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.

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:

Consistency is valuable during trying times–comments on the advice to change things up in online services

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Alternate services can be traditional
During this time of empty churches, don't feel like to have to change everything you do. Tradition can be very comforting.

We are all negotiating unknown waters, but I wanted to add a little comment to the overall conversation on creating online worship experiences.

I've seen a number of things from some churches in the chat rooms and other online resources that advise doing your online service in a completely different way than you have been doing a service. They advise doing it in a social media format. This can, of course, mean different things for different groups, but one predominate idea is to replace the pulpit with a couch and I assume have a chat rather than a sermon.

That is one option and if after seeking the Lord's will you decide this is the right thing for your church—go for it!

But there is also a case for consistency during these trying times

What follows is totally my personal opinion and please take its limited value as such.

I just finished attending the second online service for our church. As I shared earlier, the first one was a bit challenged, but even then it was wonderful to get together with people online. The chat window was incredibly comforting and fun.

This week was very different. They pre-recorded it and it was very similar to our regular service. It had the whole music team, the same number of songs with the words scrolling on the screen. My husband and I sang alone. It had the announcements and community prayer time, led by an elder. It even had a Children's sermon section, which I thought was great for the families watching. It had the final song and benediction.

As I was observing my reaction to the service (I can't help it, the church communication teacher in me just won't shut off), I found that the traditional pattern was very comforting. different delivery method, but the same worship service.

Why I'm bringing this up—several reasons

First of all, for those of you struggling to simply get something up and online, don't feel like you have to do everything differently.

Traditional services are not lacking in value.

Social media, while it has its uses, is not for every situation or venue or congregation. Social media is not the answer to every challenge of the church.

I know many of you are struggling greatly with what to do in this situation. You don't have to do totally new things to worship God with your people. Do what you can in the ways you've been doing it and be at peace.

Again, if totally changing your service procedure is your leading from the Lord, go for it—but whoever you are and where ever you are, don't do something because it seems like some other churches are doing that. Listen to Jesus. He knows you; He knows your sheep. Follow his lead on how to reach out during this challenging time.

Alone time, an opportunity for extended time in prayer

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Use alone time as Prayer time
If you are forced to be alone, spend some time in intentional prayer and listening to God.

How can we make the most of the enforced time alone? Or at least time away from our regular work and school? Here is an idea that might be useful.

I was involved with the Navigator ministry through college and one of the most valuable times in it was when our group would spend a half-day in prayer. This exercise might be useful during these challenging times. We can choose to make enforced time away from jobs or school times of spiritual growth and developing a closer walk with Jesus.

In the past, we wouldn't spend the entire time praying, but would also read and journal. Below is a link to a Navigator article on spending a half-day in prayer and a PDF you can download that gives you some guidance on how to do it.

In addition to their advice, I've found it useful to ask God questions in my journal as I start time like this. In relationships, in work, in many areas of life, we often feel we have to have all the answers figured out and then we come to God with what we concluded we want and need. Decisions made,  we then present the grocery list to Him to fulfill it.

It's much better to ask and then read His Word; be still and listen.

I've found that when I do that often answers bubble up (not sure how spiritually appropriate that term is, but that's the best way I can describe it) and I can pray more confidently when I feel that God has given me what to pray for. I think that is the real meaning of:

Delight yourself also in the Lord,
And He shall give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him,
And He shall bring it to pass.

Psalm 37:4-5 New King James Version (NKJV)

Sometimes people quote this passage as if it promises that God will give us whatever we want. But it doesn't say that. It says HE will give us our desires. For Him to do that, we have to be quiet enough to listen.

Let's make the most of this time to do that.

How to Spend Extended Time in Prayer

Note: This article was inspired around the events of the Covid19 Pandemic. It may be useful to pass on to your congregation. As with all the materials on this site, feel free to copy and use it in any way you'd like, no attribution required.

PLAN NOW for what you will do for the Sunday AFTER Easter, so people will return

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Invite people to engage with you after Easter
Invite people to engage with you after Easter for a lasting impact on their lives.

One of the biggest challenges for churches is how to get people to come back to church after holidays and special events. There are many things you can do that I'll be sharing but now is the time for the most important thing you need to do to get people to come back after your Easter celebrations.

You need to schedule an event to give people a reason to return.

No doubt you'll do a fantastic job in your Easter celebration, but think about the people who perhaps came to your Easter service because a friend or family member asked them or the church was holding an event for their children. Easter may have brought up questions. People new to the message of Easter may find themselves asking:

Did Jesus really rise from the dead? And if he did, what does it mean to me?

Plan ahead for your church to answer those questions

There are many ways you can do this. Some that have worked well for churches in the past include:

  1. A sermon the Sunday after Easter entitled "Is there really life after death for me?" The pastor of a large church in Colorado Springs preached a similar sermon for many years the Sunday after Easter, they advertised it well at the service and to the community. As a result, they always had as large of a turn out than they did for Easter Sunday. If you've done a good job of presenting the resurrection of Jesus, answering the question of "what does it mean to me" is a natural follow-up.
  2. You can invite them to a series of seeker Bible Studies. They can be something created by your church looking at the life of Jesus or you can use a program like Christianity Explored, which is an excellent presentation of the life of Jesus for people outside the church using the Gospel of Mark. I highly recommend you look at it.
  3. You can invite them to "Latte with the Pastor." I've recommended this a number of times and in many situations, but the basic idea is to follow up with guests (you did use connection cards, didn't you? If not, please see the materials on them and use the free downloads for them) who gave you their information with coupons for a free latte or two and an invitation to join the pastor to "ask any question you want about the Christian faith" at your local coffee shop. I've made a set of postcards to help you do this. Here they are and the link is at the end of this article:

There are many variations of this that you could do: asking people to come to a dessert at church for open-ended discussions, or for people in the church to have small groups in their homes or whatever would appeal to the age group or community you are ministering in. Whatever you choose, the idea is to do something to engage people outside the church to return to ask questions they have about Jesus.

DO THIS NOW

As you get closer to Easter itself and in the midst of Easter celebrations you'll be too busy to think about what to do after Easter. You need to plan ahead. You need to get all the materials done and ready for it or it won't happen.

Of course, you'll be tired after Easter. Exhausted most likely.

Many pastors take the week off. Taking that time off to rest is understandable, but if you do you miss out on an incredible opportunity to make a lasting, perhaps eternity-changing connection with the people who came on Easter Sunday.

This year, push through the exhaustion, remembering Jesus, "who for the joy that was set before him, endured" and connect with the people you challenged at Easter and lead them to an eternal relationship with Jesus. That is what He came to bring about. It's your task to make it happen in your community.

For follow up materials, go to FREE TEMPLATES for Easter follow up here: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/easter-templates/#toc-3

While you are there, look around—there are lots of FREE TEMPLATES you can download and use for all aspects of your Easter Celebrations.

An incredible example of speaking to YOUR audience, of tailoring a message to a specific group

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Focus on YOUR people when creating communications
We need to get our audience in focus and clearly see them before we can successfully create communications for them.

One piece of advice I frequently give church communicators when creating their materials is to always keep in mind their specific church, location, audience. Templates can be useful, and this also includes the templates I create for you, but no matter what the design, if it does fit for your people, either modify it or use something else.

I know my templates won't fit for every church and though I try to do things in a variety of styles, for some churches I'll totally miss the mark. For others, they will be exactly what they need.

With the strategy of always designing your communications with YOUR audience in mind as background, on one of the church communication groups, I'm part of had one of the BEST examples of designing with a particular audience inside that I've ever seen and I wanted to share it with you.

Without further babbling on my part, here it is:

The question to the group was to share an example of church advertising. Here is one reply:

Michael Tuszynski Here in Utah, there's a church that runs roadside billboards (yes, they still work if they are done right). The two ads simply read:
"church with coffee?" - picture of someone with a coffee
{church website}
"church without a tie?" - someone in a dress shirt, sans tie
{church website}
For context, in Utah the dominant religion is Mormonism. They don't drink coffee, and they wear ties to their services every Sunday.
Both of the ads do SUPER well for that church and it doesn't say much of anything. However, because of its simplicity, it was brilliant.

It was brilliant because it cut to the heart of issues near and dear to its intended audience.

The challenge to all of us

What is it that we can do that will speak to the HEART of our audience?

The deeper question, of course, is how well do we know our audience? If we want to invite or minister to a particular group of people, how well do we know them, their needs, fears, wants?

What style will appeal to them or repulse them? What media channels do they frequent?

Before you answer, be sure you aren't simply designing in a style or in media channels YOU feel most comfortable using.

It might be a little uncomfortable to be honest in your outreach. We might think the above example is brilliant, but I imagine it was somewhat scary to put that out there the first time.

Brainstorm, pray, ask someone in the group you want to reach how they react to your creations.

If you come up with something unique to a particular group, please share it with us. Send it to me at yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.