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.

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.

All will be well—because Jesus came and is coming

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Jesus died on the cross for us
Jesus came humbly the first time and died on the cross for us. He is coming back a second time in victory. And then truly "all will be well."

The world has gotten pretty crazy over the last year and it probably won't improve much next year. But as Christ-followers our hope isn't in dreams and prayers for a better life that may not happen, but in the Savior, whose resurrection we recently celebrated.

As I was thinking about this, I remembered a quote from Julian of Norwich:

All will be well,

All will be well,

All manner of things

Will be well.

It is more than a comforting saying. For those who have trusted Jesus as Savior it is true—in the midst of the crazy world we live in and no matter how insane it gets, now and forever.

We forget the true meaning of "saved"

We forget how incredible our salvation is because sadly being "saved" in much of Christendom today is synonymous with the idea of goodies from God. And those goodies are supposed to include health and wealth or at least a comfortable life.

That's not how the Bible looks at it. Here are two verses we don't often think about:

Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! Romans 5:9

You turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God,and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath. 1 Thes. 1:9-10

There is, of course, a sense that we are saved here and now in that we are reconciled to God and at peace with him. We are saved from our selfish selves and able to live for God. But as wonderful as these things are, more wonderful yet is that we are saved from final condemnation and judgment.

One day this present reality with all its pains and fears will be transformed into a new heaven and new earth. There will be a final judgment for those who do not know Jesus and we work hard in all we do to share his message of salvation.  But those who know Jesus are saved from condemnation and judgment. For them, there will be no more crying or tears and all the sadness will be gone forever.

Never forget that your work as a church communicator has eternal consequences. Keeping up with trends and technology may be useful, but far more important in your work is that you consistently make clear the message of salvation.

The first advent was humble; the second will be triumphant

Jesus came the first time as a little baby to poor parents who could only find shelter in a barn. He died on a cross with common criminals.

His second advent will be triumphant and glories.

Now we can only trust and believe that "all will be well." But Jesus is coming a second time and then truly and without end, "all manner of things will be well."

Postscript:

I did up a set of cards with the saying "All will be well" on them. CLICK the link following to go to the FREE PDFs to download and share: https://wp.me/pDky9-8T4

 

What are you doing to strengthen your church members for the next wave of lock-downs and challenges? Resources on their way!

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More than one Bible teacher or commentator I trust has made the observation during this challenging time that "No, it isn't the end of the world."

But at the same time, they add, "But it might be a fore-shadowing, a warning, a practice for what's ahead."

I agree.

This isn't what we want to hear

I know that. I know all of us hope that in a few months (we realize it won't be weeks now) that everything will be back to the way it was. That we can do what we want, go where we want, buy what we want, and worship how we want.

Dr. Fauci gave us a reality check when he recently said, "We probably shouldn't ever shake hands with anyone again.

An emblematic statement of how much will change to be sure.

We didn't expect this; we don't think we deserve it

Even those of us who don't ascribe to "name it and claim it" theology, in our heart of hearts, get upset when God doesn't give us what we want when we want it.

If we think we've been good, and haven't sinned too much, go to church regularly and tithe, we think God should keep us from poverty and challenges.

And then Covid19 hit. [Read more...]

A MAJOR UPDATE for Effective Church Communications

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Looking into the future
We can't see into the future, but here are some things I'm focusing on now.

Easter is less than a week away and we are all looking at celebrating it in ways we couldn’t have imagined a few months ago (and may still not have figured out).

Hopefully, at this time most of us have realized that God is in control and we find our comfort and hope in Him alone. If not, hunker down and spend some serious time with your Creator and Savior before you do anything else. Read a modern translation of the Psalms and immerse yourself in the cries of David who had no idea if he would live another day when an army was chasing him with the one goal of killing him. The same God who protected David is with you right now and you will get through this.

One other reality that is slowly sinking in is that this is not going to go away quickly. Things will never be how they were before, and we don’t have any idea of what the “new normal” might be.

What do we do?

I’m not going to give you a list of 5 things that have changed in the church or any such nonsense because nobody really knows at present.

We might have some hints or ideas but I’m quite tired of the online prognostications that state so assuredly what is going to happen and what direction the church will take going forward. I’ve found many major on whatever technology the person writing the piece happened to favor before the outbreak took place.

We really don’t know what technology will explode or implode. Zoom was the tool to unite us all a few days ago and now it’s the insecure boogeyman about to reveal all our secrets.

It’s most likely neither. Time will tell.

What I’m working on this week

I really don’t like to talk about myself, so I deleted that stuff.

Now let me tell you about the latest with Effective Church Communications. This is what is important and PLEASE pray I can get everything done that the Lord wants me to do on it. It is exciting!!

The Effective Church Communications Academy & the Effective Church Communications Bookstore

This is the BIG project I’ve been working on—getting the lessons I’ve learned over the years and current ones I continue to learn into a format that is affordable and accessible.

I’m almost there. Within a couple of weeks, I’ll be releasing it.

I wanted to tell you it is coming. It won’t be perfect, but it will be useful and good.

The reason it won’t be perfect

Putting together an online membership program and particularly if you want to offer lots of classes and courses is an EXTREMELY complex project.

There are all sorts of programs out there that tell you they can do it and how easy it is and that may be true if you have one class or a very simple system to offer. But if you have dozens of classes and want to offer all of them for one low price and have them organized in a way that makes sense (I trust) to church staff people, it is incredibly difficult.

Believe me, I’ve tried them all and invested thousands of dollars trying different systems over the past years. Though I’ve spent far more than I could afford, what I tried were off-the-shelf systems. When I checked into hiring programming to customize some possible solutions, well, let’s just say it was not realistic for me.

I found a useable system. Not perfect, but useable and I think I’m close to launching a project that you will enjoy and learn from.

Not perfect extends beyond the program

The not so perfect parts of the program are more than the imperfect computer set-up of the system. Operator error plays a part also.

The Effective Church Communications Academy & the Effective Church Communications Bookstore are not the product of a big ministry or organization. They are all from me—what I have learned over many decades of working in church communications and with thousands of church communicators all over the world in online interactions and from years of traveling and teaching.

I am far from perfect. I miss typos and grammatical errors. I work alone and can’t afford the staff to fix my messes. I can be narrow-minded and opinionated, and I’ve been called, a “Bible thumper” in that I’m always trying to go back to biblical foundations, motivations, and imperatives for what I do. I’m not saying that is a bad thing, that is who I am, and I do always try to base my life and teachings on God’s Word, but that view is not always appreciated.

I don’t live on social media (though I like it much more than I did) in that I have limited time to create what needs to be done and content creation always takes preference over online chatter.

But I do believe God has given me useful experience and skills. I believe I have a unique viewpoint that though I love new technology and try to keep up with new tools and pass on what is useful, I think some of my greatest strengths are to teach you strategy and skills that are timeless. I have been doing church communications for a long time and I think that perspective is useful.

I wanted to make almost every course better before I released it (though there are some I’m very happy with) and many of the ebooks I wanted to wait to share until I redid them, though some are newly updated.

But the material is all useful as it is. Not perfect, but useful. In fact, I think extremely useful.

I don’t believe you’ll find similar training or advice elsewhere online.

Most of all I believe that the Lord wants me to pass on what he has given me to all of you, what I have now though I’m working to constantly create and improve things, much of it is, as the song says, “just as I am.”

What about the ministry now, this week?

It’s Easter week, Holy Week.

What can I do now to help you prepare when much of what I have for a traditional Easter service no longer works when people aren’t meeting together in a physical space.

Right now, I have a few ideas.

I’ve been overwhelmed with working on the school and bookstore and my brain has not tackled how to redo Easter communications. I may get some done in the next few days, I’m not sure. I do have one thing and one thought.

One thing: Resurrection Cookies—these are a great recipe of meringue cookies that end up hollow inside (if your oven is working properly) and that you can use to tell the Easter story with kids. CLICK HERE to go to the article on them.

One thought: Jesus conquered death! If there was ever a Holy Week that the pall of death permeates our world, this is it. We have GOOD NEWS! Whether my weary brain can come up with additional ways to share it or not, please tell at least one other person on the phone or online or any way you safely can that Jesus is alive and wants to give that eternal life to everyone.

 

 

 

 

The MOST IMPORTANT thing you can do during Covid19 as a tech-savvy disciple of Jesus

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A tech ministry during the virus
Technology is a great tool during the current crisis, but only if you have access to it. Here are some suggestions to serve those who don't.

We all have something to do that we think is of primary importance during this challenging time of the virus.

I know I do. In addition to coming up with tasty and creative meals every night (I didn’t realize we ate out so much previously) to working until all hours putting together a training site for church communicators, I’ve been working on for months (hopefully ready to launch this week). We are all busy.

But there is one thing that has been very heavy on my heart that I'd like us all to stop what we are doing and consider and that is:

How can we get internet access and computers for those without them?

Bear with me as I share why this is so important and some additional resources you may want to read on the topic.

How we care for the “least of these” is the most crucial spiritual test at this time

Many church communicators are overwhelmed with the challenges of technology at this time to get out virtual, online church services to their communities. That is understandable, well, and good.

However, this reminds me of the Corinthian Church (in 1 Cor. 11), where some had too much to eat, and some went hungry.

A church service online is important. Chats or whatever to communicate with the church audience is wonderful. But there is a fine line between producing something good enough and obsessing to create perfect pre-recorded performances that take hours.

At the same time, there are thousands of people without computers or internet access who cannot work from home, even if they have a job that will continue to pay them if they do. There are many more thousands of children without computers or internet access who cannot keep up with their schoolwork.

[Read more...]

Two totally encouraging things: an early Thanksgiving Dinner and a reminder of Jesus love!

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thanksgiving during crisis
Even during a time of crisis, we have so much to be thankful for--let's celebrate it!

What a joy to see the wonderful ways people are encouraging each other during this trying time!

Here are two that I experienced this week.

An early Thanksgiving Dinner

My husband and I don't have any biological children, but we've adopted a blended family we met at church and they have become so precious to us. Social distancing and not being able to see them is a challenge. This morning my adopted daughter texted me that she was wanting to do something to show Jesus how thankful she was and so she decided to make an early Thanksgiving Dinner! Not only that, but she wanted to bring share some with my husband and me (drop off, couldn't see them).

The meal was incredible, turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, green bean casserole, homemade roll, and cranberry sauce. Dessert was a fruit and jello delight, coconut pie, and pumpkin pie. She and her husband are extraordinary cooks, but the love that filled the plates was, even more, warming to my soul.

What a kind and wonderful thing to do! If in the coming weeks, you have the time and resources—what a great thing to do—to cook up a fantastic Thanksgiving meal and take it to people who are alone and may not be able to feast like that—keeping the proper social distancing in place of course.

A reminder of Jesus love and protection

I was listening to a sermon by Max Lucado recently when he talked about the storm on the sea and how he asked the disciples, "Why are you afraid?"

What struck me in his talk was that he went on to say, "Jesus was serious—he really wanted to know why they were afraid." JESUS was with them; they had no reason to fear.

And then later today I found this video I did on that parable. It encourages me whenever I watch it. Please feel free to share: