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.

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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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

 

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

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The following set of Templates was inspired by the article by Gayle Hilligoss and the postcards she created for Valentine's Day outreach for her church. The ones I created prior to seeing her wonderful creations filled the entire front of the card and assumed you would personalize them on the back. I loved her idea of having all the information on the front (much easier to print, etc.) and so I created some templates for you to modify and use in your church.

You could use these as postcards or hand-out invitations. The church office can print them and then put in 5 in each bulletin on Sunday. From the pulpit encourage the congregation to pray and send or hand them out. If you have a special Valentine's Day event (dessert buffet of chocolate is what we did one year, it was a big hit), give the details of that on the back.

Below are images of the cards and below them is the ZIP File to download and modify for your churches.

Postcards with room for personalization

To download the editable ZIP file for the cards above, click the following link: Valentine Cards quarter page with church info

Templates: 1 Corinthians 13 Bulletin Inserts, true love defined

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1 Cor 13 Bulletin Insert
This bulletin insert shares not only how we should love, but reminds us of how God loves us.

First Corinthians 13 is the love chapter of the Bible. Not only does it challenge us with how we should love, but we often forget that the perfect love in this chapter describes how God loves us. Take a minute away from your work to think about that and praise God for its truth.

With those reminders in mind, following are Bulletin inserts (or postcards or however else you want to use them) that quote 1 Corinthians 13 that you can use for Valentine's season or any other time people need a reminder of God's love. On the back of the cards you can put links, lessons, or activities your church has to teach people about God's love.

Below the images of inserts is the ZIP file for Effective Church Communications Members to download both PDFs and editable MS Publisher files. If you aren't a member you won't be able to see the links. For more information and to join Effective Church Communications, CLICK HERE.

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

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Valentines Door Hanger
A door hanger like this is a wonderful way to reach out to your community and invite them to church.

editor's note: I wanted to republish the article below because as I was going through my past articles on Valentine's Day outreach, her ideas are some of the best I've seen. I liked them so much, I created two Template collections for you to make Valentine's Day Outreach Door-hangers and Postcards. The links to them are at the end of the article.

Gayle Hilligoss, our wonderful columnist who writes so many helpful articles for us, also volunteers her time to help the communications at her church.

She recently sent me two WONDERFUL samples and I'm sharing them below. First is her brief explanation of them and then images to inspire you. I LOVE the idea of using door hangers as a Valentine's outreach for your church—what a happy way to invite people!

Gayle's email:

Did I ever send you these? The first is printed on door hanger stock.
We are putting them on 300 houses in a subdivision near the church.

The second is a postcard being sent to prospects, visitors, absentees, etc.
We are printing extras for our members to share as they have opportunity.
A couple of the projects of our new Outreach Team : )

 

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