In many churches communications are done because “we’ve always done it that way” or as a response to a pressing need for PR to advertise a church event or recruit helpers for a ministry. Though something gets done and it sometimes gets a response, this approach is not the best way to make your church communications support and further the mission and vision of the church.  An unplanned approach to church communications is also usually not a wise use of financial or people resources.

This series of video training, articles, print resources and templates will equip and enable your to do all the planning, measuring and evaluating that your church needs. Some free for everyone and some of the books are for sale in either download or print versions.

Membership in Effective Church Communications is $9.99 a month or $99. a year for any size church. CLICK HERE for more information or to sign up. With membership you get the free book on Planning, Measuring and Evaluating, plus 30 other useful ebooks on effective church communications.

Click on any of the titles to go to that piece of training.

PDF overview articles on Church Communication Planning

These articles that are free for everyone. I highly recommend you print these off and use them for discussion at your next staff meeting. It's so easy to not plan and rush to produce communications, but without planning, you probably won't get the results you want. On the other hand. . . . we need to be careful not to over plan, as the second article advises.

Article: The disappointing results when you jump into church communications production without planning and how to change them to positive ones

Article: Don’t plan too far ahead in church communications

The following videos illustrate the process of planning and evaluation

These four videos will give you both excellent theoretical reasons to do church planning, measuring and evaluating, but they will also give you the practical resources you need to carry out a successful church planning, measuring and evaluating program. All of the videos come with a PDF of the notes that go with the video. This makes them useful for Lunch & Learns, staff and volunteer training. You need to access them through this website.

VIDEO: How to plan, measure, and evaluate church communication effectiveness

When you have advertised a church need, such as when you want volunteers to help with a ministry in the church, if you don't get the response you want, how do you respond?

Many churches respond by assuming that: 1) by simply doing the PR they communicated the need and that people will respond; 2) that if people did not respond that the church needs to improve the way the message was presented, e.g. be more cutting-edge, catchy, or interesting; or 3) that people simply don't care about others or helping the church these days.

As this video will show you none of these assumptions are correct and through careful planning and evaluation of your church communications you can make a huge difference in how people will respond to your church communications.

This is an extremely important video for your church staff to watch as a group—it is guaranteed to bring up some lively discussion that should result in a more effective communication program for your church.

VIDEO: Church Communication FORMS: to help you plan, measure, and evaluate communication effectiveness

This video goes over a set of forms that will help you be more effective in your church communication ministry. It shows you step-by-step how to use them and explains why they are useful for ministry.

Many problems in church communications planning and management can be solved if the church uses forms because forms take opinions about communications and helps you effectively evaluate the validity of your opinions.

For example, if someone says: "The web is the best way to advertise!"  and another person on staff responds, "No, nothing beats bulletin inserts and postcards!" the use of forms puts this discussion into an objective evaluation of what works best.

VIDEO: How to create and use church communication surveys, how to decide what really works

Because we all tend to communicate in ways that are most comfortable to us and because, as church leaders, we make decisions for people, in this time of changing communications, we may be totally missing out on what the types of communications our audience needs for them to hear the gospel message or our challenges to discipleship growth.

How do your various audiences take in your messages? What communication channels do they access the most?

Most of us if we are honest really don't know. This is where a survey can be extremely helpful. This webinar/video will show you how to do one for your church.

One bit of advice--before you do the survey, pray that the Lord will make your heart open to make changes whatever the results might be. Nothing hurts your credibility more than asking people for their opinion and then ignoring it totally when they give it to you.

This VIDEO has two BONUS features for ECC MEMBERS: a ZIP file that has the original PowerPoint File, as well as an editable MS Publisher file of the church Survey Form.

VIDEO: How to create online polls with Poll Daddy, Webinar On-Demand

Online Polls are a useful and fun addition to any website. This video shows you how to create them quickly and easily using the free Poll Daddy software. Poll Daddy Software is free and it allows you to create a variety of polls and surveys.

Materials for purchase

Downloable FORMS ZIP File

Planning forms, ready-to-print PDFs & editable MS Publisher Files

This download has the FORMS illustrated in training videos. They are in both editable MS Publisher format and ready-to-print PDF. Both sets are in a combined ZIP file for immediate download for only $7.50.

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

Immediate Download: $6.99, Click here

Print format: $12.99 Click Here

This book is provides practical training on planning, measuring, and evaluating our church communications to help you make sure that your time and money spent in creating church communications accomplishes the goals of your church.

First, the book looks at the details of planning that form the foundation of a solid church communication program. It then goes into the use of FORMS that will help you gather and organize the facts and the information people need to connect with your ministry or event. The forms will also help you measure and evaluate your communications and enable you to understand what is really effective and what isn’t in your ministry communications and marketing. This approach works in any size church, with any budget. While much extravagant multimedia is only possible on a big budget, any church can make use of the tiny, but significant tips, ideas, and changes suggested in this book to make a significant difference in the impact of your communications.