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.

Want to use social media effectively in your church? Internet Evangelism Day can help!

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Many of your church members are using social media to connect with each other and friends outside the church. You know that it can be a great outreach tool, but you have no idea where to start using it.

The website and ministry: Internet Evangelism Day, http://www.internetevangelismday.com/description.php can help. It is both a resource site and a how-to site with dozens of materials you can use, plus newsletters and updates you can subscribe to.

In addition, once a year they host Internet Evangelism Day, which this year is on April 29. 2012.

It is a time for your church to give a special focus to internet-related ministries. For ways you can focus on digital outreach (not only this week, but always) check out this article: 14 digital ideas to share with your church on IE Day, CLICK on this link to go to the article: http://www.internetevangelismday.com/description.php

Though the site is a goldmine of resources, there is one more to recommend for IE Day. In celebration of it they are offering a lots of fantastic free materials on internet evangelism and related topics. CLICK on this link to go to this page: http://www.internetevangelismday.com/free-christian-ebook-downloads.php and do pass it on to your friends--they will thank you for it!

I cannot recommend enough this site and its resources. It doesn't take money or even extra skills to help your church become effective in sharing the gospel online and this site can help you do it well.

Additional free resource from Effective Church Communications

For a FREE webinar series on How to Write for the Web, CLICK HERE.

Jesus and Perfection in Church Communications

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Jesus Christ our Lord
Of course we want our work to be pleasing to Jesus, but let's look at what really matters to Him.

Sometimes people don't think they are doing all they can for the Lord, that they aren't excellent or perfect enough in their communications ministry unless what they produce professionally perfect, high-tech exciting creations day-after-day, no mistakes allowed. Now all those qualities can be wonderful, but  sadly, it also often means that no one in the church is good enough to create the communications in print or on the website, so an outside, professional firm must be hired to do it. Or, if the work is done at the church, only a select person or two in the church is good enough to produce the quality needed. In other words, the church needs to have the design standards of a professional advertising agency to be pleasing to the Lord.

Being expensive and professional, as defined by using the standards of a professional ad agency, though it might be commendable, isn't the only standard of perfection for the followers of Jesus. [Read more...]

Outreach Church Bulletin inserts, an idea you can use all year around

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Church Bulletin inserts can be great outreach tools
Church Bulletin inserts can be great outreach tools--check out the 5 minute video here to see how!

Churches go all out at Easter in outreach and in inviting people back to church after Easter. Though it's wonderful to do this at Easter, outreach needs to be a priority always. Obeying the Great Commission isn't only for special events. Bulletin inserts can intentionally give people information that tells them about the church and gives them a reason to come back. The inserts can highlight programs and upcoming events that might interest visitors.

The short video here shows two samples of real church bulletin inserts that were used at Easter to do this but that could be easily adapted to any Sunday. They were sent in by ECC Members. PLEASE send us any samples you have with permission for us to use them. We all learn best from the experiences of each other. If you have some you'd like to share, please check out our Great IDEA SWAP!

Update note: though the basic flyers are great, Microsoft no longer lets you access clipart (bummer, some of us still like it), but you could find the clip art on other sites and put it in.
[Read more...]

Thank-you Cards for Church Volunteers, how to combine technology with a personal touch

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Thank you cards Free Sample
Click on this image to download the free PDF of this Thank-you card, both in black and white and in color-separated files.

We all want to thank the volunteers who work so hard at all the ministries of church. And we wish we could thank them all personally, but we often feel we are just too busy and so sometimes we don't do anything.

The video following shows you in three minutes how you can use technology to help create a card that provides a shell for a personal thank you. The length of your thank-you isn't nearly as important as the time you take to care and reach out.

If you click the image to the left you can download a FREE, ready-to-print PDF thank you card.

If you'd like a set of the all the cards shown in the video, plus some additional ones, in both ready-to-print format as well as editable MS Publisher files,  it is available as a download for the Effective Church Communications E-book and Template Club and is available after the video.

P

The complete set of Thank-you Cards

The complete set, illustrated below,  has the card above, plus these additional cards. The black and white, with spot color cards are color separated and ready to print in the PDF format.

The download for ECC  Members has the following materials for each of these images

  • Ready-to-print PDFs
  • Editable MS Publisher files
  • Images of main cards

Thank you cards spot color #1Thank you cards spot color #2 - CopyThank you cards little girlThank you cards #3

Effective Church Communications Club Members

If you want to find out more about ECC Membership or to sign up, CLICK HERE.

CLICK on the ZIP FILE below to download the files.

 

 

Manage your church communication team well

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women_calculator_deskEd. intro: This article is for church leaders and those who oversee church communicators. You are responsible for the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the people who create your communications. Their job is vital to the growth and success of the church, but often they do their job under very difficult circumstances. Please consider the following suggestions to help you effectively pastor and shepherd these vital members of your church team. They do so much for the church, following is what you can do for them:

Realize the important place communications and church communicators play in the overall strategic success of your church

"What people haven't heard about they can't take action about. Uncommunicated issues DON'T EXIST." Stuart Brand

"Why is communication so vitally important to the health and vitality of the local church? Communication is the means by which we reach our ministry goals. You cannot find a healthy, growing church that is plagued by ineffective communications. Such an animal simply does not exist. If your church is going to maximize its potential, it is imperative that you understand the communication process and constantly strive to upgrade how well you and others in your church communicate."
George Barna, Marketing the Church

No matter how Bible-based, prayed over and passionate you are about your vision for the church, if it is not sequentially, clearly, consistently, and repeatedly communicated to your church, it will not happen. Today, the role of your church communicator in making your vision real has grown in importance because of two primary reasons:

  1. In our post-Christian world people don't have the unthinking understanding of churches that they did in the past. Church is not a part of people's lives today in the same way it was in the past and because of that, your church needs to be much more intentional about its communicators than ever before. This often requires that either a person be hired with the specific role of Church Communicator or Director of Church Communications, or in a church where the administrative assistant or church secretary has to juggle many responsibilities, where the title of Church Communicator is at least a professional part of that person's job description.
  2. The demands of technology and multi-channel communications make it necessary. In the past when the church had one communication tool: the church bulletin and one way to produce it: the typewriter, communication was still extremely important, but it was much easier to manage that task for the church secretary in the midst of the many other demanding tasks in the church office. Today when many kinds of communications produced through many channels: print, PowerPoint, web, social media are needed by churches, the role of the church communicator is more important than ever.

Because the role of church communicator is vital to the success of your church today, you need to support, involve, train, and encourage that person so they can serve the church most effectively. Following are some suggestions on how to do that. [Read more...]