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.

FREE Door Hangers for Valentine’s Day Outreach, plus why they work so well for outreach including 5 reasons you may not have thought of before!

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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. It will give you some useful ideas on how to use this inexpensive tool.

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 Hangers [Read more...]

A Free Template of the Christmas Story and short gospel presentation based on “Hark the Herald Angels Sing!”

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Christmas evangelism bulletin insert size
This is a set of bulletin insert-size Christmas evangelism publications--please share!

This has been one of our most popular communications for Christmas—it's an upbeat, but thought-provoking presentation of the good news about Jesus for Christmas based on the popular hymn, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing!" and I wanted to share it with you this year.

When I first created the piece it was a full-size sheet and in a 3-panel brochure format, but after sending that out (CLICK HERE for original article and for 8 1/2 x 11-inch size flyers and for brochure size) I got a request to create a bulletin insert-size piece. What a great idea! And I was happy to do that. The images are below and below them a ZIP file for everyone to download ready-to-print PDFs, the editable MS Publisher file, and images of the pieces.

I wrote it and created the communications and you have my permission to share or use it in any way you want.

Be creative in how you use it

Of course, you can print them up and use them at Christmas outreach events or as a bulletin insert.

You can also copy the text or the entire communication and share it on social media for your church or personally.

It's also useful to make copies for your congregation to put into their Christmas letters. Either with the templates here or the ones in the link above (where there is a full-page version), you have my permission to upload any of the PDFs to your church websites for your people to download to print at home and share with their friends and family. I've printed them out for my Sunday School classes and people have greatly appreciated it.

Encourage your congregation to put them into their Christmas cards or enclose with gifts (remembering Jesus is the greatest gift of all!).

[Read more...]

Motivational materials to encourage your congregation to invite their friends to Easter services, and why it matters

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invitation
People inviting people is the best way to increase your Easter attendance. Here is some motivation for your congregation

Sometimes we all need a little help to do the right thing and the materials here will help you encourage your congregation to invite their friends to your Easter services.

The communication has 2 forms, a 1/2 page flyer and a 1/4 size that prints well on card stock. On the one side is a motivational piece that lists 4 Reasons to invite friends and on the back a place for names of people they will be praying for.

Here is what the front of the card says:

Invite your friends to church this Easter season!

....or 4 REASONS why I should bother to pray, ask, and remind people to come when I’d rather just relax and sit around munching the ears off chocolate bunnies.

  1. Life is scary

The economy, terrorism, tornadoes, crazy weather—there is a lot to be afraid of in our world today. But those who have met the One who calms storms, know that though the journey might be challenging, we are ultimately promised a safe harbor. Invite your friends to meet Jesus, the only reliable guide through scary times.

  1. People are lonely

Lies, abandonment, abuse, disappointment—no matter how wonderful the person or relationship, there are times when the best of human companionship will disappoint. That’s because, as St. Augustine said, we all have a God-shaped place inside that only Jesus can fill. Invite your friends to meet Jesus, the only person whose love will never fail through all of life, through death, and into eternity.

  1. Everyone needs a purpose

As a former Watergate conspirator said, many folks live their lives climbing the ladder of success only to realize it was leaning against the wrong wall. Jesus’ resurrection provides us with the power to live lives of significant purpose and to discern between true and false success. Invite your friends to discover Jesus, the only compass to guide you to a life of genuine, meaningful purpose.

  1. We’re all going to live forever

Most folks today believe that and the Bible agrees. The question is, if you are going to live forever, what neighborhood will you live in? Jesus promises that for those who believe in Him they will live in an eternal neighborhood of light, joy, purpose, and companionship. But Jesus won’t force anyone to live in His neighborhood. Problem is, any place outside His source of light, joy, purpose, and companionship is an eternal place of darkness, pain, regret, and isolation—not a neighborhood we want anyone to live in. Invite your friends to meet Jesus, so they can live forever in His neighborhood.

Then on the back is a place for a prayer list of people to invite

Pray and List Family, Friends, Neighbors and Coworkers to invite:

________________________________                                                              ________________________________

________________________________                                                              ________________________________

________________________________                                                              ________________________________

If you need more motivation

I wrote the following if you or your congregation need additional motivation to invite people to your Easter services. It is a bit heavy and serious, but a good reminder to all of us of the importance of the work we are doing. We aren't simply getting communications ready for Easter. We are potentially changing the eternal destiny of people.

It doesn't matter much if you merely think of Easter as a time for chocolate and brunch. It isn't really important if your Easter service is primarily about fun things for kids and a musical extravaganza as uplifting as that might be.

But it does matter tremendously if you believe the message of Easter that Jesus Christ, fully God and fully human died on the cross to pay for the penalty of sin and that He rose bodily from the grave and is our living Savior and coming Lord.

It does matter tremendously if you believe that those who do not trust him as Savior will miss far more than a petting zoo and free candy if they don't attend your church on Easter. The Bible says those who die without Jesus will spend eternity in darkness, pain and conscious regret. Your Easter message can change all that.

We don't like to think about these things in a day when so much of the media message of the Christian faith is on what makes for your "best life now" and how to entertain people and make them feel good and prosperous. But closing our eyes to eternal realities doesn't make them any less true.

Boldly proclaim the truth of the gospel this Easter and equip your people to invite their friends to hear you.

Here are pictures of the images and a file to download

The motivational materials are illustrated below and are in 1/2  and 1/4 sheet of paper sizes. You can download a ZIP file that has ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files of the images below. It also has a MS Word file of the text only if you want to create your own publications or use it on the web or in email newsletters or other materials. The link is below the images.

CLICK on the following link to download the ZIP file that has the PDF, MS Publisher, and MS Word files: Easter Why Invite Friends Motivational Materials

You don't need to spend lots of money for purchased church outreach this Easter season. YOU CAN equip and inspire your people to be inviters with materials you create in the church! Have them pray for their friends, bring them to church and be part of introducing them to God's forever family. In other posts and upcoming articles, we'll have lots more ideas and communications to help your congregation invite their friends.

To get you started, CLICK HERE for a set of Easter Invitations.

FREE Templates and motivational articles: Read through the Bible in a year—Templates for handouts, booklets

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One of the most important things you can do for your congregation is to encourage them to read through the Bible in a year in chronological order. I've created a printed schedule, booklets, and motivational articles to help you do that. Now is a great time to be planning ahead to do this.

All of it FREE to everyone. Please pass on and share with others.

This post has:

  • A short summary of why it is important to read the Bible in chronological order this is beneficial, at the end of this post are two more articles. You can use these in any of your communications to encourage your people.
  • Handouts for the schedule in MS Word
  • A Booklet of the Schedule in MS Publisher
  •  A short video that shows you how to create the booklet
  • Two more motivational articles from my Bible blog, www.bible805.com

[Read more...]

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