Effective Church Communications

To make it easier for you to access the information on this website for your own training and for training others, with or without the computer, I'm organizing the content into ECC TOOLKITS. The TOOLKITS contain instructional webinar/videos, corresponding PowerPoint presentations, PDF notes that go with them, associated e-books, and editable MS Publisher Templates, all focusing on one particular topic in church communications such as: church invitation cards, church visitor or connection cards, church bulletins, church websites, strategy for church communicators, and numerous holiday connected materials.

To access them you have two options:

Option #1: FREE Website TOOLKIT access for ECC MEMBERS

ECC Members have immediate, 24/7 access to all TOOLKIT materials as soon as they are released.

For each topic, all the material we have gathered for that topic will be accessible under the area of TOOLKITS, a tab on the Home Page of www.effectivechurchcom.com.  Each topic will be in a separate TOOLKIT.

PLEASE look at the OVERVIEW file for each TOOLKIT as the contents vary and for suggestions on how to make the most of each TOOLKIT. If you are using the videos for training a group directly from the website, any of videos can be enlarged to full screen size and projected. The quality of the videos projected from an internet connection is not as good or reliable as the ones from the CD, but it is possible to view them with a group in this way.

You also have permission to make copies of the e-books PowerPoint handouts, and other print materials, and the templates for your church communications team without purchasing additional memberships.

The TOOLKITS offer some similar materials, but differ in organization from the Free Member's Download section in that the Download section has separate files (templates, jpgs, e-books, PDFs) that you can download and use individually if you want a specific type of resource. The TOOLKITS are organized around a particular topic, holiday, or communication tool and have everything you need in a variety of formats, in one place, on that particular topic.

Option #2: Toolkit CDs from www.lulu.com/yvonprehn, all $19.95

This option is available for anyone, members or not, who would like the material accessible on a CD. This works especially well for the churches or church support organizations that do not have high speed internet access for the videos and some of the larger downloads.

The CDs will contain one TOOLKIT per CD and are very reasonably priced ($19.95 each) to enable individuals, churches, church support and training organizations to collect a library of TOOLKITS useful for all their members. The www.LULU.com  company that I use for production and shipping produces excellent quality CDs in hard plastic cases with spine labels—enough packaging to be useful for shelf storage and protection, but not too much with wasted software boxes.

The reproduction rights we give you with the TOOLKITS

Because we retain copyright to all the materials in our TOOLKITS, we can be generous with giving these rights to you. We do this because we want you to use the materials not only for your own learning, but to train others.

If we are to do all the communication for sharing the gospel and growing the Kingdom of God that needs to be done, we need many Great Commission-committed church communicators. We encourage you to not only look at these materials yourself, but use them to train others.

That is why we allow you to make copies of the e-books for staff and volunteers at your church if you either are a member or purchase CDs. That is why we grant you permission not only to use our materials to train volunteers if you are a member (you do need larger church or organizational membership for this) or purchase CDs, but you can charge a reasonable amount for that training and keep it.

You have permission to keep the CDs in your library and allow people who are members of your church or organization check them out, put them on their computer, print off e-books and not feel guilty that you are violating a rule about the CD only being able to be used on one computer.

We’d rather you didn’t reproduce the CDs. However, we can grant you a special license or provide group pricing if you want to give CDs to folks at a conference or training event. We can also provide wholesale pricing if you would like to sell the CDs and make a profit.

Questions, suggestions, ideas

If you have any questions about ECC TOOLKITS, suggestions for topics you would like to see in a TOOLKIT, or any other ideas on how we might help you become a more effective church communicator, please email: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

My inspiration for creating the TOOLKITS

Inspiration for this organization method came from an unlikely source. Stephen King who, as a little boy, won his first Bible by memorizing verses for Methodist Sunday School and who now makes lots of money writing scary stories, provided a near perfect description of the situation confronting many church communicators today and an inspiration for how to help in his book, On Writing.

In the book King tells a story of when he was eight or nine, he helped his uncle replace a window screen. Though a fairly simple job, requiring only a screwdriver, his uncle carried a huge toolbox to and from the work site. When King asked his uncle why he went to all the work of lugging around the huge toolbox, when it seemed like a simple screwdriver, carried in his uncle’s back pocket, would have been sufficient, his uncle answered:

“Yeah, but Stevie,” he said, bending to grasp the handles. “I didn’t know what else I might find to do once I got out here, did I? It’s best to have your tools with you. If you don’t, you’re apt to find something you didn’t expect and get discouraged.”

King goes on to say:

“I want to suggest that to write to your best abilities [or to create the best church communications, my note] it behooves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so you can carry it with you. Then, instead of looking at a hard job and getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the right tool and get immediately to work.”

That’s my purpose in creating these TOOLKITS, so church communicators will have a selection of resources so they can “seize the right tool and get immediately to work” to help their churches create communications that will enable us to fully fulfill the Great Commission.