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.

Follow the example of the Apostle Paul—make Halloween a great time for Evangelism and FREE materials to help you do that!

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Or how to use everything that is bad about Halloween as a tool to share the gospel—

If there is a holiday that causes controversy in the church, it is Halloween. Some churches welcome it as a great time to do community outreach with alternative Halloween events; others shake their fingers and condemn churches that even mention the term.

It’s always easier to curse the darkness than to flood it with light, but taking our cue from the Apostle Paul who used the pagan idols in Athens as his bridge to sharing the gospel, I'd like to challenge you to use this time of year to share the gospel.

Following is a brief video of the material that follows and after it the text of it and at the end of the blog, FREE Downloadable materials for you to use in your Halloween outreach. Please make the most of them and don't miss this opportunity!

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FREE HANDOUTS for Halloween evangelism and the true Christian view of life after death

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Ghosts aren't real but Jesus is --Resources for Fall and Halloween church outreach
Halloween can be a great time for evangelism and a small handout like this can make a lasting impact at your celebrations.

UPDATED intro: If you only do ONE thing to reach out to people at Halloween and at your alternative events with the Gospel Message—do THIS—make one of these communications to hand out in Goodie bags or as people leave. To make the most of our time and to share the true message of what happens after death, this is a way to do it.  First is a preview of the materials you can download, and for more motivation, check out the materials that follow it....

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From Yvon Prehn, an Extremely IMPORTANT Update for Effective Church Com 7-9-2026

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Yvon Prehn Photo, 2025
A 2025 photo of me outside the wonderful church I attend, Community Presbyterian Church in Ventura, CA

God is always the author of NEW THINGS and I feel He is leading me to put my primary focus on the Bible805 ministry, and not Effective Church Communications, at least for a time. Exciting things are happening--see the videos below AND Bible805 is NOW--

"Bible805 is a fiscally sponsored project of the Christian Ministry Alliance. The Alliance is a U.S. registered 501c3 tax-deductible charity with the Internal Revenue Service and has a Candid Platinum Seal (formerly GuideStar), the highest rating available for nonprofit transparency and accountability. [Tax ID: 46-3408177]" To donate to this ministry, CLICK HERE.

I am putting all my time and energy into the Bible805 ministry now and that means putting new content from the Effective Church Communications ministry on a hold for an undetermined time, though the resources on this site, the many templates and eBooks, blogs, and how-tos will remain free and available to you.

The Effective Church Communications newsletter will cease publication after a few more updates and I strongly encourage you to sign up for the Bible805 Newsletter at a new link: https://bible805.eo.page/y92jc

If anyone or any ministry is interested in using any of the materials on this site for church communications purposes, they are welcome to them, if you'd like more formal rights to all, contact me at yvonprehn@gmail.com.

Importantly, there isn’t the need for How-to’s there used to be

In the past, so much of the Effective Church Communications ministry was focused on “how-to” do things, beginning with me teaching church communicators how to do desktop publishing, how to use MS Publisher, get into the internet and all sorts of related tasks.

I loved every minute of it, but as technology has advanced, many of the how-tos are don’t apply and are no longer necessary—no need to go into details and what all A.I. do—but I feel that my work is done there.

But what is most clear and important is that not only “out of the abundance of the heart, does the mouth speak” but out of the abundance of the heart, we create our communications that influences all our church accomplishes.

That never changes. If Jesus and His Word are the primary focus and food for your soul, no matter what tool you use, your communications will help to fully fulfill the Great Commission which means to help people come to know Jesus as Savior and grow to maturity in Him.

The purpose of the Bible805 ministry is to help you know, trust, apply, and teach the Bible and much of this applies to church communicators. Whether it is part of your job or not, the teaching from Bible805 will change your life if you get into God’s Word using the resources recommended. Bible805 also has numerous ministry helps in podcasts, free teaching materials and much more. Check out the www.Bible805.com ministry website for descriptions of and links to the many resources. People have told me I have the ability to make very complex Bible topics easy to understand and apply and many, many people are downloading the resources and signing up for the teaching, so I pray the Lord is using it in this way.

There are Two Videos that follow that describe what I'm doing now in the Bible805 Ministry and Bible805 Academy site--please take a few minutes to watch them and pray for the ministries.

Tour of Bible805 site

Tour of the Bible805 Academy

And do sign up for the Bible80 newsletter from me; you can always unsubscribe if it doesn’t meet your needs: https://bible805.eo.page/y92jc 

IMPORTANT—I am NOT going to simply port over the names and emails from this list to that list. After a few more updates you will not get any more emails from me if you don’t switch to the Bible805 newsletter. The recent email I sent out to you on reading through the Bible in a year was a copy of the Bible805 newsletter—I most likely won’t do that again.

I’ll remind you of the need to sign up for the newsletter a few more times, but why not sign up now so you can get the Bible805 updates now.

If you’d like, it’s at https://bible805.eo.page/y92jc

Personal update as of 7-9-2026--much a repeat, not much new

As many of you are aware, the Lord suddenly took my husband home to heaven with a massive heart attack, Aug. 11, 2024.

It has been a challenging almost two years. I did get moved back into my little mobile home (we were renovating it totally, as it was 50 years old and falling apart—all torn apart when the Lord took him). It is a nicely redone little home and I host ministry Bible studies and teas, and the Lord uses it.

Yet, try as I might, I'm honestly extremely unhappy here, as I can't drive into the park without going by the clubhouse where, just outside it at the pool, I had to sit by my husband's covered body for 2 hours waiting for the medical examiner. They wouldn't let me touch him or say goodbye with a kiss. I can't ever go there again; it is just too painful and so I'm cut off from all community life.

I’ve had health challenges, some severe including an almost fatal heart failure that was caused by a BAD diagnosis that literally almost killed me, but God intervened and a new cardiologist had me immediately stop taking the medication prescribed (instead of four I was taking for something that apparently wasn’t really happening) I don’t take anything now, there are no blockages (which previous doc thought he saw), and my numbers are perfect (in case you’re interested, BP 127/70, heart rate 68).

Many of my muscles locked from stress, I couldn’t bend or turn—physical therapy mitigated that.

Then….I got skin cancer, which is why you didn't see videos of me for a time. I rarely go outside, am not a sun worshipper, and yet got this THING on the tip of my nose and was pretty messy surgery to dig it out. Now that I haven't done videos for some time, I'm very happy not to anymore.

I had to shut down the business we had; I couldn’t do it without my husband. That was very hard. The business also paid for the ministry costs for Effective Church Communications and Bible805. I’ve never taken any salary from either and the operating costs are significant (web and software subscription fees have gotten very high for everything). Our business paid for that in the past; my small savings cover it now.

I am not changing the calling for the online ministry and I will not take advertising or affiliate marketing as has been my conviction. Please pray as I have enough to carefully support things for a time yet, but the need to generate income is another reason I must focus on Bible805.

I have been accepted by the Christian Ministries Alliance and here is how they describe the current situation:

"Bible805 is a fiscally sponsored project of the Christian Ministry Alliance. The Alliance is a U.S. registered 501c3 tax-deductible charity with the Internal Revenue Service and has a Candid Platinum Seal (formerly GuideStar), the highest rating available for nonprofit transparency and accountability. [Tax ID: 46-3408177]"

If you would feel led to give a gift (NOW tax deductible!) to help me with ministry expenses that would go to the Bible805 ministry, you can do that at: https://apps.christianministryalliance.org/fs3222-bible805

Really, how am I doing? I know some of you are asking.

I am very tired, I've been working, working, working, I know way too much--even the A.I. agent I was using told me to "get some sleep" the other night. But I am excited to get the ministry solid and functional and I feel deeply driven to help people get into God's Word. Our world and the people in it, need it so much. When I see the people signing up for the resources and people from all over the world downloading teaching materials I know I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

And so I press ahead, for the King and the Kingdom!
Yvon

and now updated at 7-9-2026

To sign up for the Bible805 newsletter: https://bible805.eo.page/y92jc
**you must do this to continue to receive information from me after some time in the next few weeks and for the most current and useful resources from Bible805

For links to resources, books, the Bible805Academy and many free resources to help you know, trust, apply, and teach the Bible, go to https://www.Bible805.com

To get a copy of Start Here, a plan for curious people to begin reading the Bible, go to: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G4W9YW5Z?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

To support the Bible805 ministry: https://apps.christianministryalliance.org/fs3222-bible805

 

 

 

Why just “Come to Easter at Our Church” isn’t enough–FREE invitations with short, but powerful messages

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The images in this collection are the least important part of them. Much more important is the message that reminds people why Jesus is the reason for the Easter Season.

I'm part of several church communication discussion groups and recently people have been sharing their outreach ideas for Easter. They all look great, but I am concerned that many of them simply say something like "Easter at whatever the church is." Now there is nothing wrong with that if you go to the church and want your people to know what time your services are being held. But there is a challenge with an invitation like that if you want to use Easter as a time to reach out to your community.

Not everyone knows that Easter has anything to do with anything spiritual

We often talk about how we need to remind people that "Jesus is the reason for the season" at Christmas, but no matter how secular the Christmas celebration, most people still know it had something to do with the birth of Jesus even if they don't think of it as particularly meaningful.

It's not like that for Easter. Biola University quoted a Barna study that shared statistics similar to many other studies:

About two-thirds (67 percent) of Americans surveyed related the holiday as something religious or spiritual. But just two percent said they thought it was about the birth of Christ and another two percent said it was about the rebirth of Jesus. Only 1 percent related it to the second coming of Jesus, while 3 percent just thought it was a celebration of spring or a pagan holiday.

Looking at the non-religious segment, 13 percent of Americans said they were not sure how to describe Easter. Many of their recurring answers were spring break, rebirth, hiding eggs, candy, children and bunnies.

http://chimes.biola.edu/story/2010/mar/23/easter-barna/

Don't do a bait and switch at Easter

If, as the above statistics show (and they are a few years old and I imagine the situation has gotten even worse) few people outside your church have a true idea of what Easter is about, if you send out something that only says something like "Come to Easter Celebrations at our Church" your audience will be thinking chocolate and brunch—not a challenging message and celebration of the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.

To not only give people an idea of what Easter is all about, but to get them thinking, asking questions about life and death and faith, I created some Easter invitations with thought-provoking messages.

There are many ways to use the invitations:

  • You can print them up as postcards as is or you can use any image you want with whatever message you want. An idea for how to get postcards out to your community without the church paying for postage is below the set of images.
  • You can use a related image and swap it out on the postcard layout.
  • If you have your own branded Easter theme, fell free to use the message part with any image you have.
  • I also have a separate file of just the text. You can use the text message in a newsletter, social media, or any way you would like to get the message out there.

Below the set of images is a ZIP file that has all the invitations in PDF ready-to print format and editable MS Publisher files. PLEASE CLICK on the first image below and it will enlarge to show you the text that goes with the images.

To download the ZIP file of the invitations, CLICK the following link: Easter INVITATIONS 2017

For a FREE file of the text alone that goes with the cards, CLICK HERE.

How to get out Postcards cost-effectively and in a way that will help your congregation grow in their faith

You can print these invitations at your church and then on Sunday put 5 invitations in everyone's bulletin. During the service the pastor can stand and say,

"As you can see you all have 5 Easter invitations in your bulletin. I know you've prayed for friends to invite to our Easter services and here is a tangible way to do it.

You can either mail the invitation or hand-deliver it to your friends. After that continue to pray and follow-up.

Offer to drive your friends to church on Easter and invite them to brunch afterwards to see if they have questions. You can invite them back next week and encourage them to become involved in the church on a continuing basis.

We all know we should be sharing our faith in Jesus and this is an easy and enjoyable way to do it!"

To start the motivation process to get your congregation excited about inviting friends, go to this article: Why it matters if you invite your friends to Easter services

Easter is the most important holiday of the Christian year—let's to all we can to fully involve our congregations and reach out to our community at this time.