Effective Church Communications

How to communicate with an audience that has no time to listen

13 May, 2017 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Remember time stress when creating church communications — Remember the time stress of your audience when creating church communications.

Need some evidence that it isn't just your imagination making you feel nobody has time for anything related to the church? "At the end of the weekend, you are more than a full day behind in your activities. Even if we went to an eight-day week you still would be 4.5 hours behind." Was the conclusion of an article in the Wall Street Journal.

Ed note before I continue: I wrote this article several years ago and while updating the website ran across it. The time challenges of your audience today make it worth another look because though a few years have passed if anything the situation of time demands has become even more challenging as we attempt to reach people. Following is a reprint of the article with a number of updates added.

An article in the Wall Street Journal reported Americans work an average of 53 hours a week. Dale McFeatters took that statistic and calculated that if an individual did all the activities reported such as sleeping, TV, dressing, etc., without multitasking, that person would have a 28.5 hour a week time deficit. In addition to helping explain why we often feel stressed and tired, his calculations help explain why it is so difficult to get people respond to the communications from your church. Following are some ideas on how to communicate your church's message to a time-stressed and time-starved audience. [Read more...]

How to make Mom REALLY Happy!

9 May, 2017 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Mother's Day make Mom really happy cards — Though a fun way to share the message, it is a very serious one and here is a selection of cards to help share it. CLICK on the image above for a FREE PDF of this publication.

This communication is fun and always makes people smile, but it has a serious message because what each of the cards below illustrate in various ways is that, "What makes mom really happy....is for you to come back to church next Sunday!"

The cards below can be used as an insert for Mother's Day or they make great follow-up postcards sent out after Mother's Day to the visiting spouses and children who attended to make mom happy. Need some Connection Cards for Mother's Day to collect those names? A set of them is below the Make Mom Happy Cards.

The one to the left is a FREE PDF for everyone. CLICK HERE or on the image to download it. The other options and the zip files you can download with both ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files are below.

Make the most of every opportunity on Mother's Day and you'll find it can be not only one of the highest outreach Sundays of the year, but one of the most successful outreach Sundays!

Make Mom really happy cards

Below is the link to a zip file where you can download the publications above in both ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files.

Click the following link to download the zip file: Make Mom Happy MDay Come Back to Church

Here are some specialized Connection Cards for Mother's Day

Below is the link to a zip file where you can download the publications above in both ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files.

Click the following link to download the zip file: MDay Connection Cards and Mothers Day Invitations Landscape 1

Better than roses—an essential communication piece for Mother’s Day

7 May, 2017 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Bulletin insert for Mother's Day — Help a mom say what she wishes she could say to her child about Jesus with this bulletin excerpt.

As we've talked about before, the biggest reason Mother's Day has such a large turn-out isn't because of the Moms. They are always there. It is because of the unchurched children and spouses that show up that day to make Mom happy. To make the most of it, the church needs to say to that audience what Mom can't—that the most important gift you can give her is a relationship with Jesus.

Here is a publications that will help you do that.

Mother's Day Bulletin insert

This insert doesn't pull any punches, but makes it clear that more important than anything else to a Mother is her child's relationship to Jesus. A bulletin insert can challenge, but also gently guide to websites and sources (please add your own from your church) so that a piece of paper, quietly put into a pocket, may be looked at in a quiet moment and an eternity changed.

Here are images of the insert. Click on one for a larger view.

Below is the text as a free gift to everyone to use however you want: a link for more is at the bottom of the page and you can download a large file that has lots of inserts you can personalize.

Above all PRAY for open hearts for the children and spouses who attend Mother's Day services that they will be convicted of the need to draw close to Jesus. [Read more...]

A new format for videos–square, not widescreen

3 May, 2017 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

There have been a number of studies and articles over the last few months promoting the popularity of square screen videos.The primary reason for this is that you can see much more of a video and the content (depending of course on the actual content) may be clearer on a square screen when viewed on your mobile device, which is how most video is viewed today.

I thought I'd try it with a quick overview of Mother's Day communications. I created this video in animoto. I'd love your comments on it.

One Mother’s Prayer—essential encouragement, handout, bulletin insert for Mother’s Day and always

3 May, 2017 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

This short piece, One Mother's Prayer, is a true story that is both an encouragement to pray for children and an assurance of the power of prayer to change a destiny.—

It has been published more times than anything else I've written. It was first published in Today's Christian Woman magazine. It was then published in their Best of Ten Years of writings; it has been reprinted and republished all over the world; and it continues to bring tears to the eyes of any group I read it to. You are free to use it any way you want and share it however you want.

This sample PDF is free to download.You can click here or on the image to download it.

Two more 8 1/2 by 11 plus 4 other versions on half sheet size plus the jpgs of the larger files and an MS Word text file if you want to create your own publication, plus the text file and the link to all the other downloads is after the images below.

This is a great resource not only for Mother's Day, but any time of the year for Mom's groups and prayer groups.

Below are the most current version of the layout: