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.

FREE Valentines Day templates, ideas, plus a reminder to church leaders to be nice to church communicators

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Valentines to remind us of God's love
We all need to hear how much God loves us. These communications will help you share that.

Here is a list of links to articles and resources to help your church make the most of Valentine’s Day. Though many of the resources are specific to Valentine's Day, a number of the cards and ideas are useful any time of year you feel your congregation and community need to be reminded of God’s Love.

Templates: Valentine’s Day Outreach Postcard with room for Church Info

https://wp.me/pDky9-6OU

Valentine’s Day Templates

Below are the sets of Templates with preview images, click on the link at the bottom of the list to go to them.

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/valentines-day-templates/

Valentines for Church Communication Creators, what church leaders need to do

https://wp.me/pDky9-19E

***PLEASE note—this one is formatted for you to print off (just hit the little print button at the bottom of the page) and give to church leaders. Not terribly subtle I realized, but tell them I made you do it.

Templates: Door Hangers for Valentine's Day Outreach, plus why they work so well for outreach

https://wp.me/pDky9-6OH

Community Outreach for Valentine's Day—a door hanger sample and a postcard

https://wp.me/pDky9-5FQ

These are real-world examples from a contributor and dear friend of our ministry Gayle Hilligoss

Templates: Valentines for believers, remember how much Jesus loves you!

https://wp.me/pDky9-6Oh

 

Valentines for Church Communication Creators, what church leaders need to do

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Valentines Day, a reminder of God's love
Gifts are wonderful, but at Valentine's Day the most important thing is how we treat each other.

(For pastors, church business administrators, church communication directors, and anyone else who oversees people who create church communications--this is addressed to you. In addition, it is useful advice for church communication directors of volunteers. For all of you in similar positions, church communicators don't need more chocolate; they need the things I'm about to talk about....well maybe them AND some chocolate.) First is the video and then the longer text version of it.

by Yvon Prehn, www.effectivechurchcom.com

Valentine’s Day is a wonderfully Christian holiday in that it is all about love and loving is what Christians are to be about. We celebrate it by giving gifts, often flowers and candy, to those we care for—but flowers fade and candy adds on pounds. For those in a leadership position, who want to show caring to the people in your communications ministry, whether paid staff or volunteers, below are Five Valentines you can give that will have lasting, positive results. Print this off and discuss it during a staff meeting for a Valentine's Day that is a real gift for growing our relationships with each other.

Gift #1—Give them authority

In church communications, the church leadership should decide on basic themes and messages and perhaps even the overall look of publications, but seldom on layout, or the final editing of articles or announcements. The people actually doing the creative work need the final authority in these areas. Have a meeting to discuss and clarify these issues and then publicly announce and print your decision. You might say something like this:

"Jenny Smith, our communications coordinator has final editing authority on the layout, deadlines and content of materials that go into the bulletin, newsletter, website and church social media (and whatever else you want to list). She has posted her guidelines and submission deadlines on our website. Please support her decisions and deadlines."

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A free Valentines Day postcard, flyer, or bulletin insert to remind people of God’s love, plus strategy to make the most of it

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St. Augustine quote
Many people today have restless hearts. This Valentine's Day, help them find rest in Jesus.

Today many people have restless hearts. Life may not be what we wanted, dreamed about, or even find tolerable. Our restless hearts may be in many areas of life, but Valentine's Day shines a laser focus on the restless disappointments in our hearts. This flyer or Bulletin Insert might help your church minister to those restless hearts.

A restless heart isn't anything new, nor is the answer on how to fill it, as this quote from almost eighteen hundred years ago from St. Augustine reminds us when he said, "Thou hast made us for thyself oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

You can use his quote and the message that goes with it to reach out to the restless hearts in your community.

There are plenty of them as this time of year we're reminded of every romantic disappointment and broken dream with every TV ad and the gauntlet of flowers, cards, and chocolates when we shop. We may be alone in that we don't have a special someone in our life or the special someone slot may be filled, but we still feel alone. The media tells us we shouldn't ever be satisfied until we do everything we can to find that rush of complete, overwhelming, all-consuming, and satisfying human love, to go along with our perfect bodies and leisurely lives. But few of us live in that media fantasy and even fewer have the energy to try to event try make it real.

What the media doesn't tell us is that no matter how perfect we are, how much money we have, or how single-mindedly we pursue a perfect human romantic partner that no human love, no matter how deep or true or quietly wonderful it might be, (and some are blessed with that) will ever totally fill the place in our heart only God is designed to fill.

Valentine's Day is a perfect time to share the reality of God's forever satisfying love with the people who come to your church and here is a ready-to-print communication to help you do it.

Use this postcard, Bulletin insert, flyer, or however you want to us it to share God's love

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FREE Facebook Size Valentines Day Social Media with Verses about God’s Love

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Valentines Day Facebook images
One example of a set of Valentine's Day images, Facebook-size, that you can use to share God's Love.

Valentine's Day is a wonderful time to share God's love with people and here is a set of Facebook-size, social media images you can use to do that.

You can use the files in two ways and the links to each option are below the images. Either you can download a ZIP FILE of the images in jpg format or you can click on the Canva Link if you want to link to them in Canva and perhaps modify them for however you want to use them.

These were created using the A.I. "text to image" command in Canva. CLICK HERE to go to a video where I demonstrate how I created the backgrounds.

CLICK the following link to download the ZIP file of the images: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Facebook-size-Valentines-Day-Background-with-Verses.zip

CLICK the following link to go to the CANVA file:  https://www.canva.com/design/DAFY1KLpCQI/Z0TNsDdQQW-pFWHMWAzXug/edit?utm_content=DAFY1KLpCQI&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton

 

Charging for Fall Festival outreach events, what’s wrong with that?

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Who in this group gets a meal and who doesn't at your alternative Halloween event? It should be ALL of them.

There may be legitimate reasons for charging for some events, for example, if you are bringing in a professional Christian comedian or speaker—someone has to pay for their time and expenses. However, in most instances, I believe strongly that it communicates an incorrect message if a church charges (or even asks for donations) at a ministry event.

Fall Festival mixed message

I recently looked at an advertisement for a Church Fall Festival. It was going to be an alternative Halloween event, which is always popular with the community. I was told that in years past this church put on the event as free community outreach, but this year things were different. The person showing me the invitation card was concerned and here's why:

The invitation said: "Fun, games, food, candy for all!" and in big letter, "No entry fee"

In much smaller letters it said, "There will be a small charge for a hot dog meal;  candy is free."

and

"There will be a charge for professional photos at the event."

What's wrong with that?

Times are still really hard for lots of folks and it was not only a very confusing message, but I think one unworthy of the gospel. Let's look at the food charge first and then the photography one. The text continues below the video.

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