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.

Reminder of Christmas links and personal update on the California fires

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Please know you are being prayed for in the final days of preparation for all you have to do for your Christmas services. I'm sure you are exhausted and stressed, but I pray that in your heart you'll know the peace that comes from serving our Prince of Peace. I wanted to take a few minutes to remind you of the resources available to you from Effective Church Communications and then a personal update about the fire situation.

Christmas Resources: ECC has Templates for every aspect of Christmas, CLICK HERE to go to them. At the top of page are some FREE ones that you can use to share the gospel message this Christmas. [Read more...]

FREE Christmas Templates for outreach, congregational motivation, evangelistic Christmas letter and more!

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This FREE Christmas Template can be used either as a postcard to invite people to your Christmas services or as a cover for your Christmas programs.

For those of you who aren't familiar with our TEMPLATES  I put together a selection of Christmas Templates from different communication pieces, but that can be printed on the same size of paper ( 8 1/2 x 11) to demonstrate how easy it is to use them and modify them.

Just like in our Template section, below are pictures of what is included. Below that is a ZIP file of designs in both PDF and MS Publisher format and below that is a brief video that shows you what to do with them.

A selection of Christmas TEMPLATES

Though we have many more communication pieces that aren't represented here (invitation cards, connection cards, follow-up postcards, etc.) these will help your church share the message of salvation in Jesus this Christmas season. You have my permission to pass them on to any church or group you'd like.

Each sample type illustrated has a variety of additional designs in our TEMPLATE section.

To download this selection of Templates in both PDF and editable MS Publisher formats click the following link: CHRISTMAS TEMPLATE SAMPLE SET

Video preview and briefly how to edit the Templates

For seasonal and special event success: plan beyond a great invitation

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An invitation to an event at your church is simply the start of a relationship with someone who doesn't know Jesus. Plan from before you send it out to do more to make sure visitors connect.

When a church holds a seasonal or special event, initially we want to get lots of people to attend. But for a church that isn’t enough because we must always keep in mind that we are not just there to celebrate the various holidays, but to reach out to the community with the goals of helping unchurched people make a connection with the church, begin to come on a regular basis, come to know Jesus as Savior, and grow to Christian maturity.

We don't want to be satisfied with merely creating a great invitation and even with a great turn out at the event because as anyone who is involved in special events knows, attendance on the following Sundays, even if the seasonal celebration itself has a huge attendance, is almost always less than hoped for.

The problem is never because of the event itself—churches have figured out how to put on great events. Solving this problem is more complex than many churches realize but before we talk about solutions. . . .

First, a story that illustrates the importance of more than an invitation to events

This is a true story. Though the specific event discussed is Easter, the lessons learned from it apply to Fall, Christmas, and every other outreach event in the church. Here is what happened: [Read more...]

On a personal note: fires raging very close to us in Ventura, CA

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At both ends of our town, what I saw when I stepped outside last night and what has continued today.

I'm not one who feels the need to share every little detail of my life in the hopes that my audience will find me so fascinating they will read everything I have to say about church communications.

That's just silly.

But it's the end of an emotionally exhausting day and more as a fellow pilgrim and follower of Jesus, I wanted to share this with you.

Last night, just before bed (I was up working later on some ministry things online), I checked my phone and found a fire had started in Santa Paula, the town next to us. I went outside and you could see the flames in the sky. Scary, but when I turned around my heart started beating audibly.

In the other direction, at the other end of town was an equally red explosion of fire. From miles to the east, to as far as I could see to the west was fire.

Then the power went out. Then the phones went dead.

[Read more...]

TEMPLATES—what makes the ECC church communication templates unique and how to modify them

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One of the SQUARE Christmas Business Card size templates available in our Christmas Template set, not only does the video show this one and many others, but how to get it professionally printed.

I may have tried to accomplish too much in one video, but it's hard to express how excited I am about the TEMPLATES we have for Christmas this year. I'm not only excited about all the new designs and templates, but I'm also excited about how they fit together in an overall ministry plan.

That is one of the things that makes the templates from Effective Church Communications unique—they are part of our overall goal of fully fulfilling the Great Commission, of intentionally helping people from outside the church and progressively enabling them become mature disciples. Your communications are a key part of this process and that's why we have templates not only for invitation cards and postcards, but motivational handouts and prayer lists for church members, Christmas letters to print for your congregation, seasonal connection and prayer cards, plus follow-up materials. (you can see a preview of all in the video below)

If you are going to make the most of your seasonal outreach you need to do communications BEFORE, DURING and AFTER your event. We will be highlighting and giving you specific strategies to do this with the various communication pieces, but this video gives you an overview of how it all works.

In addition to an overview and ministry explanation you have two options for how to use the Templates

The Templates from Effective Church Communications are all in PDF format, so you can simply download and print if you need something in a hurry.

In addition, the Templates are in MS Publisher format and are very simple to modify. I chose MS Publisher instead of Photoshop or InDesign or other fancy expensive program because that's what many churches use and it is the easiest and least expensive to use. In addition, you can do great designs with it. It is never the program, but the person who makes a successful, effective communication and if you use this set and the process recommended it will make your Christmas outreach VERY effective.

One more fun thing in the video is I show you how easy it is to get the templates printed with www.overnightprints.com. You can of course print them in the church office, but if you want a full-bleed glossy invitation card or postcard, after checking out a number of the online services, I really like how simple it is to get things done with Overnight Prints and I demonstrate this for you on the video. (I'll be doing others on this process.....like I said, a little too much here, but I was having so much fun with it and it turned out so well, I had to share it!)

One more thing that makes the Templates from Effective Church Communications unique

In addition to the typical templates use of graphics in the Templates, ECC also has TEXT TEMPLATES. There are a number of things I've written, longer pieces that you can use in either the templates as they've been given to you or you can pull them out and use them in your social media, websites, newsletters, whatever you want. Because I wrote them and retain all rights to them, I grant them to you to use however you'd like.

For Christmas, our piece Hark the Herald Angels Sing, but why? is a good example of this. It can be used as a Christmas letter, handout for Christmas events, and in many other ways. CLICK HERE to learn more about it.

Enough talking about the video, here is it:

 

To access all the Templates in the video and many more, you must sign up for Membership in Effective Church Communications. Right now we have a special price of only $59 a year! CLICK HERE to find out more and sign up.