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.

About ECC: Effective Church Communications, ministry overview & history

By Leave a Comment

Effective Church Communications (ECC) is the ministry behind the website: www.effectivechurchcom.com. ECC was founded by me, Yvon Prehn. Helping staff and volunteers who work in churches to create effective church communications is the goal of the ministry. I define effective church communication as:

Church Communication that fully fulfills the Great Commission

The Great Commission consists of the last words of Jesus to his followers:

"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matt: 28: 18-20).

The way I summarize the Great Commission and apply it to church communications is to define effective church communications as communication that accomplishes two purposes:

  1. To help people come to know Jesus as Savior.
  2. To help people become mature disciples of Jesus.

Because fully fulfilling the Great Commission is how I define effective church communications, though other aspects of church communication are important, they are not primary.

For example to me effective church communication may not necessarily be:

  • Cutting edge in technology
  • Perfect in design and execution
  • Always use the latest and greatest tools

Please don't misunderstand me. I love technology and am fascinated by what it can do. I greatly admire and strive for good design and execution. I don't ignore design and efficient execution, but these goals remain secondary to the vision of the Great Commission which strives to change the destinies of eternal souls.

What changes the direction of a soul is often different from what makes a secular marketing successful. From what might seem from a secular viewpoint a poorly designed, inefficiently created communication ministry that uses outdated software on barely functioning hardware, can have a tremendous effect on people. People come to know Jesus; hearts are healed; people grow in Christian maturity. God brought people to himself and grew them to Christian maturity long before the computer and web were created and He will continue to do it no matter what tools we do or don't use.

Though we have extraordinary tools today and they should be used as best we can with thanks for them, these tools and their mastery are not the most essential requirement for effective communication. (So don't feel bad if you don't have a new computer, a degree in design, and fancy software!) The essential requirement for effective communications and upon which I base my ministry is the desire to fully fulfill the Great Commission through every available communication channel.

Who the site is for:

When I'm working on materials for this site, I keep a variety of people in mind because in the church people in various positions, plus those who work as volunteers, are involved in the communication ministry. From my seminars and online interactions, here are the groups I create materials for:

  • The church secretary who wants to create quality church communications, but who doesn't have formal training in design, typography, or communication creation.
  • The church communicator who needs inspiration for a communication piece that's been done the same way since the founding of the church.
  • The pastor who has no idea where to start in dealing with church communications, especially in this computer age. When you went to seminary, the computer wasn’t even invented, let alone things like blogs and websites.
  • The pastor who grew up with computers and but doesn’t know how they mesh with a biblical view of communications or how to gently communicate with people who don’t tweet or text.
  • The trained designer who can’t figure out why church people don’t appreciate her brilliant work, who still wants to serve the church, but doesn't know how.
  • The church business administrator who must balance the budget with the communication needs of the church, if he could just figure out what they are.
  • Anyone in church communications who is tired, worn out, and wonders if all the hard work is worth it.

I put all this together with people like the ones above, people like you in mind. You have all come to my seminars. You email me; you like me on Facebook. I see your faces. I remember our conversations, your frustrations, successes and sometimes tears. I pray for you often and fervently. I want to continue our conversations on this site and start new conversations with church communicators I haven’t met face-to-face.

I believe the ministry of church communications is worth all the hard work. I do believe heaven will be different because of the work you do. I want to help make the time when we all meet Jesus one of great joy because the communications you created helped people come to know Jesus as Savior and serve Him as His disciples.

For more about Effective Church Communications and Yvon Prehn

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/yvonprehn

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EffectiveChurchCommunications

YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/yvonprehn

LinkedIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yvonprehn

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/yvonprehn

Postscript: a historical note about Effective Church Communications

For years I called my ministry The Lions Voice—that name was inspired by this verse:

The lion has roared—
who will not fear?
The Sovereign Lord has spoken—
so who can refuse to proclaim his message?
(Amos 3:8a, NIV and 3:8b, NLB)

I loved the name and it meant a lot to me. You'll still see it on some of my older material. I still legally have the name and website URL and may use it someday as the name of a publishing company.

But regardless of future use, when search engines became the primary way we find out about anything and everything, I realized that no one was going to google "The Lion's Voice" if they wanted to find out about church communications.

What to do? I decided to take my advice that I give to people for clarity in church communications and that is to listen to yourself—how do you explain things, how do you refer to ministries in your church if you are looking for a new name? When I listened to myself, I found in my seminars and writing was I was constantly challenging people to become effective church communicators. My seminars and much of the content I teach online are organized around the Five Steps of Effective Church Communication and Marketing. I define Effective Church Communication as church communication that does not stop at simply bringing people into church on Sunday mornings, but that works to “fully fulfill the Great Commission” and much of my website and ministry is about how to do that.

It seemed obvious that I needed to change the name of my ministry to Effective Church Communications. So I did the various legal things that needed to be done and the ministry has been Effective Church Communications ever since.

About ECC: Effective Church Communications User Agreement & Privacy Policy

By Leave a Comment

Effective Church Communications User AgreementEffective Church Communications User Agreement & Privacy Policy

This Agreement sets out the terms and conditions relating to the online content provided free of charge and content subject to payment that Yvon Prehn and Effective Church Communications (ECC) will give to you.

By accessing any of the materials on this site and/or signing up for membership on this site means you agree with and will abide by the conditions that follow.

If you use the Site in the course of business or as a church, you are also agreeing to these terms and conditions on behalf of that business or church, including both staff and volunteers. If you do not agree with what follows, you shouldn't use the site.

If the User has any questions they should contact:  yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

Refund Policy: We want you to be happy with your membership. You will receive a full refund of your membership fee if you contact yvon@effectivechurchcom.com within 7 days of signing up if you wish to cancel.

If your membership is on an automatic, recurring billing, either monthly or yearly, please let me know within a week prior to your next due date if you want to cancel your membership, if you want me to cancel it for you or if you are going to cancel or not renew. It will cancel automatically if you refuse it or change your credit card.

If we don't hear from you and you wish to cancel after a recurring billing has been billed and collected, there are no refunds for the current billing, but the recurring billing will be stopped.

All memberships are fully transferable. If, for example, one person signs up for a yearly or LIFETIME church membership (even if they downloaded a bunch of materials at the discount price) and they leave and someone else comes in to fill the job, the person in the job retains the full membership rights, if it was a church purchase. If it is an individual purchase, you can keep it no matter where you work.

Please let me know if there is a change of billing information, please access your account or, email: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com

Services and Fees: ECC will provide Free and Paid-for Content. ECC reserves the right to vary the Free and Paid-for Content and does not guarantee that the content provided free of charge will remain free of charge and does not guarantee that the content provided subject to payment will remain a paid-for service.

Your responsibility: You must provide ECC with complete and accurate payment information. You can pay using a credit or debit card through our processing system. In the event of an unauthorized payment ECC reserves the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Site and Paid-for Content. If no payment authorization is received or payment authorization is subsequently cancelled, ECC  may immediately terminate or suspend access to any Paid-for Content and/or the Site. ECC will try to process the your request for any Paid-for Content promptly but does not guarantee that the Paid-for Content will be available to you by any specified time. A contract with you for Paid-for Content will come into effect when the Username and Password are issued to you.

Registration, Passwords, and Privacy: The use of the Site signifies your consent to ECC collecting and using personal information about the User in accordance with the Effective Church Communications Privacy Policy. The User can read the Privacy Policy below. You not have to register to use the Site in order to access it and enjoy the content other than the Paid-for Content. If you wish to access the Paid-for Content you will be asked to provide the Site Owner with accurate, complete registration information, including contact details, and it is your responsibility to update and maintain this information. The Site Owner is entitled to rely on this information to provide Paid-for Content. You will also be requested to create a Password in a format specified by the Site Owner (“the Password”). You shall not disclose the Password to any other person or entity other than the appropriate group as specified by the membership level and shall ensure that the Password remains confidential at all times.

If ECC has reasonable grounds for believing that you or your organization has misused or is misusing the Password, ECC may require the you or your organization to change the Password or may suspend the  use of the access to the Site, including Paid-for Content, until such time as the ECC is satisfied that the security of the Site is no longer compromised by the User’s activities.

Limitations on Use of the Site: All content and services provided by the Site Owner belongs to the Site Owner and guest contributors. The Site Owner owns all the intellectual property rights in the content and services. The content and services provided are solely for your personal use and you shall not sub-license, distribute, sell, supply, modify, adapt, amend, incorporate, merge, or otherwise alter any content or service provided under this Agreement, other than in the ways stated that you can do so by Yvon Prehn in the sections designed for modifications such as the templates.

You shall not remove or replicate any logo, copyright or proprietary notices, legends, symbols, labels, watermarks, signatures or any other like marks affixed to or embedded in the content or services. You shall not carry out any act or omission or permit any act or omission to take place that infringes or is likely to infringe any intellectual property rights owned or used by ECC or its contributors or otherwise relating to the Site.

Limitation of Liability and Indemnity: You expressly agree that the use of, and browsing of the Site is at your own risk. Neither the Site Owner nor any other party involved in creating, producing or delivering the Site, including Yvon Prehn and Effective Church Communications, is liable for any direct, incidental, special, consequential, indirect or punitive damages arising out of your access to, or use of, or inability to use the Site or any linked site or for the cost of procurement of substitute goods or services or resulting from any goods or services purchased or obtained or messages received or transactions entered into through the Site or resulting from any unauthorised access to or alteration of your transmissions or data, including but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, use, data or other intangible property including legal costs and expenses, even if the Site Owner has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

You expressly agree that the downloading of any material form the Site is at your own risk. Neither the Site Owner nor any other party involved in creating, producing or delivering the Site, including Effective Church Communications and all contributors to the site, are liable for any direct, incidental, special, consequential, indirect or punitive damages resulting from your downloading material from the Site or any linked site, including but not limited to, damages for loss of profits, use, data or other intangible property including legal costs and expenses, even if the Site Owner has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Without limiting the foregoing, everything on the Site is provided to you “as is” and “as available” without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement.While ECC will use reasonable efforts to include accurate and up to date information on the Site, ECC makes no warranties or representations as to its accuracy or completeness. ECC is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of such information. ECC is not responsible for errors or omissions by contributors, guest authors, or commentators on the site.

The information is provided with the understanding that the information does not constitute any form of advice, recommendation or arrangement by Yvon Prehn, ECC, or its contributors or any other party involved in the Site and is not intended to be relied upon by you in making (or refraining from making) any decisions based on such information. You must make your own decisions on whether or not to rely on any information posted on the Site. ECC reserves the right to modify information displayed on this Site but it does not make any commitment to update the information displayed on this Site. No party including the Site Owner who is involved in the workings of the Site, including Effective Church Communications or its contributors, will at any time be liable or responsible in any way for the content, including Paid-for Content, and information provided on or via the Site and for your use of the Site.

From time to time ECC will make available to you links from the site to third party sites. These sites are not in any way approved, checked, edited, vetted or endorsed by ECC and you agree that the ECC shall not be responsible or liable in any way for the content, advertising or products available from such sites, the quality, functionality, suitability or legality of such sites or for any dealings that you may have, or the consequences of such dealings, with such third party site operators. Any arrangements made between the you and any third party named on the this site are at the your sole risk and responsibility and ECC expressly disclaims any liability for third party information or opinions posted on this Site or any linked Sites that arises under criminal or civil laws relating to defamation, intellectual property, infringement, privacy, obscenity, or any other area of law.

Indemnity: You agree to indemnify, keep indemnified, defend and hold ECC harmless from and against any and all claims, damages, liability, losses, costs and expenses (including legal fees) (whether or not foreseeable or avoidable) incurred or suffered by any Indemnified Party and any claims or legal proceedings which are brought or threatened arising from your use of, connection with or conduct on the Site or any breach by the User of these terms.

Consequences of Breach of these Terms: In the event that Effective Church Communications considers or determines, in their complete discretion, that you have breached, violated or contravened the Agreement or otherwise demonstrated inappropriate conduct in the use of the Site or the content or services they reserve the absolute right to: (a) warn you that you have violated the Agreement and ask you to discontinue such conduct; (b) discontinue the your membership of the site and/or any other related services, including Paid-for Content; and (c) take measures to prevent you from using the Site or linking to the Site.

Proper Law and Jurisdiction: This Agreement and all matters arising from it shall be governed by and construed according to the laws of the United States of America and the state of California. For any disputes other than these, by signing up you and ECC agree to arbitration conducted by a Christian party and will not pursue any litigation in the civil court system.

Entire Agreement: This Agreement supersedes all prior agreements, arrangements and undertakings and constitutes the entire agreement relating to the subject matter of this Agreement. You confirm that you have not entered into this Agreement on the basis of any representation that is not expressly incorporated into this Agreement.

Privacy Policy for www.effectivechurchcom.com

Effective Church Communications provides various materials including a website, www.effectivechurchcom.com,  related services on the website, and links to a storefront for purchasing additional materials all designed to help church communicators create communications that will enable them to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

By participating in any of these activities you agree, without limitation, to the practices described in this Privacy Policy and also accept, without limitation or qualification, all terms and conditions concerning Effective Church Communications, its websites and contributors. We may at any time revise these terms and conditions. You are bound by any such revisions and should therefore periodically visit them to review the then-current terms and conditions to which you are bound.

Collection of Information
In general, we collect only the information necessary to process your access to the site and information needed by the services we use to make the site operate. These service may use cookies (small text files that are stored on the hard drives of visitors computers when they access our Web site) to collect this information, for example, to help store your password.

Use of Information
We may use information collected to inform site members of resources available for purchase, updates and updates on the site.

Disclosure of Information
We will not share any of your information with any other party for sales or marketing purposes. The only information that goes to another party (such as the companies that process credit card payments) is what they need to do their job.

We have taken care to work with only the most highly rated and secure financial companies to manage our financial transactions. Our website maintains a current SSL certificate for additional security purposes.

Security
We have implemented certain physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect from our members.

However, visitors should consider any electronic communication that they transmit to us (such as data, questions or answers, comments, suggestions, or other communications) to be non-confidential. We will not be liable or responsible if information that belongs to an individual is intercepted and used by an unintended recipient, or is otherwise accessed and used without our written permission. By participating in or visiting our Web site, you assume this risk.

Opt-Out Policy
If you have signed up to receive our online newsletter, you may opt out of it at any time. There is a form on every newsletter to do that. If you need help with the opt out, email yvon@effectivechurchcom.com and we will take care of it for you.

Third Party Web Sites
Our Web site provides links to many other sites (products we cover, share, recommend, etc.) which may have privacy policies that differ from our own. We are not responsible for the activities and practices that take place on these web sites. Accordingly, we recommend that you review the privacy policy posted on any web site that you may access through our Web site. We have NO formal advertising, referral, or affiliate arrangements with any other site and are not responsible for them. This includes www.lulu.com the site that sells our products. This is a totally different company and any problems with the purchase of products should be directed to them. Having said that, we will always work hard and help to resolve any problems or issues as we are able.

Changes To This Privacy Policy
There may be times when we need to amend, modify, remove, or change various aspects of this Privacy Policy, and we reserve the right to do so at our discretion. We recommend that you revisit this Privacy Policy periodically to ensure that you are aware of our current privacy practices. You can be assured that any changes that we make will not be applied retroactively and that we will not materially change how we handle previously collected information without your consent. Your continued use of our services following any changes signifies your acceptance of these changes.

Bottom Line
We respect all our members and will never knowingly or intentionally abuse or compromise the privacy or trust you have in us. Please contact yvon@effectivechurchcom.com if you have a concern.

In case of dispute
By accessing this site you agree that if there is a dispute that cannot be happily resolved via email that the dispute will be taken to Christian arbitration arranged by Effective Church Communications. Our desire is that all things are done “decently and in order” and in ways pleasing to the Lord Jesus.

Before you use, trust, or take action on a statistic, always reverse it

By 2 Comments

statistic distortion
Before you use a statistic, be sure you aren't distorting it just to make your point.

I'm not sure where statistics get their power—but put one in an article or headline and people pay attention. Though statistics are a catchy device to get attention, and are often used to prove a point, the numbers themselves say little without interpretation. And therein lies the challenge. Numbers without context mean little or nothing.

Writers create the context and as we create the context for any statistic we need to be careful that we don't ascribe more power to a statistic than it deserves. We especially need to be careful that we don't make unqualified assumptions, recommendations, or recommend ministry actions on a number that can be interpreted in various ways.

A recent example of this is in a number that has been advertised recently from the Barna organization. They are launching a new series of books on various topics and one of their primary selling points seems to be the short length of the books. They seem to base their decision to produce these, at least in part, on the following statistic from a recent survey they conducted that said:

When it comes to books, one of the most conventional informational format, more than one-third of adults (35%) say that while they enjoy reading, they feel most books are too long.  From: https://www.barna.org/barna-update/culture/641-3-trends-redefining-the-information-age#.UmcK3BCXaSo

It's fine to want to produce short books and short books can be of great value to busy, stressed people, but the statistic above is anything but a reason for short books because if you simply reverse it, just under two-thirds of adults (65%) don't feel books are too long. When you reserve the statistic, it shows most people are happy with the length books are now.

Length is not the only challenge to reading

Length is only one of the factors that determine if a book will be read or not. The importance or interest to the reader is one of the most important.  No matter how long or tedious a textbook might be, if our passing a class that determines if we get a degree we need, we'll read it. For leisure reading, skill of the author determines whether we lose ourselves in the words or are bored after a chapter or two.

Any content can be made harder to read if the print is too small and the layout is cramped. Conversely, even the most dense content is more accessible (and we'll stick with it longer) if the layout if pleasing, if there are subheads, captions, and illustrations to guide us.

If you don't need a statistic to make your point, you probably don't need the statistic

When you are tempted to use a statistic in your writing, remember the example here and always reverse it. If reversing the statistic shows the opposite of the point you want to make, leave out the statistic.

Sometimes statistics shed light on issues or offer insights we wouldn't see any other way, but always look at all sides of one before you use it so that readers won't be able to turn it around to prove the opposite of the point you are attempting to make.

How to equip and encourage your volunteers before Fall outreach season starts

By Leave a Comment

Directoring volunteers is essential for outreach success
Your volunteers need encouragement and direction before the busy holiday outreach season starts.

We’ve all been there—to an event, perhaps at church, perhaps not, but one that had incredible food, fabulous decorations, and great music—but it was one that we left early because of the people. Maybe they were rude, or ignored us, or simply didn’t seem to care about anybody new, so we wandered around quietly munching until we slid out the door.

No matter what else is going on, people are the most important part of any event. We need remind ourselves of that reality as we prepare for  seasonal and special event outreach at our church. We can, and I hope your churches will do all you can to make your facilities and programs the best they can be before outreach events, but if you don’t take time to make sure your people are in top shape in training and attitude before special events, all your hard work on the externals will mean little.

Take some time now to plan how you will make certain your people are as wonderful as the rest of the resources for your outreach and holiday celebrations. Following are some links on the website that will help you:

Video: How to get all the volunteers you need for Halloween Outreach (and other outreach events)

Ed. note: if you have trouble getting people to volunteer for your seasonal outreach events, PLEASE take time to watch this video! It will help you make changes that will result in more volunteers.

For outreach at Halloween or any time to be successful, you need a lot of volunteers. This is especially true when you put on an event like a Halloween Trunk or Treat. But how do we get all the people we need for all the work that needs to be done? This video shows you how through:

  • A case study of a flyer that won't work and then a brochure that will work to recruit volunteers. The example used here is for a Halloween Trunk or Treat.
  • Step-by-step instruction on what you need to say and the order you need to say it in for your information to make sense to potential volunteers
  • Specific advice on what you need to be careful to do and not do when recruiting volunteers.
  • Encouragement to do all the work that needs to be done and the eternal results that can come from it.

The video is below, but I recommend you watch it on YouTube or blow it up full screen so you can read the materials I'm taking about.

/

Overall articles on volunteer development, recruitment and retention

Why the 80/20 situation isn't true for the recruitment and retention of church volunteers

We’ve all heard: “80 percent of the people do 20 percent of the work.”  Those who are in the over-worked 80 percent console themselves that is simply how life is and in the church we suffer for Jesus.
Though trials are part of the Christian life, this is not an inevitable part of them. The 80/20 statement is merely a business observation—it is not scripture. The Bible tells us we are to have 100 percent involvement in the church.  We make up different parts of the Body of Christ, but everyone has a job to do.

To read the rest of the article: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/why-the-8020-situation-isnt-true-for-the-recruitment-and-retention-of-church-volunteers/

Why upbeat interviews work better than desperate pleas for recruiting volunteers

Desperation isn't pretty in volunteer requests. If you feel like shutting down the children's ministry if new people don't sign up or closing the bathrooms on Sunday morning if no one helps the facilities team—you probably won't get sign-ups by sharing your frustration.

To read the rest of the article: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/why-upbeat-interviews-work-better-than-desperate-pleas-for-recruiting-volunteers/

Communications for a good continuing relationship with your volunteers—please don't suddenly become Mr. Grumpy

Every church is desperate for volunteers. It's not only important to effectively recruit them, but after they are recruited, it is equally important to work hard to keep them. Unfortunately, the difference between how we treat volunteers when we are recruiting them and after they volunteer is sometimes similar to the difference with some couples between courtship and marriage. Before the wedding the groom is all flowers and candy; after the wedding he becomes Mr. Grumpy.

Don’t become Mr. or Mrs. Grumpy to your volunteers. Be as kind, caring, and thankful to them when they have been around for 6 months as you are the first week. Not only is this the proper response for a disciple of Jesus, but volunteers can easily quit if you make it difficult or unpleasant to serve. You can express that thankfulness to them through a variety of church communication projects such as:

To read the rest of the article: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/communications-for-a-good-continuing-relationship-with-your-volunteers-please-dont-suddenly-become-mr-grumpy/