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.

Just how friendly is your church? great tips!

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Gayle Hilligoss Pictureed. note: We can work very hard to create communications that will link us with visitors and make ongoing connections, but if we have grumpy people and messy churches all the careful communication pieces won't mean anything. Our wonderful encourager, Gayle Hilligoss has some tips that will help any church make your actions match your message.

The church sign proudly proclaimed The End of Your Search for a Friendly Church. An hour later the visitor was certain someone had violated the truth in advertising laws.

While friendliness is not the primary element drawing people to a congregation, most won’t stay around long enough to discover the church’s other attributes unless a hospitable, welcoming environment initially puts them at ease.   If you have been ensconced as a church member for a while, you may owe it to your church to visit some other churches to sense for yourself what it is like to be a visitor again.

Most staffs and members want to be caring and friendly, but in the midst of teaching, preaching and fellowshipping, too many give way too little attention to the impressions their visitors receive.   Perhaps if we could figuratively slip into the shoes of a guest for a few Sundays we would be more sensitive to visitors and new members in our own congregations.

Consider  these observations noted after visiting scores of congregations and talking with their members and staff; see how you can use them to the advantage of your own situation.  

Churches send positive messages by:

  • choirs that smile during the songs and stay awake during the message
  • members who are friendly beyond the time designated to be friendly
  • parking near the door reserved for visitors rather than the staff
  • clean and well cared for buildings and grounds
  • walkways cleared of ice, snow, grass, mud
  • attractive, functional signs inside and out
  • members who refrain from chatting during the music or message
  • a reception area staffed with friendly people ready to give directions or help
  • words of choruses printed in the bulletin for those unfamiliar with them
  • sending the church newsletter for a few weeks after the visit
  • the pastor acknowledging the visit with a letter
  • personable music directors who look like they enjoy what they are doing
  • crisply printed bulletins with print large enough to be read easily
  • providing thoughtfully prepared New Member packets  

Things that should never happen, but often do:

  • the first communication from the church has to do with finances
  • scruffy, hand-lettered signs designate classrooms and clutter walls
  • bulletin boards contain out of date information
  • the only greeting visitors receive is an obligatory handshake during the service
  • only a few members welcome the new members following the service
  • no church directory is included in the New Member packet
  • people’s talents are ignored when they are asked to fill positions in the church  

Things that could always happen, but seldom do:

  • pretty bowls of wrapped mints are on the reception desk
  • staff members turn to give attention to the choir when it sings
  • men on the platform stand when a woman comes to the platform
  • new members receive a handwritten note from the pastor
  • beautifully landscaped grounds are planted and cared for by volunteers
  • professional or neat computer-generated signs are used
  • new members and visitors receive a call from the church office on Monday
  • churches benefit by allowing members to use their unique talents

With members and staff working together any church can become more visitor friendly. Assistants can bring about significant differences. Pastors and ministering staffs can become more sensitive to what it is like to be on the other side of the pulpit. Congregations can follow their lead.

Why? Because many people want to end their search for a friendly church.

___________________________________

Ending note from Yvon:

If your church has a unique way of making guests feel welcome, please share it with us in the comments section here. Thanks so much!

Editable Halloween MS Publisher materials plus a preview PDF for all

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Cover of Overview of the Editable MS Publisher Files
Click here to download the PDF. It is an overview of the editable MS Publisher files and how to use them for effective Halloween Outreach.

Ed. note: This is an older collection and the artwork on a number of the pieces could use some updating, but still some very useful ideas and resources for Halloween Outreach. The publications illustrated here cover every aspect of preparation for, what to use during and follow-up for effective Halloween outreach including:

***Motivational bulletin insert
***Invitation Cards
***Case-study, volunteer recruitment brochure
***Sign-in cards
***Cards to give out as people leave your event

Click on the PDF for a free overview of all the communications with ideas on how to use them.

Below you can click on the links below to download the two ZIP files that has editable MS Publisher files for the outreach publications illustrated. The first file has all the PR, invitation, outreach, sign up and follow-up cards. The second file has a PDF of the brochure.

Just download and save the ZIP file on your computer, click to open it and then you can open and edit any MS Publisher file there. You must have a copy of MS Publisher on your computer for this to work.

Click here to download the ZIP file

Click here to download the Brochure for Trunk or Treat File

How Connection Cards improved visitor and prayer request response—true church story

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An encouraging email about connection cards
True story: how connection cards helped a church connect with visitors.

None of us do the work we do in communications without great concern for how it actually impacts the people we want to reach. That's why I appreciate it so much when I hear back from any of you on what worked in your church. Following is an email from Rona Heenk, a church communicator in Washington state. Thanks so much to Rona for her encouraging words to me and all of us—what you do DOES make a difference!

She inspired me to do an ECC training video on Connection Cards, click here to go to it.

PLEASE send me any stories you have of what has worked in your church so I can pass it on to others. Email to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

Here is Rona's story (no editing, all her words):

Yvon,

I wanted to give you some feedback on something unrelated to the webinar, which I thought would be encouraging to you:

Based on the advice in your booklet on Connection Cards, I presented to the senior pastor the idea of a new Connection Card, putting it in the bulletin as an insert, and asking everyone to fill one out each week. He discussed it with the other pastors, and they agreed to the new card, but were reluctant to ask everyone to fill it out, so we continued to do what we were doing, which was to ask visitors to take one out of the chair back and fill it out and turn it in with the offering.

After a few months our response rate hadn't changed--maybe one visitor card turned in per month, and at most one or two prayer requests each week. About half the time we had zero cards turned in. I just kept praying about it, and waiting for a good opportunity to re-visit the idea.

 

Then, the week after Easter during our staff meeting, I mentioned that we had an attendance that was about 70 over our average attendance, yet NOT ONE visitor filled out a card. Our senior pastor sat up and paid attention, and asked if I had any ideas to improve that.... open door!! I "happened" to have the booklet and your latest article from Christian Computing Magazine with me, and presented the idea again, quoting your statement that basically said, "The Connection Card is the only real link we have to reach out to newcomers, and to be able to respond to questions and needs." That seemed to cement the idea that it was time to try something new, and he put into the minutes that our current way of handling the Connection Cards is NOT working, and suggested to the elders that they come to their meeting the next night prepared to discuss it.

Next thing I knew, they came to me and asked me to make it happen!

So, we began by sending out some email communication to the congregation about what we would be doing, and most of all, WHY. Last Sunday, May 2, we tried it for the first time, and guess what? No one complained, we got lots of responses, including TWO that were filled out by people who were first-time visitors. We got more prayer requests and people asking for information than we usually do, and I got three email addresses I didn't already have on file.

I even had a couple of cards come back with notes of encouragement to me, thanking me! (In the emails I had used a statement something like "Remember what it was like when you were the new person somewhere? The last thing you wanted to do was something that would draw attention to yourself, as if to say 'look at me, I'm a visitor!'" and I think that is what resonated with them.)

Anyway, I thought you'd be encouraged to hear how your communication ideas have been put into action! Feel free to quote me on anything here if you want to. I feel so strongly that we who are in the church need to do everything we can to learn to communicate EFFECTIVELY, and your material is one of the few resources I've ever seen that is up-to-date, thorough, and specifically addresses the unique needs of a church communicator.
Blessings!!

______________________

For more information about the book mentioned in this article: Connection cards: connect with visitors, grow your church, pastor your people, little cards, big results, click here.

Resource collection: How to effectively recruit the volunteers you need for fall outreach and always

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With all the fantastic opportunities fall provides for church outreach, no doubt your church calendar is filling up. But as your calendar fills, your worries also grow as you wonder how you will ever staff all the events. Will you get enough volunteers? Or will you be so tired as the holiday season approaches you can barely drag yourself through it?

Be encouraged! I've put together a number of resources for you that will help you recruit all the volunteers you need. Some are free for everyone, a number of them are for Effective Church Communication members only--and these are so useful, the ones offered this week alone are reason enough to join! Before we talk about the specifics of recruiting volunteers, I'd encourage you to consider this....

Providing help isn't the most important reason to work hard to get church volunteers

Recruiting volunteers is an extremely important ministry in the church, that's true. You may have primarily thought about recruiting volunteers primarily as something you needed to do so you'd have enough people to help at your upcoming event. But it is so much more than that.

As Christians, we know that one day we will stand before Jesus to be evaluated on the work we've done while we are here on earth (2 Cor. 5:10, 1 Cor. 3:8-15). We remember how the Apostle Paul reminded the Ephesians in Eph. 2:10 that they were created to do good works. In reality, when we make it possible for people to volunteer, we are helping them grow to spiritual maturity and to do the works Jesus wants them to do.

Though we may have lofty and true spiritual goals we want to achieve with our outreach events, to accomplish them takes detailed, focused earthly communication work. The following resources will help you do what it takes to have the volunteers you need for the ministry God has called you to. The result will be that you and everyone you work with will be blessed.

Video: How to be more successful in recruiting volunteers, a case study

This on-line video will take you step-by-step through a real life example of what a church did to try to recruit volunteers for a fall outreach event (and failed miserably) and what could be done for success. The principles taught here will work in any volunteer recruiting situation.

This ECC Training video (and many more like it) is one of the benefits of this website You can use these videos to train yourself and you can also project them and use them to train your church staff and church communication volunteers.

Click here to go to the online webinar.

PDF Book: How to be more successful in recruiting volunteers for church events, a case study

Many people have told me that a step-by-step PDF really helped them carry out what was taught on the video. I put together a 17-page booklet that takes you step-by-step through all the processes, plus has extra articles on how to recruit and retain volunteers. This article has the FREE link for ECC Members and links to how to buy it (only $5.00) for non-members.

Click here to go to the book overview.

Free article: Communications for a good continuing relationship with your volunteers

Getting volunteers to sign up or help you once is one thing, getting them to continue is another. this free article will give you some ideas on how to form lasting and productive relationships with your volunteers.

Click here to go to the article

Effective Church Communication MEMBER LINKS:

Membership in the Effective Church Communications website certainly DOES have its privileges and this month they are incredible. Not only do you have 24/7 access to the training webinar, but you get the following (click on the title area of each entry below to go directly to it):

PDF of the PowerPoint notes

That go along with the Video, so that whenever it would work out for you to show it to your staff or volunteers you can print out this PDF for them to take notes with.

An e-book copy of the book

On how to be more successful in recruiting volunteers for church outreach events. In addition you have permission to make as many copies of it as you need for volunteers and church staff members.

PDFs of Samples of Church Volunteer Samples from churches

THIS IS INCREDIBLE--you really have to see the sample materials here to understand how valuable it is. These are copies of volunteer recruitment samples from real churches. There are four pieces here including a 25-page handbook: Community is Contagious, that is an instructive and inspiring volunteer, church team guide. There are also volunteer recruitment booklets and one of the best ministry brochures I've ever seen included.

ECC Member Article: Clear communications help you create effective volunteer recruitment and retention

This article goes into more depth on how to actually write recruitment material for volunteers than the video has the time or format to do. No matter what the communication channel you use to recruit, web, print, bulletins, brochures, whatever, this will be helpful.

Be encouraged and keep working at equipping and involving volunteers

Doing the work needed to recruit and train volunteers effectively is not easy, but may the Lord use the samples and ideas here to give you inspiration and strength. When you, along with your volunteers and the people who came to know Jesus because of the events you held meet Jesus face to face it will all be more than worth it.

e-book: How to be more successful in recruiting volunteers for church outreach events

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Case Study CoverThis booklet both goes along with the ECC Training Video: A case study to help you be more successful in recruiting volunteers example a church trunk or treat, but it is also a great stand-alone instructional booklet that will give you specific advice on how to recruit any time of the year.

The most important thing (in additional to lots of prayer) to get people to sign up as volunteers in your church is for you to give them clear and complete information about the event you want them to volunteer for and how to sign up to be part of it.

Remember, having a successful volunteer turn-out isn't just about you--it is about helping people grow in their faith and doing work that is pleasing to our Lord.

This e-book is free for Effective Church Communication Members. You can download it by clicking the link below. If you are not a member, click here for membership information and how to join.

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CLICK HERE to download How to be more successful in recruiting volunteers for church outreach events.