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 Case Study to help you be more successful in recruiting volunteers, using Trunk or Treat as an example

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Sucessful fall church outreach
Fall is a great time for church outreach and the ideas here will make sure you get enough volunteers to make your event successful.

Yvon's note: though this material and the video is several years old, it has some extremely useful material that will help you be successful in your fall outreach. Consider the production values and artwork a retro memory and learn from the timeless principles represented.

Recruiting enough volunteers is always a challenge for any church event and few are the churches that report they have enough. When the event takes place and there are not enough people, not only is it tiring for the staff and the volunteers that are there, but it is spiritually trying also. When this happens, we ask ourselves:

Why didn't more people help?
Don't people care about their neighbors?
Doesn't outreach matter?

These and many other questions haunt us and make us hesitant to be enthusiastic about upcoming events.

In evaluating many instances of this kind, I've put together the online Video below that has a Case Study with specifics and samples that I trust will help you be more successful in recruiting people for your next church outreach event.

As you can imagine (this being a church communication ministry) I believe that the primary problem with not getting enough volunteers is in the communication that comes from the church—the problem is not in our people, but in us. Often we don't communicate nearly as well as we think we did to let people know how much we needed their help or even, as you'll see in the case of Trunk or Treat, even what the event is about.

This video would be excellent to watch with your church staff. Remember you can click on the little box of arrows at the bottom of the video to blow it up full size on your screen. Simply hook up the computer to a projector and you can show it to the entire staff. [Read more...]

Social Media for Churches, where to be and how to use it

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MinTech article on Social Media
If a social media ministry is a challenge for your church, check out this article for ways to make it manageable.

Ministry Tech Magazine just published my article on Social Media for Churches and I wanted to pass on the PDF to you, CLICK HERE or on the image to download it. One of the most valuable things about this article is the advice by Holly Veturis from Saddleback Church on putting together a team of people (advocates, she calls them) to be the primary creators of your church social media.

I heard her talk about this at the Saddleback MarCom Church Communicator's conference this summer and just loved the idea. It seemed to me that it is a fantastic modern-day example of how the Body of Christ can work together. No one in the church office has time to do all the print and website work required, PLUS all the social media that is a vital part of any church communication program today.

At the same time there are people in every church who just LOVE to be on social media. They are good at it and enthusiastic in what they share. Rather than trying to add additional burdens to the people in the church office (unless they happen to be the kind who spend every break and lunch on social media), consider following her advice and putting together a social media team.

Of course you want to set up guidelines when people are putting out social media in the name of the church, just as you would for any kind of communications work volunteers do for you, but with those in place and periodic meetings to encourage and inspire, a social media team can be an effective outreach tool for your church.

Look inward before you reach outward: make sure your church is ready for holiday and special event outreach guests

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Church
It doesn't matter how gorgeous your church is if the bathrooms are messy. Be sure every part of the church is at its best before Easter.

Around my home and for most people I know, one thing that always accompanies the holidays or any time guests are coming is a flurry of activity—cleaning, putting up decorations, making certain the bathrooms have nice soap and towels, flowers in the guest-room perhaps, and in special cases repainting and major household repairs. With actions big or little, we all do what we can to make guests feel welcome and the holidays special.

This is not only important for our homes when we are expecting visitors, but even more so for our churches. Not only is a check-up and perhaps some improvements important for the sake of a successful event, but if we want to make guests feel comfortable and come back, must make certain our church is ready for them.

Following are some areas that are important for you to check out and perhaps do a bit of renovation on before you invite your guests for holidays and special events so you'll not only be ready for the event itself, but for the growth in your church after it.

The physical plant of the church

The peeling paint in the bathroom, the junk stacked in the corner from a special event that has no permanent storage, the lack of handrails or handicapped access, the plants that need trimming—there are many things that we no longer see, because we see them every week, that are ugly eyesores to guests.

Take a clipboard in hand (or iPad these days) and go around the church asking the Lord to enable you to see the church as a visitor would see it. Note what needs to be done and schedule a "Welcome Home for the Holidays" workday at the church to tackle these tasks. [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...]

Clear communications help you create volunteer recruitment and retention

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volunteer instructions
Clear recruitment and training communications make volunteer recruitment much easier.

Ed. note: last week I shared some samples of volunteer communications and this week an article I have an article for you that will help you write effective volunteer recruitment materials.

When it comes to recruiting volunteers, many churches operate on what I call the 20/80 fallacy. We’ve all heard that “20 percent of the people do 80 percent of the work.” That is true in many churches, but I call it a fallacy because it does not need to be that way. We forget that statement is merely a business observation—it is not scripture.

The Bible tells us that in the church of  Jesus Christ, we are to have 100 percent involvement. We may be involved in different ways, but everyone has a job to do.

When we believe the 20/80 fallacy, the result is that the leaders of the church do all the work (and often complain about it) and the congregations sit back, watch, and expect to be cared for and entertained. The biblical models of church growth do not support this situation. In the church the leaders job is to “equip the saints to do the work of the ministry” Eph 4:11-13. Leaders are to equip and encourage. Congregations are to practice their spiritual gifts and do the work of the church.

This process will not happen automatically. We can help turn the biblical model into reality in our churches by creating clear and complete volunteer communications. Your church communications can play a vital role in the success of your volunteer programs. Here are some helpful tips on how to create successful ministry volunteer communications:

Volunteer publication planning

1. Make a list of all the jobs you’d like to have filled by volunteers at the church.

2. Don’t assume anything as you prepare to write this publication! You may know what it means to be an usher because you’ve been one for 10 years, but a new believer who might want to try welcoming people to the church may not have any idea what is involved.

3. Ask those in charge of  the jobs to fill out a form that has the following information. It is very important that information be complete and clearly written:  Job title, e.g. Sunday School Teacher, Youth Volunteer, etc. Don’t use church jargon titles that potential volunteers might not understand. For example, write something like “Grade School Age Sunday School Teacher”, not  “Promiseland servant/helper.” [Read more...]