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.

Free Kindle Download for Church Connection Card book (and it can be on your computer)

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Church Connection Cards
Connection Cards are an essential step to connecting with visitors, growing your church and pastoring your people. This book is invaluable to help you do that.

I'm in the process of updating a number of the Effective Church Communication books, but while I'm doing that I want you to have access to the useful materials in them.

One of the most helpful books (according to reader feedback) and by far my best seller has been this book on Connection Cards. The current print version does not have good resolution of images, but since I can give you images and templates on this website (CLICK HERE for some Connection Card Templates), the basic content is what is most helpful.

I put that into a FREE KINDLE download--go to the amazon page HERE to get it.

Don't have a Kindle? You can read it with an app for your computer—below are directions on how to get it.

Check out the directions below to download the Kindle app for your computer

VERY IMPORTANT TIP: Get the app for your computer for a great aid in preparing lessons or reading any Kindle book.

When I am preparing a Sunday School lesson or Bible blog (for my www.bible805.com) I like to consult and quote Bible reference books. I have a number of them in the Kindle version. What is handy is when you have it on your computer you can cut and paste into MS Word files—so much easier than typing long quotes.

Complete details in all church communications are essential for people to connect with church events

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The importance of each link
If only one link is broken, the entire chain fails. The connecting details in our church communications work the same way.

UPDATE editorial note: I've recently downloaded software that was attractively and appealingly advertised. Then I tried to use it and found that the creators apparently used all their energies in selling the software, but almost no time in the hard work of showing how to USE it. We can do the same if we have a splashy advertisement for a church event, but don't do the work to put in the connecting details that will get people to the event. This article from our archives will help you to avoid that mistake. We always must remember that our task is not to simply wow people with our witty, brilliant designs and catchy phrases about upcoming events, but to simply get them there so God can help them grow in their spiritual lives.

"He that is faithful is that which is least, is faithful also in much," (Luke 16:10), is a biblical principle we are all familiar with. It is also an important principle to remember in your church communications when you want people to respond to your church communication with concrete action. We don’t do church communications for people to think they look fantastic or to impress them with our technological prowess—we do them so lives and eternities will be changed. The details must be included for people to be able to respond.

If you don’t include the little details (time, date, location, duration, contact information) completely and consistently in every church communication you produce, the great design, writing, typography choices, and graphics will not mean anything. All of these design issues that many church communicators work so hard on, are virtually useless if you don’t have the details included that will actually connect people to the church events. This not to discount the importance of good design. Good design is important, but similar to James reminder that "faith without works is dead," so too, great-looking design is useless if it doesn't result in actions.

In the rest of this article I’ll talk about why we leave out church communication details and then I’ll give you a list of the details that are essential to include. PLEASE  take time to read/review this article for maximum results from the hard work you do in your church communications. Pass it on, make copies of it for your staff to discuss.

Why we leave out the details in our church communications

Our default mode when creating church communications is to leave out connecting details. We do this for a number of reasons and here are some of the most common reasons why we leave out essential details in church communications:

Over-familiarity

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Triage, a model for responding to connection cards

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Triage your connection cards
In a medical emergency, the first responders immediately triage victims to see who needs immediate care. That's a great examples to follow on processing connection cards.

Ed. intro: When you host a special event or seasonal celebration, you'll have lots of visitors and you'll be collecting lots of visitor cards from them. But you've got to do more than just collect them if you want them to make a difference in your church. You'll learn what to do from this excerpt from the book: Connection Cards, connect with visitors, grow your church, pastor your people

It is critically important to respond to the connection cards received each Sunday and all special occasions, but not every card needs the same timeliness or intensity of response, but how do you decide what needs what? The concept of triage can help.

First, here is the history and definition of TRIAGE from Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia:

TRIAGE
The term [triage] comes from battlefield or natural disaster situations. When the wounded are brought in there are three categories in which the wounded are immediately placed:

Red / Immediate
They require immediate surgery or other life-saving intervention, and have first priority for surgical teams or transport to advanced facilities; they “cannot wait” but are likely to survive with immediate treatment.

Yellow / Observation
Their condition is stable for the moment but requires watching by trained persons and frequent re-triage, will need hospital care (and would receive immediate priority care under “normal” circumstances).

Green / Wait (walking wounded)
They will require a doctor’s care in several hours or days but not immediately, may wait for a number of hours or be told to go home and come back the next day (broken bones without compound fractures, many soft tissue injuries).

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triage

How to apply triage to connection cards

Though you aren’t dealing with actual battlefield situations, this model is useful in responding to the connection cards you will receive from those fighting spiritual battles each week. Following are suggestions for how to apply the three levels of triage in how you respond to the people turning in connection cards: [Read more...]

Connection Cards: church service distraction or great ministry tool?

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Connection cards, are they a great tool or church service distraction?
Connection cards, are they a great tool or church service distraction--please share your comments.

I recently received the following email (only slightly edited for privacy) with a practical ministry question about Connection Cards and how to avoid the time filling out the cards and collecting them more than an awkward break in the service. Following the email, I have some advice, but PLEASE add your comments and practices in the comment section that follows.

Question about Connection Cards

I have a question or two concerning having the whole congregation fill out connection cards during the service time. I know you believe this a very important part of the Sunday morning church service. I have read several church leaders that agree.

I am Director of Administration for our church and have approached our Senior Pastor about doing this. He has been the pastor for 25 years so he is a very experienced pastor. When I first mentioned us possibly doing this he said he could not imagine having a break in the service where pretty much everything comes to a standstill while hundreds of people fill out these cards. He said he would think it would be a real "flow" breaker if you know what I mean...however he cares more about doing what is best for the body of our church than not wanting to try something new. So, he is willing to give this a try but I have a couple of questions that I'd like to ask you so I will have more information to approach him with...

What would you estimate the time to be to complete these cards? Each service would have around 200 people in it....Would you estimate 2 or 3 minutes or something much shorter like 30 seconds?

Also, when other churches do this do they have something going on at the same time or does everything come to a standstill while they are being filled out?

My answer

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Church connection and prayer request cards—the foundation of all other church communications

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Connection Card book by Yvon Prehn
Prayer request cards and connection cards are a great way to connect with visitors and the needs of your congregation.

In church communications, we are often like Elijah-we expect God to speak through the thunder and storm. But what God often uses is similar to how he ultimately spoke to Elijah—through a still small voice.

The place of connection cards and prayer request cards in your church communication ministry is similar. They appear tiny and unimportant in the great scheme of multi-media communications available, but if you don't use them correctly, your church will probably not connect with visitors as well as you could if you used them.

Yes, there are lots of things churches do and communications churches create that connect with visitors, but helpful as most of them are, they fall short in one area. Churches have visitor centers, visitor pads, friendly people but......

Their short-coming is that all of them require the person to reach out to you.

You can't reach out to many visitors because you won't even know they are there. The ability for people to reach back to you, to share their contact information, their needs and questions is the function of  connection cards. The book Connection Cards, connect with visitors, grow your church, pastor your people goes into detail on how to make the most of these essential ministry tool,  but this article will give you a good starting overview of their usefulness.

The purpose of these connection and prayer request cards

We don't create these cards to wow people with great graphic design or to give something for kids to scribble on during the church service. They are created to make a connection and connecting people to God and each other is what the church is all about. We must keep this importance in mind, because having people fill out connection cards is often viewed as an unnecessary interruption to the Sunday morning service and recording and dealing with them is often a bother on Monday. In contrast to these attitudes, if used properly, connection cards and prayer request cards can:

  • have a HUGE impact on growing your church
  • connect people to the life of your church
  • care for and address spiritual needs in practical ways
  • and help your people grow to spiritual maturity

You must move past looking at these cards as merely ministry routine paperwork and see them as essential tools to grow your church and change lives, if you are to make the most of them.

Why this is so important

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