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.

Yvon Prehn's Church Communication Blog

The Bible tells us that “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, (Luke 6:45)” or as the J.B. Phillips translation puts it “For a man’s words will always express what has been treasured in his heart.”

My goal in these blog entries (actually in all of the ECC Ministry, but particularly here) is to give your heart and mind a biblical viewpoint and foundation in church communications, so that your communications, whatever form they take, will reflect God’s Word and not primarily secular marketing or current cultural views, fears, or attitudes.

I used the word “primarily” quite intentionally in the previous statement because though we learn from secular marketing and contemporary culture, these influences should not be primary in our work. The primary influence on our work is God’s Word. God’s Word informs the Effective Church Communication ministry in our goal, which is to help church communicators create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission.

Learning from, observing, and sharing other sources, while staying true to a biblical perspective and providing useful commentary is a challenging path to walk. No doubt I will often make mistakes, but to serve you in this way is my goal in these blogs.

Cautions on writing, creating, sharing personally revealing stories AKA testimonies, the possible negative results, and what to do instead

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We all want to share stories, yet we must always be respectful of the person whose story we want to tell and above all, we need to keep primary God's story and God's Word.

Storytelling is very popular currently. Just today I got yet another promotion of a “Learn How to Tell Stories” webinar.

Though storytelling is perennially popular, our Bible is made up of stories, after all, we must also be aware of some cautions when we tell stories—and that’s what this podcast and blog is all about…. The podcast is below and the blog on the same topic follows.

With the current trend of excessive sharing influenced by current media and the public revelations of indiscretions of previous Christian leaders, it seems there is nothing that is off-limits in public discourse.

There truly is no longer shame in what is shared.

The secular news media is one area; the church is another and it's important to set limits for what we share in the church in our written and digital communications and spoken public and digital sharing. This includes written and spoken testimonies and regardless of our reasons for wanting to share them, please consider the following cautions as we do them.

Please consider the following suggestions as both the ignorance of possible consequences of oversharing and the abuse of it can have lasting, though often not intended consequences for the people in our church.

We can never separate the content from the person

Allow me to first share my background on this issue as it comes from years of writing about people in difficult situations when I wrote about people for a number of Christian ministries in Colorado Springs and also was a religion reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun.

When I was a senior editor and writer with Compassion International and progressed to teaching writing and publication creation to other ministries, one thing I was adamant about was that we never, ever show people who were recipients of our ministry from a victim position either in what we wrote about them or how we photographed them.

No pictures of children with flies on their faces, no women beaten and bruised, and no men slumped in a pile of rags. Regardless of their previous need, I felt we should always treat people with honor. [Read more...]

The most important communications you create—answers to staff emails and other requests

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Don't ignore people who email you
When we ignore emails people send to the church staff it can hurt hearts, damage relationships, and certainly, make people less open to communications you send to them.

We want people to respond to what we communicate to them, we want them to show up and participate. Yet, again and again, I hear from those who are challenged emotionally and spiritually because people on the church staff do not respond to emails. Here are some recent ones (identifying details are modified so as not to embarrass any individual or church as we can all be guilty of these things):

"I wanted to sponsor some of the youth group going to camp and it was not an insignificant amount of money. I also had some other things I wanted to give the group and as I went over my email I realized it wasn't clear that a lot of money was involved with the various offers and a few questions I had. However, the youth pastor took days and no response. I recopied it and sent it again with a nice "I'm sorry I bothered, and you may have missed this....." I got an extremely short reply, basically rejecting my offer. I don't think he actually read the email. I am NEVER again going to support this person and my money will go elsewhere.

I had a really important question about an issue that came up with our small group. I emailed the pastor who is supposed to be in charge of all this and still no reply. I'm trying hard not to call and yell. We just had a budget approval time and our church pays people really well and I don't understand why they don't answer emails.

I sent in the requested material so the communications person could add our Sunday School topics to the church weekly email newsletter. No acknowledgment it was received. It wasn't put into the newsletter. I don't know what to do.

I could go on and on with comments from many churches, but all of them have the same question, and concern--"Why does the church staff not answer email?"

Let's look at why this is happening and positive ways to improve the situation. [Read more...]

SEND OUT THOSE POSTCARDS!!! National Study on the importance of Direct Mail confirms the effectiveness of postcards

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Postcards are an effective way to communicate
Even though we have many channels of communication, postcards are still one of the most effective, as this current study shows.

The direct mail and marketing companies, Lob and Comperemedia just sent out some highlights from their 2022 State of Direct Mail: Consumer Insights report. I think it's fair to say that where they list "direct mail" we can substitute the word, "postcard."

Here are their findings:

  • 72% of respondents read direct mail immediately after or on the same day they bring it inside their residence
  • Of the 62% of consumers that have taken action on a direct mail piece, 64% were inspired to take action because of an offer or promotion
  • 45% of consumers say receiving direct mail from a brand feels more important than receiving an email from a brand

Though these companies of course want to sell you their direct mailing services, as church communicators we can learn a lot from them.

Based on these statistics, one of the most successful communications churches can create for outreach is a postcard

As I have reminded church communicators for many years, when a person gets a postcard out of the mail, for the brief seconds that they check it out, you have their complete attention. They cannot help but read the message you have on it.

It is one-on-one communication. [Read more...]

When computers break and things go wrong, the story of a Lazarus computer and trusting God for the results of our work

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It's never the computer, but the person that makes great communications
It's never the computer, but the person that makes great communications. Use whatever tech you have to create great things for the kingdom of God.

Finances are often a challenge in church communications as it seems the communications ministry is one of the last in the church to get the updated equipment and software needed.

Working for a church or working at home, the challenges are the same. The financial support of the job I work at to pay for the costs of this site has been significantly nose-dived because of Covid. Since the income from that job has to pay household bills and ministry operational costs, new hardware is not even a remote option.

This isn't a moan and grown about tough times but what I hope will be an encouragement of what I've preached to all of you for years, but have currently been reminded of in a very real way and that is....

Our equipment is never what makes an effective communicator

My current computer was all I could afford when I got it (I was planning on getting a new updated and the super computer I thought I needed and then Covid hit). It is barely adequate, but it has been adequate.  A few months ago, it began to overheat after operating for a few hours (and I work on it many hours a day). A few days ago I was working away, not paying attention. and it got so hot it shut down completely. Dead. Total black screen of death. I prayed over it. I set it aside. Came back to it. Still dead.

I panicked. I do have a backup, a desktop box of a very old computer I can use in an emergency, but it clanks loudly (sounds like a jet engine a friend of mine said) and the screen attached to it is going out and has streaks across images. I hate that thing but have had to use it at times. I can borrow my husband's Chromebook for short periods of time, but he needs it for his work. I wanted to cry.

Suddenly (I am not making this up) it seemed an inner voice from heaven said to me, "put it in the refrigerator." So I did. Overnight. The next morning I pulled out an icy cold and damp computer. I momentarily thought if the overheating hadn't fried it, the moisture from the refrigeration probably did it in. [Read more...]

Don’t forget the people left behind in the rush to make all things digital

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Yvon's note: I admit, I was a bit cranky when I wrote this. Well, not so much cranky as sad, but I know I can come across cranky at times when I want to cry but end up yelling (ask my husband). I wanted to acknowledge that and ask for your forgiveness if the following comes across too harshly. I seem to be over-reacting a lot these days or maybe it’s an appropriate reaction to the over-the-top stresses of these days. I’m not sure, but I trust the following gives us thoughtful pause as we work to adapt to changing challenges while serving “the least of these.”

It’s been a wild ride in church communications and it isn’t going to smooth out any time soon as we try to figure out what to keep, what to modify, what new things to try, and what old ways of doing things we can toss out. Much well-deserved emphasis and discussion have been on new ways to conduct worship online and that will continue as churches work to figure out how to juggle the challenges of meeting physically together (while properly social distancing apart) and continuing an online ministry for those who cannot meet together.

While these discussions are going on, I’d like some recent thoughts.

Imagine you are older; imagine your health is compromised in some way and staying home is a necessity. Most likely this has been an extremely fearful time.

If you weren’t entirely comfortable with technology, it might have been a challenge to figure out how to participate in an online Bible study or watch a Sunday service.

Imagine that despite your fears, you are just now starting to feel comfortable taking communion with crackers and juice at home and singing along with the worship team on the computer. But on Sunday you are told this will stop. Well, maybe not stop entirely, the church will try to “stream” the service as they meet back in the building, but they are letting people know ahead of time this might not be the same and they made stop doing the online service. [Read more...]