Challenges, commentary, and free templates to help churches create communications that help people come to know Jesus as Savior and grow to mature disciples.

In other words, to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

Effective Church Communications

Timeless training from Yvon Prehn to help churches create communications that will enable them to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

A thoughtful challenge for Valentine’s Day from St. Augustine – a cure for empty hearts

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This is one of 8 flyers you can use to remind people that God can fill empty hearts and lives.

Valentine's Day can be fun and fluffy, a time for flowers and candy and silly, sappy cards.

But it can also be seriously sad. If you have someone in your life or not, your heart can feel empty.

As those who know Jesus, we can use this time not only to remind ourselves of how much Jesus does love us, but we can also use it as a time to reach out to people who don't know Him and let them know that there is One who can fill their empty, restless heart.

To help you do that, I created the following handouts ( 2 sets of 4) that you can freely download and give out as mailers, postcards, bulletin inserts or on social media. In addition, below the handouts is a word file of the free verse I wrote that you can put into anything you want to remind people that "our hearts are restless til they rest in him."

Click on the links below the images to download the Zip Files that have ready-to-print PDF images and editable MS Publisher files.

SPECIAL NOTE: if you'd like to know more of the story of St. Augustine, the author of the quote, see the note at the end of the article.

Click the following link to download the ZIP file that contains the files above: MS Pub St. Augustine quote, set #2

Click the following link to download the ZIP file that contains the files above: St. Augustine quote

Written out message

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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.

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

(For pastors, church business administrators, church communication directors, and anyone else who oversees people who create church communications--this is addressed to you)

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 you 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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Instagram Images to remind you of God’s love

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A set of Instagram images to remind us of how much God loves us
We can never have enough reminders of God's love. Here is a set of Instagram images to encourage you.

I created these as an update to some of our templates for Valentine's Day.

I wanted to remind us all of God's love, but as I was working on them I realized that if I didn't put hearts and flowers on them, they could not only be used at this time of year but anytime we need a reminder of how much God loves us.

God's love is our foundation no matter what the challenges of life and forever.

Feel free to download and use these any way you want to encourage yourself and others.

Below are images of the images. In the zip file, below the images, they are sized for use in Instagram. Just click on an image for a larger size preview.

CLICK the following link to download a Zip File of the images: Gods love Instagram Images

 

FREE Door Hangers for Valentine’s Day Outreach, plus why they work so well for outreach

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Valentines Door Hanger Templates
Door hangers are an effective and low-cost way to reach your community with a reminder of God's love.

Door Hangers continue to prove themselves as a low-cost and effective way to increase awareness of your church and invite your neighborhood. Below are TEMPLATES for Valentine's Day that remind people that God loves them. The Templates have room for you to personalize them for your church. In addition, on the back of the door hanger you can include more information about your church and/or invitations to specific events.

Following the images is a downloadable ZIP file that contains PDFs of the images and editable MS Publisher files. After the images are excerpts from the article "Five Secrets to Door Hanger Marketing" that will give you added incentive to create this form of communication for your community.

Combine distributing the door hangers with a Prayer Walk for your community

Distribute them in teams of two and pray specifically for the people in the homes, the neighborhoods, that God would touch hearts and make them open and willing to connect with your church and hear the good news about Jesus. Door hangers are a tangible way to advertise and walking the community to distribute them and pray is a much more personal and involved way to do outreach than impersonal Facebook or other digital advertising. I'm not saying local Facebook or other digital advertising is bad, but our outreach needs to get out from behind the computer periodically for maximum impact.

Door Hangers to personalize for your church for Valentine's Outreach

To download the ZIP file of the door hangers, click the following link:  MS Pub Valentines Door HangersContinue Reading

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