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.

Free ebook on Basic English Grammar and a helpful website for writing advice

By Leave a Comment

This book is a free ebook on the site link below. It is a helpful review for what we all learned a long time ago.

We could all do better on our writing, grammar, and editorial skills and this website has a wealth of articles to help. In addition, they also have a very useful FREE Ebook on the Basics of English grammar. They send out a daily newsletter with short writing tips that I don't always read, but have found useful.

They also have a number of blog articles they link to that are excellent reminders and training to help us keep quality in our church communications.

Be a bit careful of the advertisements on their site. For example, I didn't like the big display ad on self-publishing "for only $100." You can self-publish books for free, you don' t need to pay someone to do it for you. That's one of the reasons we do self publishing. But overall, lots of useful material.

CLICK HERE to go to the site overall

CLICK HERE to go to the page to download the FREE Basic English Grammar ebook.

Yvon Prehn Interviewed on The Gospel Blog

By 1 Comment

"Why bother to do church communications?"

"Who do we do the church bulletin for?"

"What are some of the biggest mistakes people make in church communications?"

"How did you get started in this ministry?" [Read more...]

Effective Delegation, The Ultimate Balancing Act, Part 2

By Leave a Comment

Gayle Hilligoss Picture
Article by Gayle Hilligoss

In Part 1, Gayle shared the foundation of why and how to delegate. This article goes into specific advice on how to make the delegation experience a successful one for you and your volunteers.

• Be available.
Once your worker has directions and starts the job you can get on with your own tasks. Before you do, assure the recruit you are available for questions. For most jobs it is also advantageous to establish checkpoints—agreed upon times you check on the task’s progress. Resist any urge to pop in more often. Trusting people is essential to effective delegation.

• Encourage, appreciate, recognize.
The key to having a good supply of enthusiastic workers is to make heroes of the ones you already have. Even the busiest people enjoy, and will want to make time for, opportunities to serve where their contributions are appreciated. Recall how you felt last time someone gave you a spontaneous “Good job!” Words are powerful. Be generous with your honest praise.

Many churches with regular corps of volunteers have clever ways to identify them: shirts, hats, and pins with a special logo; regular dinners or luncheons; an honor roll in the newsletter or on the website. You will think of many more ways to show your appreciation for these important people—not just the work they produce.

• Evaluate results.
Delegation is more of an art than a science. Situations and people are different; there are no magic rules—only reliable guidelines. Don’t expect instant success. Your other skills have matured and improved with practice—so will your skills of delegation .

Gauge how delegation is working for you by asking yourself some hard questions after each assignment is completed.

• Was time saved? Can I expect that in the future?
• Was the work done well?
• Did I pick the right person for the task?
• Was this a positive experience for all?
• What techniques would I repeat?
• What would I do differently?

• Put aside excuses.
Church office professionals offer a lot of reasons for choosing not to delegate: it is easier to do it myself; the job is mine so I should do it; I couldn’t find anyone to take this on; I don’t have time to explain to someone; it might not turn out well; I would just have to do it over. You can probably add an excuse or two of your own.

Each reason is plausible. Any one could persuade you to just “do it myself.” Nevertheless, the risks are slight compared to the benefits: your own professional growth, the opportunities for service provided, time and effort used most effectively, and a more balanced work load—for starters.

Take the risk. Delegate.

___________________________________

For Part One of  "Effective Delegation, The Ultimate Balancing Act" CLICK HERE

You might also enjoy:

DDevotions Print Coverevotions for Church Communicators

This is a great book to give out as a thank-you to anyone involved as a volunteer in the church communications ministry. Click on the book to go to the link that tells you more about it.

 

 

 

"You are One of the Great Ones and far more important than you may realize," an encouragement for all church communicators

CLICK HERE or on the image to read one of the devotions from the book above. CLICK HERE to go to a download of a FREE flyer that you can get to share.

 

 

Flyer to encourage church communications: You are one of the Great Ones!

By Leave a Comment

The Great Ones Flyer, image 1
This is an encouraging devotion for church communications. It is a free, ready-to-print PDF.

Church communicators work very hard at one of the most important tasks in the church and the purpose of this piece is to encourage them.

The flyer to the left is free for everyone to download and print, either to remind yourself of the incredible importance of your work or to encourage another church communicator. It is a copy of the devotion, "You are one of the Great Ones and far more important than you may realize" CLICK HERE if you want read the devotion before you download it.

It is a black and white PDF and would look very nice printed on colored or parchment-looking paper. [Read more...]

Church Communicator’s review of Six Strategies for Effective Church Communications

By Leave a Comment

Six Strategies BookI try very hard to create materials that are useful to all church communicators. I do pour heart, soul, and many prayers into them and I send them off (typos and all) trusting God that they make sense and are useful.

It is wonderful to get positive feedback from people and following is a review of Six Strategies For Effective Church Communicators. I'm passing it along because I think the author covers many of the major points of the book well.

Please if you have comments, do send them to me and please put them in the comment sections of the books and even more on my books on amazon CLICK HERE to go to that link. Your opinion is what is so important--I don't do these to talk to myself, but to serve all of you as you create communications that will help your churches fully fulfill the Great Commission.

I don't do these to talk to myself, but to serve all of you as youelp your churches fully fulfill the Great Commission.

Email review of Six Strategies of Effective Church Communications

The Six Strategies are written in a concise style and makes for quick
reading... It should be very useful to help "train" those involved with PR
and church communications (the style should make it easier to get those who
don't like to read, to at least skim through the book).

I agree wholeheartedly with all the observations, insights, strategies and
advice you give, and especially relate to, and identify with, your thoughts
that there are too many media channels to leave to one individual to
effectively communicate with, and that there should be a "communications
team" where individuals from the same "Body" work on different areas
according to their areas of familiarity.  Also, that a congregation's
communications should reflect who they are and not try to convey an image
that does not match who they are.

As I am in the printing business, I am "painfully aware" of the enormous and
fast changes happening in communications and the multitude of "channels"
that are appearing and evolving.

[ I also notice you used some expressions from the OIKOS book (great
recommendation as well... I read it, although I don't agree with all the
content, but the basic message matches what I was taught in a "Master's
Plan" bible study from the 1980s.) ]
. . . . .
Again, thank you, thank you, thank you, for what you've assembled and
written in this book.  I give this a big thumbs up!  You put into easy to
follow words, thoughts that I have had for the past few years.  Even the
bible passages caused me to smile, as I just completed working on quite a
number of them in the last few weeks for the liturgical scripture readings
in our PowerPoint for worship.

In my opinion, the only thing needed to complement the strategies of the
book is a bit more explanation of the Five Steps so readers remember them
better as they read references to The Five Steps in the strategies. But I
guess I can look forward to that in the book you will publish soon: "The
Five Steps of Effective Church Communications and Marketing".

from EW, Canada

If you want a copy of  The Six Strategies of Effective Church Communication, CLICK HERE.