Effective Church Communications

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators. 

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators.
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How to get any color from the web into MS Publisher

13 January, 2014 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

How to get any color from the web into MS Publisher
The skills in this brief video will help you make exact color matches in your communications.

This video shows you how to solve the challenging problem of when you see a color that you like on the web and want to use it--but how do you get that color into MS Publisher so you can use it? Not a similar color, but the exact same color--how do you do it?

This short, but incredibly helpful video will show you how to download a tool that will identify the color and then will give you the RGB values you can put into MS Publisher to make the color available to you. Don't worry if you don't know what I just meant about "putting RGB values into MS Publisher"--the video shows you how to do that also.

The video is one of our "FREE for 48 hrs" videos and after that it will only be available to Effective Church Communication Members.

Below the video are the step-by-step instructions for what was shown in the video.

How to get any color from the web into MS Publisher

•Process for Firefox Browser
•Go to http://colorzilla.com
•Download
•It will automatically go into the tools in Firefox
•Open a web page
•Click on Tools—Colorzilla
•The RGB numbers will appear
•Copy and put them into MS Publisher and use as you want!

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Filed Under: Clipart, Design, Graphics, Images Tagged With: color matching, color picker, MS Publisher color tips

A collection of communication trends for 2014 along with links for implementation

5 January, 2014 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Trends in church communications
We don't know for certain what the future brings, but looking at trends can help us plan.

Following are excerpts of articles about upcoming communication trends. I read through many similar articles and these are representative of what many had to say.

Though lists like these are interesting to read, without application they can be frustrating, so along with the excerpts are comments and links to resources on the Effective Church Communication website that will help you put these materials into practice.

Below the titles are links for the full articles.

Web Design Trends for 2014 By Gavin Richardson

http://www.umcom.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=mrLZJ9PFKmG&b=6084849&ct=13416827

Excerpt of what the author sees as important on websites for the coming year:

Mobile responsive

From 25 to 35 percent of many websites’ total traffic will come through mobile devices. The number of mobile device users is growing. Having a website designed to adapt to each device is critical.

Before this trend began to emerge, you had to build a second website for mobile devices, which created extra work to maintain a second site. Most likely, you just let your site be as it is on a mobile device, which does not provide an optimal user experience.

YP Comments

Responsive websites, a primer
A responsive website is one that adjusts to any device you use to view it--please view this video for basics about them.

Mobile responsiveness for websites is very important and will continue to grow—actually, it probably already has with the thousands of people who got smart phones and tablets for Christmas.  For a site to be mobile responsive means that it will resize automatically to fit whatever device is used to view it—laptop, smart phone, tablet, desktop computer.

The following article and video illustrate and explain what is meant by a responsive site. Unlike many technological innovations, this one is easy to implement because if your church website is based on WordPress (and most are), the newer templates will do this for you automatically.

A primer on responsive websites, what they are and why they are important

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2012/09/a-primer-on-responsive-websites-what-they-are-and-why-they-are-important/

Excerpt:
The following two trends go together:

Minimalism

Perhaps the biggest change for many church websites is a move toward minimalism. The past practice has been to put as much information as possible in front of your site visitors. This makes for a busy, cluttered and often confusing front-page. Because of the growing use of mobiles for viewing webpages and emerging app culture, this show-everything trend is passé.

With a minimalist design, you remove content and decide what content is most important for users to focus on. The focus might be to share who you are as a congregation or an important event of the church. Possibly, the focus could be to have people follow a call-to-action and sign up for an email list.

Flat design

Trends change frequently. Once, the trend was to have a website with many graphics that had many textures and gradients. The aim was to give depth to the site. The new web design trend is more minimalist in order to be less distracting and drive focus on the content aim of your website.

Flat design can be elegant and aesthetically pleasing when done well. Even with a flat design, your graphic design can give depth to important page elements or calls to action. The level of depth and manipulation of graphics will be significantly less than in the past.

YP comments:

For years I've ranted against excessively complex, graphics heavy web pages (or print and newsletter ones also). One reason is because the content of the Christian faith is what is of primary importance, not simply how we feel about it. Designers tend to love images, but images are not consistent in what they communicate. The following article explains this in more detail:

Why it is incorrect to think that graphic images mean the same thing to everyone who sees them

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/why-it-is-incorrect-to-think-that-graphic-images-mean-the-same-thing-to-everyone-who-sees-them/

5 Top Social Marketing Predictions by  Marija Hamed

http://www.happymarketingclub.com

Excerpt: these are actually her points from a short, but helpful video

#1 Photo Sharing—bigger than ever

#2 Mobile—be conscious of how your material looks on mobile devices

#3 Google+ —recommendation that you need a G+ account for your business

#4  Customer Service—even more will be handled via social media and customers will expect it.

#5 Stats—check them out more to know what is working and what isn't.

YP Comments:

On Photo Sharing: Something to think about: in the past, churches were very careful about who shared what photos, particularly of children and single women on staff. Today every image of everyone is splashed all over Facebook, Instagram, and other sites. It is a little bit shocking to see your image, as has happened to me a number of times, totally without my permission, on church websites or members Facebook pages. I'm not sure what to do about it other than to talk about it—we can't control it. I do think that it would be wise to pray for protection, particularly for our children.

Customer Service—to translate that into the church setting, churches MUST answer emails and other social media requests, comments, questions! I continue to be astounded at the churches that publish email addresses, Facebook, and Twitter contact information and then do not respond or interact with people who try to reach them. Please, don't publish social media contacts that you don't respond to. If a senior pastor or other staff member will not answer his or her own social media (my husband doesn't, he just isn't into that, but is honest about it) designate someone to do it for them.

I'm not recommending Google+ for churches presently, not because it isn't a great tool (probably is, I don't know, haven't gotten into it yet myself), but because so many churches still don't update their basic website or the social media they have. Remember it isn't how many social media icons you have on your site that make it meaningful—it's how quickly, compassionately, and biblically you respond and interact through the channels you have.

Stats—This recommendation is incredibly important. It doesn't matter what a staff members favorite way to communicate is or what is most popular in blogs—what matters is if your people are responding or not to the tools you use. If you don't track it, you won't know. The following book is essential reading to help you in this area.

It is free to Effective Church Communication Members (along with over 30 other books on church communications). After the book link is a link to a video and FREE forms to help you in your evaluation process.

This essential book is important to help you be honest and realistic about the effect of your communications.
This essential book is important to help you be honest and realistic about the effect of your communications.

Book: Church Communications Planning, Measuring, Evaluating done a new way—big is busted, try tiny!

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/book-church-communications-planning-measuring-evaluating-done-a-new-way%E2%80%94big-is-busted-try-tiny/

 

Turn the Other Tweet: Social Media Resolutions for 2014 by Rev. James Martin, S.J.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rev-james-martin-sj/turn-the-other-tweet-social-media_b_4523963.html?utm_source=Alert-blogger&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Email%2BNotifications

Excerpts from a wonderful blog:

1.) I will treat everyone with charity and give everyone the benefit of the doubt. No matter how rude they are. And no matter how many times they post annoying comments that make me want to stop typing, put on my coat, drive to their town, knock on their door and sock them. Because Jesus never did that when he posted stuff online. Jesus told us always to turn the other tweet.

2.) I will avoid posting anything anywhere when I'm so angry that I can barely type--or speak. Especially speak. That's a tip-off.

3.) I will avoid being drawn into an argument with anyone who is apparently (a) crazy; (b) not listening; or (c) both. Even if they call me (a) stupid, (b) a heretic, or my latest favorite insult (which happened the other day) a "poor excuse for a Christian." I will not be drawn into a pointless argument that will be a waste of time. For both of us.

…….

8.) I will look for news and articles and photos that help people see the workings of grace and that spotlight those in need, and will bring them to people's attention.

9.) I will remember that my goal is not followers or likes but to help people like and follow God.

10.) I will post less and pray more.

YP comments:
All wonderful, especially the last three which I pray will be goals for all of us in the coming year and always. I appreciate his gentle tone in all his writings.

Please read the following blog post for a related approach to church communications.

Do not confuse irreverence for relevancy in church communications

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/do-not-confuse-irreverence-for-relevancy-in-church-communications/

Please share if you see other trends that would be useful for churches or your comments on the ones listed above.

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Filed Under: Church Communication Leadership, Church Communication Management, Graphics, Images Tagged With: church communication trends, church trends, design trends in the coming year

How to download a Free Image editing program, paint.net

22 October, 2012 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

How to download Paint.net
Paint.net is one of the best FREE image editing programs--here is how to download it.

This is one of my favorite image editing programs--much easier to use than Photoshop and best of all FREE! Even though it is very easy to use, it is extremely powerful and lots of fun to play around with. It doesn't get a lot of PR, (maybe because it is free), but it is a program that I think every church should have a copy of.

Below is the video on how to get it--here is a link to a series of videos I did that are on YouTube that show you how to use it: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6709E3C376551C36

On this video I demonstrate how to download it. The link for the download is: http://download.cnet.com/Paint-NET/3000-2192_4-10338146.html

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Filed Under: Clipart, Design, Graphics, Images, Video, how-to Tagged With: free software for churches, Image editing software, paint.net

Why words are more important than images in church communications

18 October, 2012 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Words are the primary carriers of meaning in our church communications.
Words, not images, are what clarify meaning in our church communications.

No matter what tools we use to create our message; no matter what channels we use to share it, the one thing that never changes is our core content. Our content, permeated with the truth of the entire Bible and culminating with a call to salvation and discipleship in Jesus, must be the anchor of every communication piece we produce.

The obvious question then is: what is the best way to communicate our content?

Here is one of the greatest errors, challenges, controversies, problems—it's hard to pick just one word—confronting church communicators today and that is the mistaken priority use of images over carefully crafted words to communicate our content. It doesn't matter what technology channel we use, the issues of the communication value of words vs. images is the same.

Words are the primary carriers of content, of clear propositional truth. Words however, are difficult to wrangle into meaning. It takes work, thought, planning, and editing to even approximate clear communication. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Graphics, Images, Writing Tagged With: clear communication, confusion of images, how to clarify your message, importance of words in church communication, words and images needed together, words communicate better, words vs images

Image editing excerpt from the video: Money and Time Saving Tips for Church Communications

16 September, 2012 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

This video is excerpted from the longer one: Money and Time Saving Tips for Church Communications

I created it because I realized after finishing the longer video that the part I think if most useful is this part that shows how I modified the images. If I was looking at the program again, I'd want to just focus on this and so I chopped up the video to make it easier to view that way.

Following are links for material related to the video, just click on the title to go to them:

  • PLAYLIST of additional videos on sources for FREE CLIP ART.
  • PLAYLIST of how to download and use PAINT.NET
  • Additional video preview of free clipart with copyright information.
  • The Text, PDF, and template of the simple church bulletin illustrated here.

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: Clipart, Design, Graphics, Images Tagged With: clipart, clipart for churches, how to find free clipart

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