving outreach dinner. I've been working on it for some time and for it to be successful, we need many in the class to be involved. Though they have known we are doing this for some time--we just got the final approval of the location last week. I needed to let the class know and to let them know what we needed them to do.

My first idea was to simply do a PowerPoint Slide and announce it, but I knew that wasn't enough. I reminded myself of what I constantly try to teach that those of us who work and plan ministry events must always remember that the people we want to involve haven't been working on it as we have; they haven't been thinking and praying about it for as long as we have. They can't read our minds.

People need a tangible, paper, printed reminder of what we are doing and what we want them to do. Once the print piece is produced, we can put it on our information table for those who might have missed the first announcement and remind people about it in subsequent weeks.

We have to clearly share our vision and requests

We have a lot going on, we want people to do a number of things. Though in the coming weeks I will have specific task lists and sign-up sheets I wanted to give people a flyer that specifically told them:

  • what was going on
  • basic information
  • our goals
  • prayer requests
  • what we needed them to do

The flyer illustrated here is what I came up with. The information is what is most important here and it was well-received.

It seems like we never have the time to put together things like this, but they are vitally important for as many people as possible to be involved in ministry events and outreach.

CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD a PDF of the flyer.

 

Performance-centered vs church interactive, serving celebrations, what it means to the spiritual growth of your congregation

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Keep your celebrations focused on Jesus
Celebrate, but be sure your holiday celebrations don't present an incorrect view of the Christian faith.

As many churches plan their seasonal outreach celebrations, they often focus on putting on a big program for the community. It could be a play, serious or humorous. It could be a concert consisting of anything from the choir presenting a formal choral arrangement to the music ministry doing a special seasonal musical to hosting a visiting Christian Rock group.

There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with these events and if you follow the advice of Effective Church Communications and are conscientious about connecting with people at your events, explaining what is going on at the church, explaining the Christian faith,  linking them to more resources, and inviting them back, these events can be effective ways to grow your church. But something else is going on that we need to consider if you want your event to have a positive impact on your congregation beyond the event itself because. . .

"What you win them with is what you win them to."

Seasonal events don't stand alone. How we celebrate them reflects both the core beliefs of the church and the effect of them on the spiritual growth of church members. [Read more...]

Why we need to share the gospel at Halloween and the tools to help you do that

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In church communications, we do what we do because we believe that the eternal destinies of people depends on how they respond to Jesus. We know that--but in the midst of long days and overwhelming demands it is easy to forget.

As we approach Halloween, I know this isn't a holiday most people think of as being particularly spiritually challenging, but it really is. At this time of year, everyone is thinking about and talking about the supernatural and that makes it one of the easiest times to bring up the topic of the one person who conquered death--Jesus.

Erasing hell, a great motivational book for Halloween outreach
This book provides great motivation for Halloween outreach because it is a reminder of the eternal consequences of our decisions about Jesus.

Francis Chan's and Preston Sprinkle's book, Erasing Hell. In addition to being a very well-researched and well-written book, I greatly appreciated the tone of the book, which is one of gracious, gentle conviction.

Though the tone is gentle, the topic is about one of the hard issues of our faith--the eternal destiny of people who die without Jesus as Savior. Universalism, the idea that eventually everybody goes to heaven, is the popular answer today (one of the great promoters of this being Rob Bell's book, Love Wins), but popular as the idea might be, as this book shows through careful historical facts and careful biblical exegesis, universalism is simply wrong.

As much as we might wish it were otherwise, the eternal destiny of every person--literally heaven or hell depends on what we do with Jesus. Your job is to make that clear and that is why your work in church communication is of extraordinary importance. We can do that with our church communications and below is a list of communication resources for Halloween.

The purpose of this website is to help you create communications that enable your church to fully fulfill the Great Commission. That is why we do all we do.

[Read more...]

Editable Halloween MS Publisher materials, a FREE preview PDF for all, editable files for members

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Cover of Overview of the Editable MS Publisher Files
Click here to download the PDF. It is an overview of the editable MS Publisher files and how to use them for effective Halloween Outreach.

The publications illustrated here cover every aspect of preparation for, what to use during and follow up for effective Halloween outreach including:

***Motivational bulletin insert
***Invitation Cards
***Case-study, volunteer recruitment brochure
***Sign-in cards
***Cards to give out as people leave your event

Click on the PDF for a free overview of all the communications with ideas on how to use them.

Effective Church Communication members can click on the links below to download the two ZIP files that contains editable MS Publisher files for all the publications illustrated. The first file has all the PR, invitation, outreach, sign up and follow up cards. The second file has the brochure. If you are not a member, this is a great time to join and have access to all these files. CLICK HERE to go to the MEMBERSHIP area.

Just download and save the ZIP file on your computer, click to open it and then you can open and edit any MS Publisher file there. You must have a copy of MS Publisher on your computer for this to work.

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Click here to download the ZIP file

Click here to download the Brochure for Trunk or Treat File

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Out with the old. In with the new–tips for a productive church office, part two

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Gayle Hilligoss Picture
Article by Gayle Hilligoss

The start of a new year is an appropriate time to evaluate performance, to identify personal practices hindering professionalism, and to replace old habits with new and better ways to work. As Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote, “Now is the day, and now is the hour.” Here are three more good habits to acquire in 2011. (to see the first three, click here)

• Excellence

Excellence is not perfection. Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. Realistically, few things are worth a shot at perfection. The wisdom of spending an hour looking for the “perfect” clipart or typeface for a bulletin insert is questionable. Very likely your responsibilities demand more productive uses of your time. While aiming for perfection is impractical, never settle for mediocre. Excellence is rewarding and attainable.

• Organization

Physical clutter slows everyone down. Time and effort are wasted locating what is needed. Tempers may flare. Mental disorganization perpetuates a cycle of working hard while accomplishing little. Planning where things should be kept, how jobs should be accomplished—timeline, methods, and available resources—encourages effectiveness, efficiency, and smiles.

• Decisiveness

The inability or unwillingness to make a decision about what to do or how to do it absolutely hinders productivity. Often any decision is better than no decision. Fretting over possibilities is a decision in itself, one that creates a backlog of work and frustrates coworkers.

Start the decision-making process by identifying precisely what you want to achieve. Gather and evaluate relevant information. Finally, choose your course of action. Taking days to consider options may reveal a perfectly clear choice, but very likely it will not. When stalled, ask yourself what you will know in a day or two that you don't know now. If the answer is “not much,” trust your instinct, make your decision, and act.

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To read the first part of this list, click here.