Effective Church Communications

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators. 

The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. The site has links to many free TEMPLATES and other resources, plus links to free TRAINING VIDEOS, and a RESOURCE LIBRARY for church communicators.

A Christmas letter you can use to share Jesus with your church, friends, and family

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8.5 x 11 size Christmas Evangelism PDFs images_Page_2
A Christmas letter that explains the true meaning of Christmas is an essential outreach tool for your Christmas events.

We want our people to share their faith and this communication gives them an easy and non-threatening way to do it. One year, I posted the material below on our Adult Sunday School Class website and gave out a sample to our adult class. I printed the black and white image on a blue parchment-type paper. I encouraged them to go to the website and print it out for their Christmas letters and to share with friends. You are welcome to copy any or all of it and you can put them on your church or class website for your people to share.

Below the sample that I shared with my class are some color versions, spot-color separations, and versions that are in a tri-fold brochure format. All of these are available in two ZIP files at the end of this article. This letter/brochure or any other piece that clearly explains the reason for Christmas and the meaning of salvation in Jesus is essential for your church to share at all your holiday outreach events. Jesus came to save us from our sins, not to give us reasons to buy stuff or even so we can have wonderful family celebrations. We need to be clear about the true Christmas message to people who may only come to our church at this time of year--this piece gives you an easy and effective way to do it. [Read more...]

How to motivate your people to invite their friends to come to Christmas church events

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You need to motivate your people
Our outreach at Christmas can literally change the eternal destiny of someone. This piece will motivate your people to be inviters.

NO printed or created invitation will do what a person can do. A friend inviting a friend is the most effective invitation. In addition, they can offer to bring their friend to the event, they can introduce them to people at church, and follow up later to invite them back.

Most of us would agree with all the previous statements, but how do we motivate our congregation to do that inviting? This flyer will help you do just that!

In addition to the motivation, the back of it has a place where people can write down a prayer list of the people they want to invite.

This church communication, which can take the form of a printed flyer or bulletin insert or text for a newsletter or email, is a reminder that:

  • Life is scary
  • People are lonely
  • Everyone needs a purpose
  • We're all going to live forever—with a clear message that what we decide about Jesus matters in our personal eternal destiny

The format you get out the message in, digital or on paper isn't important the most important thing. What is most important is that you motivate your congregation to make the most of this opportunity.

Having just said the format isn't the most important, one encouragement to PRINT this piece is that you could make it a bulletin insert and during the service have people take it out because on the backside of the motivational material is a place for a PRAYER LIST for people to list those they want to invite. Take a minute to have people write down, while there in the church service, one or two names of people they want to invite. Tell them to take the list home and either post it on the refrigerator or put in it their Bible where they will be continuously reminded of it.

To emphasize the importance of this, you could later send out an email with the same text reminding them to keep praying and inviting. By using both the print AND digital channel you have a much greater chance that your people will take this challenge seriously and follow through on it.

[Read more...]

Invite visitors to interact with you after Christmas

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After Christmas follow up materials
Either on social media or in the mail, do whatever you can to follow up with Christmas visitors and to help them connect with the church and learn more about Jesus.

If you want to get visitors to interact with your church after Christmas you need to invite them to do that.

Few people will take the initiative to reach out to your church with their questions about the meaning of Christmas, but they might be willing to do so with a gentle invitation from you. In the file below is the card illustrated here, plus more simple and generic ones that invite visitors for coffee and discussion.

The following are communications you can use in either postcard or social media format. Below the images is a ZIP file that contains them as jpg images and in ready-to-print PDF format, and editable MS Publisher format.

Below is the text from the card that you have permission to use in any way you want:

Christmas a bit much?

After all the food, festivities, ho, ho, ho, and perhaps a church service thrown in, do you ever wonder why all the bother?

It certainly doesn’t seem worth it for the commercial excesses all around us.

But what if it was really about God
becoming human?

What if the ancient prophecies that God would be with us to show us what God was like and how to live in a way that pleases him were true?

That would be worth celebrating.

We think that is what Christmas is really about and we’d love to discuss it with you. On the back of this card are ways we can connect.

CLICK following to download the ZIP FILES: Christmas Follow Up Cards

Reminder to send out a Christmas follow-up postcard—Because He didn’t stay a baby

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#1MS Pub Editable Because He didn't stay a baby FOLLOW UP POSTCARD
Send out a postcard to the people who visited at Christmas to invite them back to find out more about Jesus.

Right after special Christmas or other holiday events is a prime time to invite people to come back to church to find out more about your church and Jesus.

Here is the message you can put on a card, flyer, social media content or however you want to use this message to get people to come back to church after Christmas. The headline says:

Because he didn't stay a baby. . . we want to tell you the rest of the story.

Hopefully, you collected Connection Cards at your event--now is the time to respond to them with an invitation to return. At the end of this intro is a ZIP FILE with not only the ready-to-print PDFs of all the designs, but editable MS Publisher files, hi-res images and the MS Word text file of the content.

The card here can be used in several ways:

  1. You can send it out with reminders of the regular services offered at your church. If people attended a Christmas Eve event or special event for children, that doesn't mean they have any idea about what your church does regularly.
  2. You can direct people to websites both at your church and other places that explain the Christian faith in more detail and answer their questions.
  3. You can invite them to a seeker Bible study, latte with the pastor or any other event where they can interact and ask questions about the Christian faith.
  4. It can also be left as a gospel tract at restaurants or anywhere else you leave tracts.
  5. You can take the content or the entire image and share it on social media.

Text for the card:

During the holidays you heard that Jesus was the reason for the season. You heard stories, sang songs, and got Christmas cards—all about Him.

In the middle of all that, did you ever wonder, “What’s the big deal about Jesus?” What was there about this baby that split history in two and has the world celebrating his birth?

That’s a great question and we’d love to discuss it with you. On the back of this card are some opportunities to explore this question and we hope you'll check them out.

The additional designs illustrated below are all available in the ZIP file link below the article

#3MS Pub Editable Because He didn't stay a baby FOLLOW UP POSTCARD#4MS Pub Editable Because He didn't stay a baby FOLLOW UP POSTCARD#5MS Pub Editable Because He didn't stay a baby FOLLOW UP POSTCARD#6MS Pub Editable Because He didn't stay a baby FOLLOW UP POSTCARDMS Pub Editable Because He didn't stay a baby FOLLOW UP POSTCARD

 

 

 

 

 

 

CLICK HERE to download the ZIP FILE, of all the communications shown here, SAVE to your desktop and CLICK to open.

 

4 ways to overcome the fear of being too pushy about Christmas evangelism

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Prophet Elijah preaching judgement
You don't have to be like the Prophet Elijah preaching judgement, but don't be afraid to share the true message of Christmas.

True story that prompted this blog:

As part of the process of planning their upcoming Christmas outreach, the communication team from a church, that will remain unnamed, asked me how they could get a better response from people who attended their Christmas outreach last year.

The presentation itself was not the problem. It was an almost Broadway-quality musical drama paired with a gourmet dessert buffet. Each night was full with visitors from the community and their response was enthusiastic.

But the following Sunday almost none of huge turnout for the Christmas program showed up for church and as far as they knew, nobody became a Christian because of the event, even though they did it as an evangelism outreach. Why, they asked me, didn't more respond? [Read more...]