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.

What if your church did NO advertising for Easter? Or other seasonal outreach times? Try this Biblical alternative!

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Equip your people --free Easter invitations
You may not want to be this obvious, but when your people believe this and want to tell their friends, it's the most effective form of church outreach you can do.

Ed. note: This is a repeat of what I did last year, but it is incredibly important--because YOUR people are always the most important outreach tool you have. Though you can use every available tool you have and can afford to reach out to people, you don't need to do anything more than encourage and inspire YOUR congregation. 

The Podcast:

What if your church did NO advertising for Easter? No sending out of postcards purchased from some national company that end up looking like the several other churches produce.

Hi I'm Yvon Prehn and welcome to the Effective Church Communications Podcast!

Today we'll talk about alternatives that you can do in-house--by your people that can accomplish much more.

As I mentioned in the intro—Far too often,  when a church is planning a major holiday outreach, a catalog of professionally produced postcards are selected, purchased and mailed out by the church. This can cost a lot of money, but sometimes a smaller church desperately wants to try something that might result in growth, so they spend money, that perhaps could have been used for other things and try it.  Statistically, as the companies will tell you a certain number ought to respond and though we rejoice if even one new person comes and ultimately comes to know Jesus as Savior because of that process, let me suggest another strategy that is more biblical, more successful, and that will probably save your church some money also.

A new strategy—Involve the whole church in seasonal communication

Everyone in the church needs to be involved for holiday and special events to be successful. Everyone needs to be part of and feel responsible for the outreach and growth of your church. When Jesus said:

“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)

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

He did not qualify these commands by saying:

"The command to be my witness and to reach your world is only for pastors and for the communication director of the church.”

No—outreach, witnessing, sharing your faith is every believer's task and seasonal celebrations and special events are a great way to be obedient to Jesus' command to be his witness and reach our world. The tools of technology available to us in ministry today make it possible for everyone in the church to have a significant part in the outreach of the entire church. [Read more...]

PODCAST: Make it OK for visitors to reject Jesus at Easter

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If you have done a good job at outreach and you have lots of unchurched visitors on Easter, make it easy for them to connect and continue to answer questions.

What are your expectations for Easter at your church? Especially for those that are visiting for the first time and who may be totally unfamiliar with the Christian faith?

In answer to that question, I'd like to propose that you Make it OK for visitors to reject Jesus at your Easter Service and in our podcast today I'll tell you why.

Before you consign this podcast and the blog that goes with it to me being a total heretic who thinks  "everybody gets saved in the end, no matter who or what they believe in" —be assured nothing could be further from my intention. I take very seriously the truth that if people do not have a saving relationship with Jesus Christ (and only Jesus Christ, no other savior) they will spend eternity in endless suffering separated from God. That's why I want to share 5 reasons why you need to make it OK for visitors to reject Jesus at Easter.

Be assured, we won't stop at their rejection, but I'll give you suggestions on how to move that rejection into exploration and ultimately acceptance. While you are planning ways to invite people and your PR for Easter, keep these ideas in mind and realize that Easter is just the start of a relationship with unchurched people.

As you begin, you probably need to lower your expectations on getting a significant spiritual response from guests at Easter. Yes, you plan and work to perhaps get a great response in numbers, but in our post-Christian world today, it takes time to make a spiritual impact.

Don't be surprised, shocked, or upset if visitors don't immediately respond to the gospel message you present at Easter and remind yourself and your congregation that this is a natural rejection to any new and challenging thought. Following are some observations and suggestions that will help you respond positively that will ultimately help people accept Jesus as Savior. [Read more...]

The different preaching styles of Peter and Paul and why it matters for Easter follow-up

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CLICK on the image to download the FREE ZIP file that give you a PDF and an editable MS Publisher file of this handout to help people explore the Christian faith after Easter.

UPDATE NOTE: This was written in the days of church services where everyone met together and this was designed to be printed as a bulletin insert or handout. However, with the challenges of Covid19 many Easter services are done in a variety of ways, you can use this same free Template to create a postcard to send to people or as an email or social media piece to send out to people who attended your virtual service. Our service format may vary but the questions of people who aren't familiar with the good news of Jesus hasn't. Here is a way to reach out to them.

When people come to your church at Easter for some of them it may be the first time they hear that Jesus died on the cross so they could be forgiven of their sins and be at peace with God. This is not an easy message to understand if you have not grown up in the church. That's why using these bulletin inserts (now postcards or social media) that encourage them to continue an exploration of the Christian faith is so important.

The Apostle Paul preached to an audience with much in common with many of the people who will come to your church this Easter. They were part of a world that held many religious beliefs; they may have even heard of Jesus. But again and again you find the same pattern in the book of Acts—Paul would preach a sermon, but then he followed it with extensive discussions as Acts 18: 4 tells us: "every Sabbath he reasoned in the synagogue, trying to persuade Jews and Greeks." He didn't just preach and leave, he reasoned, he taught, he got into arguments and debates. [Read more...]

Resurrection Cookies, a Free recipe that will teach children and parents about Easter, and it’s something you can do at home now

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Res Cookie Bunny Verstion
Resurrection Cookies are a wonderful way to remind both children and parents of the real meaning of Easter--the Resurrection of Jesus. Plus it's a fun and yummy project!

For a great strategy to teach children about Easter, involve parents, and provide an outreach tool, NOTHING beats Resurrection Cookies.

When you make the cookies, you visually illustrate Jesus suffering, burial, death and resurrection. Because you are doing it with cookies, it is much less intimidating for people who don't go to church to be involved with it.

In other years you can do this with friends and neighbors. This year with everyone staying home it is a wonderful activity for a family.

Below are pictures of a variety of designs for the Recipe. To see larger images of the pages, click on the first image and a larger slide show will come up. The file below them has both PDFs and MS Publisher files for you to download.

Various designs for Resurrection Cookies:

To download the Resurrection Cookie File, click the following link: Church Bunny Resurrection Cookie Files

Later in this article is the text for the handouts, including the introduction, recipe, and Bible verses if you choose to create your own verses of the handouts or if you want to put the material on your website or in a church newsletter. You have my permission to use it freely. The text is the same for all of them—choose a style that suits you best or use the text below to create your own version. [Read more...]

Spam is spam if it is good for you or not, you need to tell people WHY a Bible study resource is good for them and HOW to use it, not just that it is available

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Church Notices as SPAM
Spam is spam whether you think it is good for your congregation or not. You must tell them WHY it is valuable and HOW to use any resource or it's simply spam.

How would you respond to messages like this:

Here are lots of vegetables—free vegetables—eat all you want!

The vegetables are here for the picking, be sure to take as many as you can carry.

These are vegetables kids really like! Help yourself!

Most likely your response wouldn't be overwhelming. You know how to get vegetables; maybe you even have a neighbor with a garden that gives you extras.

After a while, even the offer of free vegetables can be tiresome, and then it becomes an irritation.

Bible Study Resources are no different

Most people know they should study the Bible or read it, but simply badgering them about a free resource without telling them why they should use it or what they will get out of it, may not produce the response you want.

I'm writing this blog because of some feedback I got from an Effective Church Communication reader. Here is what she asked (and though I don't tell you enough, if you have questions or experiences like this, you can contact me at yvonprehn@gmail.com--I won't publish your name and I usually change some of the details, to not embarrass the efforts we all make--most questions I get apply to many of us, so I turn them into blogs like this and we all benefit). Here is the situation:

Yvon,
I don't know what to do. My church signed up for a service (without asking the congregation if they wanted or needed it) that produces hundreds of free videos on various Bible topics. Then they notified us of it. I went to the site and had to give my information to just look around.

It looked OK, but much of what was appealing was already available on YouTube or the websites of the various ministries.

I thought that was the end of it, but oh no. Then the emails started, recommending this or that. Today I got a postcard from them.

All of them just tell me what is available--lists of names, titles of videos. No more information about them and no reasons why I should care, other than they are good for me.

I don't have kids, but apparently a lot of people on the list do because I've gotten lots of recommendations for videos for kids.

I'm getting really irritated and feel bad about it.  If I tell them to take me off the list, will they tell my church and think I don't care about the Bible?

What should I do?

[Read more...]