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; Effective Church Communications can help.

Notes available for first video on Desktop Publishing in the Church, How to Use Your Computer to Create Better Newsletters, Bulletins, and More! by Yvon Prehn

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Cover of How to use your computer to Create Better Bulletins, Newsletters, and More!
The cover of my book on desktop publishing in the church. I found the printed notes that go with the video series (done 27 years ago), scanned them and you can download them. The video is available on YouTube. A link to it is in the article.

Several months ago, I posted the first video I did on desktop publishing in the church, How to Use Your Computer to Create Better Newsletters, Bulletins, and More! 

I uploaded CDs of it that had been created from the original VHS tapes. The quality is not what we expect today, but it was and is interesting to me how the basic principles of good design and communication haven't changed in almost 30 years from when I first wrote the book. Nor have the needs of churches and the still too frequent challenges they have in creating effective church communications. This book was based on Tap the Power of Desktop Publishing which was the first book out on desktop publishing for churches and as far as I know on doing communications with the computer for churches.

The first version of the book was published by David C. Cook and the second edition by Gospel Light. Though both books seemed to do OK, the second one did well enough for the company to do this video series, both companies told me they decided to not continue printing it because they didn't see a future for the computer to be used to create communications in the church. In fact, Gospel Light said they didn't see technology as a whole had any future use in the church.

Well, that was a miscalculation.

But I wasn't deterred--I made photocopies of the book at Kinkos and they sold well at the seminars I taught all over North America for many years.

It wasn't until recently I found the CDs of the seminar and put them on my YouTube Channel .  The link will take you to the first video.

I was frustrated because I couldn't find the notes that went with the videos though I thought I looked all over for them. However, recently, as often happens in my messy office, I was looking for something entirely different and there were the notes, misfiled.

I scanned them and made them into a PDF, which you can download HERE

The book it was based on is out of print, but I retained the rights to it and scanned most of it, and turned it into an ebook. I left out the chapters on computers and software as they were outdated and no longer useful. I renamedCover of Back to Basics, foundational skills for church communicators by Yvon Prehn the book, Back to Basics, essential foundational skills for church communicators. It's part of the soon-to-be-released Effective Church Communications Library, but I wanted to give you a free copy of it to go with the notes. Here is the link to a download of it: https://payhip.com/b/RK9hW
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Introducing the Bibleverse t-shirts and mug shop, merch for you–support for ministry!

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Bibleverse t-shirts
We advertise so many things with our t-shirts and sharing our faith is one. The Bibleverse Shop has lots of them, click on the picture to go to it.

When you see a snarky t-shirt, how does that make you want to act?

I want to be snarky.

When you see a coffee cup that reminds you of a happy vacation what do you think about?

I think about that happy place.

It seems to be a core fact of human nature that we are influenced by short messages we see around us. Moses made note of it when he was attempting to get the children of Israel to listen to God’s commands about their lives. They heard God speak at Sinai; Moses wrote 5 BIG books of very detailed rules.

Yet during all that, he also recognized the need for less thunderous and lengthy reminders, when he said:

Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates Deut.6:6-9, MSG

Today our visual reminders are not on doorposts or phylacteries (the leather boxes, Orthodox Jewish men wear on their heads and arms during prayers) but as I realized when I was praying about how to get people to think about God’s Word more, want to learn about it, and live by it, today we have mugs and t-shirts!

There is a t-shirt for everything.

A major event happens, and t-shirts appear almost before the news blast is over. People’s politics, beliefs, causes, and attitudes are all loudly proclaimed by the t-shirts they wear.

So as part of my ministries of wanting to get people to focus more on God’s Word (www.Bible805.com) and effectively creating church communications, I thought I need to learn to create t-shirts! Maybe that tiny turning to the things of God will lead people to greater exploration.

That was my first idea, but it took the longest to bring to reality. I started researching it, but oh my how complicated (cheery, loud, YouTube videos aside) it is in reality.

While researching that I came across the idea of Printables, (Bible verses and saying printed out and frames as visual reminders) which I quite like and had already been doing for my personal use. That resulted in the Bibleverse Shop, (www.payhip.com/Bibleverseshop) and you can read all about that lengthy process on that site.

But I still wanted to do t-shirts and mugs.

Designing them was super easy for me but how to sell them? And more importantly, how to sell them without being consumed with the business details of sales tax, shipping and much more?

My primary ministries are teaching and writing (through www.Bible805.com and www.effectivechurchcom.com ). The creation of these items I realized could be an important way to support the ministries, which I desperately need to do, but I could not let that overwhelm my teaching and writing time.

Fast forward through months of trial and error (I am a slow learner in some things) and I’ll detail it more on my blogs, but I finally found www.payhip.com to sell the Printables (check out my store at www.payhip.com/bibleverseshop  ) and www.bonfire.com to sell my t-shirts and mugs.

Here are some of my final products:

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Yes, for those of you who know about such things, I could make more profit with other companies than Bonfire, (for a $17-$29 product I get maybe $4-$5), but Bonfire does ALL the hosting, handles the shipping, and most important of all to me pays the proper sales taxes to the states and countries that require it.

The Payhip and Bonfire people have been quite pleasant and helpful to work with, do not charge anything until a product is sold, and their interface for uploading products quite simple and intuitive (compared to dreadful ones like Shopify, Woo Commerce, and others).

I am extremely excited about this new adventure. I love to create designs when my mind is too tired to write or teach, and I feel like it gives me a way to make the most of my time for our Lord.

But what I feel is not as important as what I pray the mugs and t-shirts do for you. When you sip your morning tea or coffee, I pray the encouraging words will help turn your mind to Jesus. When you wear a t-shirt with a Bible verse or Bible-inspired setting I pray it will help you remember to represent Jesus well and give you an opportunity to share about your life in Him.

I also pray the shop will be a practical way to support the Effective Church Communications and Bible805 ministries—a win-win for all concerned!

 

How to motivate your people to invite their friends to come to Christmas church events

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You need to motivate your people
Our outreach at Christmas can literally change the eternal destiny of someone. This piece will motivate your people to be inviters.

NO printed or created invitation will do what a person can do. A friend inviting a friend is the most effective invitation. In addition, they can offer to bring their friend to the event, they can introduce them to people at church, and follow up later to invite them back.

Most of us would agree with all the previous statements, but how do we motivate our congregation to do that inviting? This flyer will help you do just that!

In addition to the motivation, the back of it has a place where people can write down a prayer list of the people they want to invite.

This church communication, which can take the form of a printed flyer or bulletin insert or text for a newsletter or email, is a reminder that:

  • Life is scary
  • People are lonely
  • Everyone needs a purpose
  • We're all going to live forever—with a clear message that what we decide about Jesus matters in our personal eternal destiny

The format you get out the message in, digital or on paper isn't important the most important thing. What is most important is that you motivate your congregation to make the most of this opportunity.

Having just said the format isn't the most important, one encouragement to PRINT this piece is that you could make it a bulletin insert and during the service have people take it out because on the backside of the motivational material is a place for a PRAYER LIST for people to list those they want to invite. Take a minute to have people write down, while there in the church service, one or two names of people they want to invite. Tell them to take the list home and either post it on the refrigerator or put in it their Bible where they will be continuously reminded of it.

To emphasize the importance of this, you could later send out an email with the same text reminding them to keep praying and inviting. By using both the print AND digital channel you have a much greater chance that your people will take this challenge seriously and follow through on it.

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Halloween and Fall Outreach Resources for 2021

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This is a quick overview of some of the new resources for Halloween and Fall outreach for 2021.

Yes--I am late on getting this out there and I greatly apologize. But PLEASE take the time to check out the FREE handouts that you have enough time to make up for your upcoming Fall or Halloween Outreach. They can be made up quickly and you can put them into goodie bags that you give out.

It is so important that you do more than just give out free candy and provide a good time for people in your community. This season is a great opportunity to connect people with the one Person in all of history who conquered death—Jesus.

Click the following link to go directly to the handouts you can give to people for them to find out more about Jesus: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/templates/templates-harvest-festival-and-halloween/

Click the following link here to go to the video on Who is Jesus Really: https://bible805.com/who-is-jesus-rea...

This video is an in-depth study of what those outside the Christian faith, who lived near the time of Jesus had to say about Him. If you've heard people say that the stories about Jesus were myths that were made up hundreds of years after his death, this should definitively refute those false claims and give you greater confidence that the Jesus we read about in the Bible is the Jesus of true history.

For ebooks on Halloween Outreach & Successful Seasonal Outreach, plus printables on Life after Death, go to: https://www.payhip.com/Bibleverseshop

Successful Seasonal Strategies, how to grow your church in numbers and your people in spiritual maturity

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As we go into the fall season, we know this time of year has incredible potential for inviting people to church and introducing them to Jesus. Churches will be putting on incredible events and typically many people show up for them.

The challenge is that most churches are disappointed with the less than expected return of guests to the next Sunday service.

This video will teach you a NEW system (and point you to lots of free resources to help you implement it) on how to create your seasonal communications so you will have a continuing response to your hard work.

Here is the video on it:

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