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.

Christmas Holiday visitors—how to turn them into regular attenders

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Christmas invitations and how to keep them
Here are ideas to keep your Christmas visitors coming back.

As we go into the holiday season, your church will be holding many events that will attract visitors. You want these visitors to become regular attenders and you can help make this possible not only by the quality of your holiday event, but by the follow-up publications you send out.

Successful follow-up publications DO NOT mean a mass generated “so glad you were here….” letter. Instead, try these ideas:

Position your church positively

Sending out a “so glad you were here” publication is OK to do if you have the time and money, but there is nothing usual or memorable about that. People expect churches to be glad they came and of course a church wants them to return.

What might be a bit more surprising is if your church, instead of asking for something, gave something away. For example, what if you sent out a series of postcards or a series of one-page newsletters and tips that would give people ideas that would help them get through the holiday season. What if those publications didn’t ask for anything, but were genuine servant publications with the motive of honestly helping the people they were sent to.

This would put your church in an entirely different place and a very positive one that would cause people to want to return. Following are some specific publications that could do this:

Countdown to Christmas Postcards/flyers or emails

Depending upon how far back from Christmas you start this, let’s assume you have a list of families who attended your Fall Harvest Festival. You make up a series of perhaps five post-cards,  tri-fold flyers, or follow-up emails in bright colors with topics like this:

Countdown to Christmas

Week #1—some inexpensive, creative, and alternative ideas on how to plan Christmas shopping and gift exchanges, drawing of names, deciding to give to charities in the name of family members, what charity opportunities are available in your community, if any churches (your church?) sell third world gift items.

Week #2—some favorite recipes from your congregation: a favorite fudge, a hot cider mix, a special grandma cookie recipe. Many families today don’t have family members close by and many young families don’t know how to prepare holiday items. Make sure your directions are simple and easy.

Week #3—the meaning of advent and some ideas on how to help families celebrate it. Perhaps offer an advent booklet for free by simply calling your church or requesting one from your church website.

Week #4—Offer to pray for people during this busy and sometimes stressful time of year. Have a prayer line where they can leave requests or an email address. Assure them it is confidential and is a gift from your church to them.

Week #5—An invitation to take part and the times your church offers free baby-sitting so busy parents or especially single parents can shop, locations where your church is doing totally free gift-wrapping.

On all these postcards be sure to clearly give the address of your church, your service times and times for children’s church or education programs, contact phone number and web site. Be sure also to always say something like “Your Local Community Church is there for you and your family, not only at Christmas time, but any time of the year. Please contact us if we can serve you in any way.” If you say something like that, be sure there is a team in place and ready to respond.

You could also do electronic versions of the postcards by creating electronic postcards or emails with the same content. The holiday postcard templates at www.constantcontact.com include wonderful designs that can be very useful in this way.

What it’s really all about

Another option would be a series of cards explaining the meaning of different traditions at Christmas. If you do a Google search on the web you’ll find dozens of pages with explanations of various Christmas traditions.

You could choose one tradition a week and again send out a series of cards. Again, many people today don’t know why we celebrate the traditions we do and you can give them a Christian explanation. Be sure to always remind them, that in addition to the reasons we have candy canes or Christmas trees (both with very Christian historical traditions) the “reason for the season” really is that Jesus, who was fully God, became fully man to grow up and become our Savior.

What’s most important

The most important thing about either of these communication/church marketing projects is not how fancy your clip art is or how stunning the type face that you choose. What is most important is if you create these and send them out with lots of love and prayer for the visitors to your church, you have a tangible way to let them know you care.

A solution to Christmas burnout & an inspiring communication example: the Advent Conspiracy

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I wish I would have discovered this group sooner--I would have done much more to promote their message, but that said, having just found out about it, I could not wait to share it with all of you. It is a wonderful reminder of the real meaning of Christmas, it presents solutions AND it does them in a very upbeat, entertaining way.

Though their message is powerful, the please take time to view this little video for a unique way to share a convicting message. An article that explains the program follows. For much more information, downloadable resources and more please go to: http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

note: an ECC reader just sent this link, which is a great companion to the one above: http://www.rethinkingchristmas.com/

Presents or Presence? Gifts that Matter

By Susan Passi-Klaus, from the United Methodist News Service

What if we just stop? Stop the madness. Stop the frustrating pursuit of the perfect present. Stop shopping until we drop. Stop trying to “people please” through gift giving.

What if we spend less, but give more, love more? And here’s a thought. What if we use the holidays to worship God more fully?

Those are questions posed by a grassroots group known as the Advent Conspiracy, http://www.adventconspiracy.org/.  They’ve partnered with more than 1,000 churches—more than 300 of them United Methodist—in 17 countries to change the way the world does Christmas and the way the world gives presents or . . . presence.

“We’re not trying to kill the idea of giving gifts,” said Ken Weigel, pastor of ministry development at Imago Dei Community in Portland, Ore. The nondenominational congregation is one of the founding churches of the Advent Conspiracy. “What we’re saying is that instead of buying your kid the Xbox, buy him a baseball mitt, and yourself a mitt, and actually make a commitment to your son to play catch regularly.”

Or, suggested Weigel, give a friend or family member a couple of mugs and a pound of coffee with a note that says, “This coffee is for when we sit down and talk because what I want to do this year is spend more time with you.”

Called “relational giving,” it’s an important tenet of Advent Conspiracy’s philosophy.

“We’ve got to re-examine this weird idea of saying ‘I love you equals X amount of money,’” he said. “What everyone really wants is to be loved and to have time with the people they love. Nobody lies on their deathbed and says, ‘I wish I had more toys.’”

In fact, Weigel believes it’s a relief to most people when they finally let go of their grandiose expectations of both giving and receiving over the holidays.

“Just look at Black Friday. We spent the entire day before giving thanks, and then the next day we go crazy going after things we’ve convinced ourselves we need. What if we just stopped the consumerism? What if we just said we actually have the things we really need—we don’t need another sweater or another set of screwdrivers. What if we just looked the empire of consumerism dead in the eye and said, ‘I don’t need you!’”

According to Weigel, moms often have the hardest time reining in the spending because their love language is gift giving. And dads? Well, they too often try to solve Christmas giving dilemmas with a credit card. However, parents can lead by example and model giving to kids.

“Say the family has an extra $200 they had planned to spend on a Wii, but the neighbors don’t have heat, or the homeless don’t have food, or a family at church doesn’t have Christmas gifts. Do we want to give the neighbors heat, or the homeless a few meals, or the family who is down on their luck some stuff they need . . . or do we go buy the Wii?

“Somewhere along the way, kids have got to get the message, ‘Let’s stop worshipping the idol of consumerism and actually start looking at Jesus and the gift God gave us in giving him.”

It’s about the meaning behind the giving.

This is the first year the Rev. Kevin Raidy’s congregation has collaborated with Advent Conspiracy. At Bloomfield United Methodist Church in Indiana where he serves as pastor, a large outside banner announces, “We support a conspiracy!”

“This is an awareness project for us,” Raidy said. “Meaning is lost at Christmas. Jesus was born in the simplest of settings; yet, we’ve lost the message.”

In a series of sermons and other lessons inspired by Advent Conspiracy, Raidy is driving home the message that it is not always about the gifts; it is about the meaning behind the giving.

“The Christmas ‘kick’ is starting earlier and earlier every year,” the pastor said. “There are pre-Black Friday sales, then Black Friday, then Cyber-Monday. Everyone is wanting bits and pieces of our money and our time. We can be stressed out from overdoing. We can be maxed out on our credit cards from overspending. Or we can have God’s peace that comes from giving from the heart. It’s a choice we make.”

Give more of yourself so there is more for others.

In his first Advent Conspiracy sermon of the season, the Rev. Brian Germano encouraged his congregation to spend less on gifts of excess—the filler and fluff gifts they didn’t really need—so that they could contribute to causes that make a tangible difference in the world.

On a recent Sunday at East Cobb United Methodist Church in Marietta, Ga., Germano asked his parishioners to “give more of yourselves.”

“God didn’t give us things,” Germano preached. “He gave us himself so we should give gifts that do the same—give of ourselves and give gifts that celebrate a relationship.”

“Buy one less gift,” he suggested. “And the money you save on that one less gift can then be used for gifts that matter like helping a needy family, or filling a care package for someone, or helping with a mission project.”

According to Germano, the apostle Paul talks about the use of money and possessions where our abundance can be shared with others in need so there is a balance.

“So spending less,” said the pastor, “helps us fulfill Paul’s advice to use our wealth in ways that truly make a difference in the world.”