Effective Church Communications

A health update from Yvon Prehn 10-15-2020

15 June, 2020 By Yvon Prehn 2 Comments

I don’t like to talk about myself and like even less talking about health issues, but many of you have been so incredibly wonderful praying for me for my hip surgery and challenging rehab, I thought it was only fair to give you an update. And to ask for continuing prayers.

The good news is that the hip surgery (which had to be put off numerous times because of Covid, etc., and which the surgeon said he had never had such a bad case of bone collapse) has healed well. No pain in the hip anymore, able to stand on it. I “graduated” Monday from the physical therapy for that.

The challenging news is that because of the severity of issues in the year or so leading up to the surgery I could only get around very painfully using a walker and was bent over at a pretty extreme angle. Being bent over like that and leaning on the walker did some very nasty things to the muscles in my back and I am still not able to walk upright without assistance and significant pain. There are some additional challenges in that the other hip is starting to collapse, but the surgeon wants to wait to deal with it, though it does make putting my full weight on it a bit of a challenge. None of us expected this, the severity of the issues or pain, or what needs to be done to remedy it.

But the great news is in spite of it all, I am doing great! I’m excited about the Effective Church Communications ministry and am launching some new resources this week and more to come. In spite of physical challenges, I am fine sitting at my desk and working which I am incredibly thankful for! I feel great when I’m working.

Today I go in for a back evaluation at physical therapy (they are a talented and helpful group) and six weeks of new therapy, exercises, and challenges to get me walking and standing upright. I am so thankful for the healing gifts God has given to people and that I can access them.

The most important thing to me and what to pray, please

I’d very much appreciate your prayers that I can get the work done I want and need to do. I am very excited about redoing and launching some of the resources for Effective Church Communications that I’ve prayed for and wanted to do for many years.

Some specific prayers:

That I can focus on the work and get the courses and books done to help church communicators. I feel God has given me the vantage point of many years of experience and I want to do all I can to equip and encourage many who struggle with huge responsibilities and little training.

That I can finally make Effective Church Communications self-supporting. I am launching a subscription library and training school that should be able to do that, if the Lord chooses to bless it. Having to work another job to support my family and the ministry while attempting to keep up with ECC has been physically and mentally exhausting. I love to work; I probably work too much, but I would like ALL my work hours focused on church communications ministry.

If you can help me tell people about the resources I am launching—the Effective Church Communications Library and improved YouTube Channel now; the Effective Church Communications Training Academy in about a week— and then signing up for or buying a subscription yourself would be fantastic.

Please especially tell people about the resources available to them, tell groups you are in, your denominations, your mission partners. My fees are extremely low and if someone can’t afford those, I will give them a free subscription (just email me at yvon@effectivechurchcom.com). I want to help as many as possible. So much of what I see as “training” for church communicators these days (and some charge a lot of money) are dreary, or snarky surface lessons on how to use social media, Facebook groups, etc.—all valid, yes, but there is so much more to being a truly effective church communicator. Doing this for over 50 years does give me a valuable perspective I trust.

That I do all I need to do to get as healthy as possible (the exercise, physical therapy and ….sigh….yes, I do need to lose some weight for my fragile joints) so that I can do all the Lord wants me to do.

Finally, to borrow some of what Paul said in Acts 20:24….

But that (physical issues, income issues) matters little. What matters most to me is to finish what God started: the job the Master Jesus gave me.

Please pray I do that and do it well.

Praising God for you and blessings to you,

Yvon

PS If you'd like to see my personal devotions journey, go to www.instagram.com/yvonprehn. I've been taking verses from my devotions time, illustrating them in Canva, and then adding some additional thoughts. With the Covid restrictions, our church isn't doing Sunday School classes now and for most of my life (literally, since I was a kindergartener helping out) I've always taught the Bible in some sort of class. So now I do it on my Instagram account and am also starting back doing my Bible podcast and blog at www.Bible805.com

A tiny response to a time of turmoil–Media Made for You Encouragements from Romans 8; an idea for appropriate images for today; free images in all formats

7 June, 2020 By Yvon Prehn 2 Comments

FREE Social Media message and a video from Romans 8 — We're all getting tired of many things, but God's Word is there to encourage us and give us hope. Here are social media images for you to use PLUS an encouraging video.

There is a lot going on. The pandemic isn't slowing down. We are all getting very tired, but our work continues.

This week I tried something new to perhaps contribute to a less color-prejudiced world. I'm not sure if it worked or not, you'll have to let me know.

I wanted to do something to encourage everyone with God's Word. We sometimes forget that the Apostle Paul was persecuted in large measure because he associated with people who weren't Jews. Contemporary prejudice is nothing new. In his day, he was beaten and imprisoned for associating with the "wrong" people and even suggesting that there was equality before God. That persecution was a constant in his life and so when you read his words in Romans 8 and trust in God, remember what he faced.

You can use the files below in social media, print, make up postcards and send them out, however you'd like

But I didn't want to simply repeat his words, I wanted to try something new in illustrations I share with you. In many churches it is a challenge to represent all God's people. Much church artwork is too white; and some that aren't look forced, for example, five different racial groups in one small group setting or website banner. Forgive my cynicism.

In addition, almost all people are young, thin, and healthy. Where do they get these people I often wonder because nobody at my church looks like them. I digress, but wonder what if we only used pictures of the real people at our church?

A possible solution—posturize!

Below are some images in the current Media Made for You collection I did on encouragements from Romans 8. They are all in greyscale and started out looking very different than the final images.

I hope next week to get done a video showing you how I created these images. I'm still working on the school project and this is part of it. Without a tutorial, what I did with the images of people (and not using recognizable full-faces), is I took each one and then posturized them in greyscale. What this does is blur out any skin color and you simply have highlights and shadows. Here is what I came up with:

I also did a video on the series of verses with me reading them to you. It follows. Below the video are links for your files of the images to use however you'd like. For the ZIP files, download, save and unzip the files to use however you want. Just download and use the PDFS.

JPG Images Romans 8: JPG Meditation on Romans 8

INSTAGRAM Images Romans 8: INSTAGRAM Romans 8

FACEBOOK Images Romans 8: FACEBOOK Romans 8

PINTEREST Images Romans 8: PINTEREST Romans 8

MS Publisher and PDF Images Romans 8: MS PUBLISHER & PDF FILES Romans 8

POWERPOINT size PDFs Romans 8: POWERPOINT Romans 8

Changes in image usage—the “free” sites may not be what they seem and what you need to do about it

30 May, 2020 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

What to do when disappointed with image usage rules — What it feels like when you are excited about images you think you can use and then you find out the rules changed and you can't. What do about it is what this article is about.

Sometimes it is hard to do the right thing, but as disciples of Jesus, we must try.

As I’ve been working on getting lots of material ready for launching the Bibleverse collection of related ministries some guidelines have come to my attention about the “free images” on sites such as Canva, PicMonkey, and Snappa, where you can use the images they have, plus the free images sites themselves such as Unsplash, Pixabay, Pexels, and that many of us (me included) use to create social media and templates. What follows does not apply to sites in which you pay for a membership. But since many churches and organizations make use of free sites, it's important you understand the changing rules.

The take-away conclusions from my research and limitations to the use of "free" images

I won’t bore you with listing the number of articles I’ve read recently, but following is the distilled research and application takeaways both for how it applies to you as a church and how you use things and for the Effective Church Communications ministry.

Overall, as a church creating communications that you freely give to church members and that are primarily shared within your church, you have much more latitude than I do in Effective Church Communications. What I create falls into the “commercial” area and the usage guidelines for that are much more limiting than your non-commercial uses in the church. I have changed many things I charged for in the past to free when I wasn't sure exactly of what drifted into the commercial area.

I'll summarize my bottom-line recommendations shortly and then give you details from various sites.

However, and this is a big, However—if your church does something as seemingly innocent as selling a t-shirt for camp, or a cookbook as a fundraiser or selling anything else, you are now in the commercial category also. Sadly, there are some professional groups (Getty Images has a reputation in this area) that love to go after churches if they feel their image rights are violated. For these reasons, in addition to keeping you informed as to why I do what I do for you, you need to be as careful as possible in your communication creations and in the media you use for them. [Read more...]

FREE Spiritual Endurance Encouragement verses in every imaginable format for you to share: Instagram, Facebook, Postcards and more!

19 May, 2020 By Yvon Prehn 3 Comments

It seems like we are all getting tired. For some tired of being inside; for others tired of the added work in job demands that now include digital demands on how to get work done. For others tired of not working and worrying about where food and rent money will come from.

For many, soul-tired of trying to remain upbeat no matter what the circumstances.

I'm tired also, but I've faced times of tired discouragement enough in my pilgrimage on this earth to know that the best way to lift myself up out of this downward spiral is to do someone for others. It especially helps if that involves giving them God's Word and His encouragement. The images below are available in every imaginable format and social media size for you to share in whatever way you want. You can download files of the individual sizes in the zip files below the sample images.

After you do that, please take a minute to read the material after the downloads for a little more about why I will be doing more materials like this in the same variety of formats.