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.

The silent, destructive communication war between Boomers and Millennials

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Generations need to learn to communicate

There is a silent war going on in churches today. Nobody talks about it and many in the church are not even aware it is going on, but it continues day after day and the injuries, both to individuals and to the Kingdom of God, are immense. This is the war of communication expectations between talking on the phone, email, and texting.

Though this conflict can happen between any members of the church, for purposes of this article, I’m going to over simply it by sharing what I’ve seen happen many times between Boomer and Millennial age groups. Though I’m using these two groups as examples, read into them “Boomer and older” and “Millennial and younger”.

I’ll first give some examples and then suggestions for ways to improve the situation.

Here are some typical skirmishes:

Situation #1:

A Boomer congregation member places a phone call to a Millennial Youth Pastor and leaves a message. No response. Boomer tries email. No response. Sunday comes around and Boomer angrily confronts Millennial, "I was going to give two scholarships to Winter Camp, but since you didn't have the courtesy to respond to my offer, the scholarship money has been donated elsewhere."

Millennial response, “I’m really sorry. I didn't get any of your messages.”

Situation #2:

Millennial Youth Pastor texts the Boomer age people in the church who have said they want to be part of the prayer team for youth. She is excited about the list she received from the church office and then sends them a series of Instagram links to images showing the kids they will be praying for at an upcoming strategy session at Starbucks.

When the time comes for the strategy session, only one person out of the 15 she sent multiple text messages to shows up. On Sunday, when she tries to be kind and asks why various Boomer individuals didn’t show up, she gets a combination of blank stares and replies of “You never contacted me” in response.

What is going on

In both groups, the person sending the message felt they were doing all they could to communicate. However, just sending a message is not the same as communicating a message. [Read more...]

A new look at Lent—baby steps to Christian walking worthy of our salvation

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Lent reminds us to live for Jesus
Lent reminds us of the cost of our salvation and challenges us to live for Jesus.

I confess I was scared into becoming a Christian.—

As a little kid, I heard about hell in church, and I knew I didn't want to go there.

I had a Grandma who loved Jesus, the Bible, and who demonstrated every possible Christian virtue at home and to her neighbors. But wanting to be like my Grandma (which I did) wasn't my overwhelming concern regarding a relationship with God. Every night before I went to bed at the end of my prayers I would always add, "And please God, let me go to heaven when I die and not to hell."

Though we went to church every Sunday, that prayer tormented me until a Good News Bible Club teacher explained if you trusted Jesus as your Savior, you didn't need to worry about going to hell. Jesus' death on the cross paid for the sin that sent people to hell, and by accepting Him, by asking him to be my Savior, I wouldn't ever need to worry about it. I did ask Jesus to save me and never prayed that fearful prayer again.

What this has to do with Lent

As I was putting together the communications for Lent I realized the current public image of Christianity is a happy, happy one complete with the promise that if you become a Christian, life will always go well for you. Even those who don't subscribe to the crassness of the health and wealth gospel (if you give God money He will give you back much more), are shocked if someone in the family gets sick or loses their job. Any disappointment with what we think God owes us provides grounds for walking away from the faith or at least is a justification to be mad at God.

Lent gives us a corrective to that view. Lent reminds us that there are things about the Christian life that are difficult and costly. It challenges us to say “no” to ourselves in minor areas of life to strengthen our spiritual muscles for larger challenges. [Read more...]

The Six Benefits of reading (or listening to) the Bible in Chronological order and probably why you haven’t done it

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Thru the Bible In Chronological Order Lesson #1 6 Reasons Why Yvon's note: this is from my Bible Blog and podcast website: www.bible805.com. For all of 2019 my project was to first, share why we can trust our Bibles (lessons from history), and then to go through the Bible in Chronological order with my commentary on readings each week. I finished the project (whew!....) at the end of 2019, but all of the podcasts and notes are available for you on the site if you would like to go through the plan anytime. In the following year, I'll be doing various topical studies for the podcast each week. The reason I'm including this on the Effective Church Communications website is because Church Communicators need to be spiritually strong to communicate for the kingdom of God and to be spiritually strong, you must know God's Word. In addition to working in church communications, I have a Master's Degree in Church History, attended seminary, taught church history at a Jesuit university and love teaching the Bible. The podcast is available on iTunes and many other podcast channels. For links to all of them and to all of last-year's podcasts, go here.

Podcast Intro:

Along with losing weight, getting more done, simplifying your life and other commendable goals, is reading through the Bible one of your resolutions for the year? Do you know how many books are in the Bible?

If so, I’d like to share a way for you to do it that will change your life more significantly than any diet will!

Hi, I’m Yvon Prehn and Welcome to Bible 805!

Today we’re going t to talk about…..

The Six Benefits of reading (or listening to) the Bible in Chronological order, and probably why you haven’t done it

There are many ways to read through the Bible each year—but there is one that is by far the BEST way to do it (and I’ll be going into the reasons why it’s best shortly) and that is to read through the Bible in Chronological order. That means to read the books (or parts in some cases) in the order they happened, not the order you find them in the Bible.

Don’t worry about figuring that order out—I’ve got a schedule you can download to do it and I’ll be doing podcasts in the coming year to guide you through it. (starting Jan. 6 for 2019)

But for now, since reading through the Bible in Chronological order is a somewhat daunting task, it's worth asking why do it? To answer, ask yourself, why read anything, watch any movie, learn any new information in a certain order? [Read more...]

Don’t work like Amazon this holiday season–make room for joy!

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Free templates to make you happy
This season and always let's encourage each other as we work for the Lord!

I just finished reading an article by Gerry McGovern on the brutality of some modern companies in pursuing customer satisfaction at the cost of worker's mental and physical health and safety. Though we can do little to control how secular companies treat their workers, I was challenged with how we view work in our churches and ministries.

Yes, we all want to work hard for the Lord and in advancing His Kingdom, and yes there are times when we might push ourselves especially hard. This last week for me was filled with communications to be created for Sunday, a lesson for a Sunday School Class, Christmas decorations, preparing our home to host our Sunday School Brunch/party and doing all the cleaning, cooking, and shopping for that. It all got done and then I took a 2-hour nap.

It was fulfilling and good, but to push like that continuously isn't a good thing. I remind myself that Jesus said:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Matt. 11:28-30

It is a tricky balance between working hard for the Lord in ways that are pleasing to Him and thinking WE have to carry the entire load. We need to pray for wisdom and insight in these areas.

We also need to be careful about the guilt and burdens we place on others. If church staff members or volunteers are overly stressed with their workloads,  we might need to adjust our expectations, add time or resources or recruit additional volunteers. Our success in our communications or outreach at Christmas or any time of the year is not dependant on how hard we work but on the blessings of a Savior who can move hearts and change lives with the most humble of communications or services we produce.

We don't work for a brutal employer who primarily cares about the bottom line, but for a Savior who gave his life for us and who walks with us and we live for Him.

My contribution to your sanity

Let me carry some of your load for you. I have dozens of free templates for you to help you get out the true message of Christmas, connect with visitors, and encourage church members. They are in downloadable PDF formats and many are ready-to-print as is. Items such as connection cards, cards that remind people that Jesus didn't stay a baby, and a gospel presentation based on Hark the Herald Angels Sing, all are ready for you with a simple click and download. CLICK HERE to go to the Christmas Templates and scroll through the many items for you.

In addition, most are also in editable PDF format, so you can personalize them or change any of the headlines, etc.

Please pass on this resource to your fellow church communicators.

 

If you’ve got your church communications totally under control this isn’t for you, if not—read on!

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Overwhelmed with Church Communications
Sometimes I feel like I can't ever catch up or measure up as a church communicator--but here is how I've decided to help us all accomplish what God called us to do

I like to keep up on what’s happening in church communications through online groups and email news, but sometimes it discourages me more than helps me.

I got a major dose of that today when I was reading raving reviews and recommendations about Affinity Software (So easy to use! Cheaper than Illustrator!). And then I read about how you had to start streaming your church service and install online giving in your church before Giving Tuesday.

Please do not misunderstand—if you are a designer who thinks Affinity Software is easy to use and want to create advanced designs—go for it! It didn’t look very easy for me to use when I checked it out, but that’s just me and I did have to smile as I remembered the original Serif software the company created years ago. They have certainly changed. I thought it was too simple years ago and now it seems overly complex for practical church communication tasks.

If you’ve got time to set up a streaming service (more ways to share the gospel, what’s not to love about that?) or install online giving (that’s the one thing I hope every church implements at some time—because giving does go up, again), go for it!

But if you are like me, you already feel overwhelmed by the holidays and don't have time for all that

[Read more...]