Effective Church Communications

PODCAST: Strategy for Summer Communications

18 June, 2024 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Whoever wrote that song, "Summertime and the livin' is easy" did not work in church communications.

The pace and type of activities change in the summer, but with Bible camps and special events, there is a lot of work to be done.

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

In our podcast today I'll give you some tips for more effective summer communications. CLICK HERE for FREE TEMPLATES of communications that you can use for effective outreach this summer.

For the original article that forms the basis of this podcast, go to: https://wp.me/pDky9-7pK

How to make Bible school more than a happy memory—strategy and materials to connect with Parents

16 June, 2024 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

VBS return to church flyers — Kids always have a wonderful time at VBS, but you must be intentional in inviting families back if you want that great week to have a lasting impact.

Some of the happiest times of my life as a child were in summer Daily Vacation Bible School and that wonderful experience continues in many churches today. Kids have a wonderful week, but thoughtful communications can extend that week into a continuing relationship with the church.

There are several ways you can do this, but the over-riding idea is that you need to intentionally communicate to connect with parents, to let them know what else is going on for their children at the church, and invite them to take part in it.

Why this is so important

If you asked a person in the neighborhood of your church, who does not go to your church, "What does our church do on Sundays for children?" you would most likely be met with a blank stare. Most people who do not go to church have no idea what people do in church other than the media picture of people standing around singing with their hands in the air.

The parents of the neighborhood children you worked so hard to reach so their kids would come to VBS are no different. To many of them the church is providing a nice summer community service and they get a few hours of free (or almost free, as many VBS programs charge these days) child care for a week. That the church has anything else of value for their kids is probably something that never crossed their minds.

For the church staff putting on VBS that's difficult to imagine, but it's true and though you want people to so love VBS they will bring their kids back on Sunday to your children's program and begin a relationship with the church, this won't happen unless you are intentional about it. Here's how to do it: [Read more...]

Strategy for summer communications, remember visitors, delete hidden jargon, don’t host a money-divided event

15 June, 2024 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Summer Image — Your church will have visitors this summer, be sure your communications make sense to them.

LINK to FREE Summer Templates is at the end of this article

Looking ahead to planning summer communications, this summer your church will get lots of visitors, some of whom are friends of church members who might not regularly go to church, others may be from the surrounding community, and we can't forget out-of-town visitors. This is a wonderful opportunity to reach out with the gospel and the love of Jesus and here are some strategic tips to help your communications make the most of this opportunity and some strong cautions about what not to do.

Jargon watch

We know we shouldn’t use church jargon terms like justification and sanctification in our church bulletin, web, or social media when we are writing for people visiting our church, but so much of our church jargon we don’t even see. Using acronyms we don't explain, talking about events that we do year after year and assume everyone knows about, insider jokes, assuming people know times and locations—all these things are confusing and unkind to someone visiting. We don't want our language to keep someone with a free night in our city to miss out on an opportunity to learn about Jesus.

[Read more...]

Summer seasonal PR for 4th of July and Summer Events

2 June, 2024 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

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:

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.

FREE flyers for the 4th of July and Canada Day–if there was ever a time grace was needed in our political world it is now

1 June, 2024 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

A prayer for Grace for all nations — The materials here share a prayer for Grace for all nations that is desperately needed in our contentious times.

No matter where you fall on the political spectrum on any issue, I think one thing we can all agree on is that as Christians, we most sincerely need to act in GRACE to those we may disagree with from a little bit to a lot.

This is also a time for two nations to celebrate their national holidays and for that, a few years ago I created the flyers here, and PowerPoint slides you can use to commemorate this time.

For all of us, let's remember above all that we are citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven, our ultimate allegiance is to our Lord Jesus, and He commands us to love each other and grant each other grace as He does for us.

Below is an assortment of free materials to help you share a reminder and prayer for God's Grace for all of us.

Below are the sets of Templates with preview images, click on the title to go to the set you want.

Below is an assortment of free materials to help you share a reminder and prayer for God's Grace for all of us.
4th of July and Canada Day flyers
Grace for all Nations Slides & Powerpoint
4th of July God's Grace on America Slides and Powerpoint

The Templates are in ZIP files (you download them, click to open, hit "extract" and the files are saved and ready for you to use). The link for each set is below the images and the file contains both ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files. Some of the ZIP files also have a MS Word file of text if that goes with the set.

Click on any image to enlarge and see more detailed previews. Click on the link below the images to download the Templates to your computer.