Effective Church Communications

A great need addressed—a Video and Instagram images of Prayer for GRACE for all nations

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A prayer for Grace for all nations
A prayer for Grace for all nations is desperately needed in our contentious times.

Grace, unmerited favor and kindness, which we receive from God and should share with our fellow pilgrims on this earth, is something we need now more than ever. To encourage that I created some Instagram images for you, plus the short video below.

Please watch the video as a prayer.

The materials above are an updating of a project a few years ago when I wrote up the acronym GRACE as a prayer to celebrate the 4th of July, taking as my inspiration the line from the song, "America, America, God shed his grace on thee."

You can grab the video from YouTube and use it however you'd like. Below are Instagram images I first made and that are illustrated in the video.

You can download the Zip file for them here: 2020 INSTAGRAM GRACE Prayer for all nations

An ECC Member in Canada modified it for Canada Day and that in turn inspired me to create a series of Free PowerPoint slides and videos using it as a prayer, go to this link to download both of them: https://wp.me/pDky9-7mJ

In addition to them, I created a series of PowerPoint Slides and videos you can use to celebrate the 4th of July for the U.S. and a set as a prayer of grace for any nation. Here is the link to them and they are illustrated below: https://wp.me/pDky9-7mD

You can freely use all these materials however you wish, but please DO PRAY for our hurting world, that God would change hearts and infuse it with his Grace.

4th of July, Canada Day and GRACE for all nations: slides, videos, handouts

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There is a lot here--slides and videos for you to use both in America for the 4th of July and for all other nations that we pray for God's grace to touch our world.

"God’s love in action towards men who merited the opposite of love."

is one of my favorite definitions of grace and as Jesus's disciples, grace is an attribute and action we can share with a world currently so desperately in need of it.

A few years ago I created a bulletin insert for the 4th of July that uses the acronym "GRACE" as a prayer. Following that, a member of ECC created one for Canada Day. (CLICK HERE to links to both)

That inspired me to take the same acronym of GRACE and make it into a set of PowerPoint Slides you can use however you want and as a prayer video not only for the 4th of July in the United States, but for the many members of Effective Church Communications in other countries around the world.

In the midst of all the rancor and strife that overwhelms our world, one of the most powerful things we can do is to remind our people to pray and encouraging them to exhibit grace to a hurting world by guiding them in prayer for lives that reflect the grace of God.

Below is a set of slides for both the U.S. version of the video and then the world-wide one. Only the intro slides and the last one are different, the ones for the acronym GRACE are the same. Just click the zip file below the slides to download them.

Below the slides are videos of each set with a voice over of me reading the slides to you and one with the music only. Below each video is a DROPBOX link where you can download the video to use for a guided prayer time in your church.

Please use and share with others and pray God will grant us grace to be his people in every situation to those who deserve it and those who don't and desperately need it. [Read more...]

Summer seasonal PR for 4th of July and Summer Events

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This entry has a number of materials that are useful for connecting with people for special summer events.

One is a bulletin insert that takes the line from the song, "America, America, God shed his grace on thee," and turns the word GRACE into a prayer. It is useful for our American audience, but we haven't forgotten the members and visitors to this site who do not live in America.

In addition is a Postcard for summer outreach and a fantastic brisket recipe. The Summer outreach postcard will work for any summer event (personalize with your own details on the back); the Brisket recipe is a great handout or give-away card for any time of the year.

This entry also contains a download link for a zip file of the jpg images and ready-to-print PDFs for all three of the publications illustrated below. It also contains editable MS Publisher files for both the Summer postcard and the Brisket Recipe. It does not have an editable MS Publisher file for the 4th of July insert because I did not have permission to do that with the artwork I used.

You can download just the PDF of the 4th of July Bulletin insert, by clicking here or on the flyer image.

Below the images is the link to the ZIP file of all the publications:

Here are the images in the file:
4th of July imageRefreshing postcard imageBBQ recipe card

To download the ZIP file that contains all the jpgs, PDFs, and MS Publisher Files, click on the link below.

 

 

Click here to download the ZIP file. Save it to your hard drive and click to open it and use the files.

 

to download the ZIP file. Save it to your hard drive and click to open it and use the files to download the ZIP file. Save it to your hard drive and click to open it and use the files.to download the ZIP file. Save it to your hard drive and click to open it and use the files.

ECC PODCAST: Father’s Day—Beyond celebration—how to make the ministry most of it to grow Dads spiritually

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It's easy to look at Father's Day as just another holiday to do up a special bulletin and social media for and to say a few nice things about Dads during the church service. But did you know you can do so much more as communicators for Jesus?

We need to constantly remind ourselves in the crush of trivia and distraction that our job is not to be a holy version of Hallmark where our goal is to have the most appealing Father's Day social media and PowerPoint ever, but that our primary job in communications, as in all of life if we are followers of Jesus, is to grow as his disciples and to share his message of salvation—in other words, to fully fulfill the Great Commission. Below is our podcast where we explain how Father's Day can be used to grow men in their faith and following the podcast are notes from it and links to the resources mentioned in it.

You might wonder why a church communication article starts out by reminding you of the importance of discipleship, but as followers of Jesus that is the most important aspect of our lives and our work as church communicators is simply the arena in which we carry it out.

Ephesians 5:16-17 reminds us of this and challenges us in this way:

So be careful how you act; these are difficult days. Don’t be fools; be wise: make the most of every opportunity you have for doing good. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to find out and do whatever the Lord wants you to.

At Effective Church Communications, my goal is to remind you to "make the most of every opportunity for doing good" and to give you practical opportunities to do that. [Read more...]

Make STRATEGIC use of Father’s Day to grow your church–by targeting YOUNGER Dads

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Reach out to young dads at Father's Day
Fathers Day is a great time to reach out to young dads at your church.

Many churches today have an ideal church member they want to recruit—the younger male, the dad with a young family, and Father's Day is a great time to do a focused outreach to them.

Make sure men are visible at your church

Men need to be greeters, the ones who do announcements, are in the children's ministry when kids are dropped off, and other visual actions at the church. This isn't being sexist--men need to see that men are doing things at the church.

Most likely they are involved in all these areas, but you need to make sure they are front and center on this day.

Invite men back for a service project

Many studies show that younger men are part of a generation that believes in volunteering, in giving back. Asking this group to be part of service projects is a great way to involve them with the men of the church. Here are some ideas: [Read more...]