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.

How to communicate with an audience that has no time to listen

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Remember time stress when creating church communications
Remember the time stress of your audience when creating church communications.

Need some evidence that it isn't just your imagination making you feel nobody has time for anything related to the church? "At the end of the weekend, you are more than a full day behind in your activities. Even if we went to an eight-day week you still would be 4.5 hours behind." Was the conclusion of an article in the Wall Street Journal.

Ed note before I continue: I wrote this article several years ago and while updating the website ran across it. The time challenges of your audience today make it worth another look because though a few years have passed if anything the situation of time demands has become even more challenging as we attempt to reach people. Following is a reprint of the article with a number of updates added.

An article in the Wall Street Journal reported Americans work an average of 53 hours a week. Dale McFeatters took that statistic and calculated that if an individual did all the activities reported such as sleeping, TV, dressing, etc., without multitasking, that person would have a 28.5 hour a week time deficit. In addition to helping explain why we often feel stressed and tired, his calculations help explain why it is so difficult to get people respond to the communications from your church. Following are some ideas on how to communicate your church's message to a time-stressed and time-starved audience. [Read more...]

Sample of seasonal jpg file in a church bulletin, and how you can use the ones on this site for your publications

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This is a wonderful example of how a church communicator took one of the jpg images, available to Effective Church Communications Members for all the holidays, and how she took the one for Easter and used it in her bulletin.

Some churches prefer not to have loose bulletin inserts (either way works, it is matter of what your church prefers) and so this church communicator emailed and asked that I do the inserts in a graphic file format. I was every happy to do that and don't know why I hadn't done it before! The RED arrow points to the jpg graphic from Effective Church Communications. If you click on the image you can download a PDF where you can see the entire bulletin. It is very nicely done and I'm sure you'll get some great ideas from it.

Many of the Template files now have images included with them for you to use either in print or social media. Many have a line drawn around the images so they will stand out from background. If you want that removed, you can go to the original MS Publisher files, remove it from the Master Page and resave that page as an image file.

Not only does this illustrate an idea of how to use an image, but two other things:

  1. I really appreciate and try to carry out your suggestions when possible on what you would like on the site and what might be useful for you, so do feel free to send them to me at yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.
  2. It is great to have samples of how people are using materials from ECC in their publications. Please send them to me with your permission to use them.  These GREATLY help your fellow church communicators. For information on our Great Idea Swap, CLICK HERE.

 

As you prepare for Easter: four necessary things to do with your website to make it ministry effective

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Be sure to update your website before special events
Be sure to update your website before special events because many people will come to it first.

Obviously, today almost every church has a website, but sadly many church websites are little more than a newspaper or yellow pages ad for the church (the basic facts and little else) posted online. Unless someone is already interested in your church and is only looking for an address or service time, there is little to engage them.

There is even less reason for a person who is not already a believer to linger at your site. Information might be provided on how to get to the church, but little outreach or any other kind of ministry is done.

The reasons for this ministry challenge are not because of graphics or design short-comings, but of organization and content. Below are four suggestions to take your site beyond being an ad only to become an effective ministry tool as you prepare for Easter outreach and for the rest of the year. [Read more...]

Thank-You Cards for any occasion for Church Volunteers

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Church Volunteer Thank You Card
This is a FREE card for church communicators to download and print out when you want to thank volunteers at your church. CLICK on the card to download the PDF. A larger selection of cards is available for ECC Members.

We always intend to say "Thank You!" to the people who serve in our churches and these postcards will help you do that. These cards take away valid reasons for not getting thank you cards done such as:

  • No appropriate cards that fit your church
  • No time to write long messages
  • Costs too much to buy nice cards

Each of the cards below is 1/4 page size—nice enough and room enough to write a little message on them, but not too much room where you don't feel like you have to write a lot. A quick  "We couldn't have done it without you!" and signed by the Pastor or head of the volunteer worked with will mean so much to any volunteer who receives them. [Read more...]

Declining church attendance and how your communications can help turn that around

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Stop Declining Church Attendance with Your Church Communications by Yvon Prehn

 

Church attendance is declining both in fewer new people coming to church and current members coming less often—that’s our challenge.

You know that the solution to this challenge isn't going to be solved by a 500-word blog post of bullet points about the latest and greatest tech tool or social media to come along that will solve all your church communication problems and get people flooding back to our churches. You know you won't be able to get people returning to church if you can simply find more contemporary graphics or upgrade to a more cutting-edge look to your website.

But we keep hoping don't we?

What follows is not a quick read filled with magic solutions. It will take time to read, digest, and plan out implementation because the issue of declining church attendance and retention is not an easy issue to understand with easy answers to fix it. There are many parts of church theology, growth, and health that factor in and what follows is not an all-inclusive solution, but one that can make a big difference in reversing this trend. [Read more...]