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.

Still useful: archive articles on Church Bulletins

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Church bulletins remain one of the most important pieces of church communication and this book features PDFs of articles by Yvon Prehn Cover Of Bulletin Archive bookall on the topic of how to create and use them most effectively. In addition to theory, this book has quite a number of articles that illustrate how to layout your bulletins for maximum readability and for ease in scanning.

These come from our archives, but still, have many relevant tips and ideas for church communications today.

The content of your bulletins is also discussed as is one of the most contentious areas of church communications: the bulletin insert—prepare to be challenged in your thinking about them.

This e-book is a free download by clicking the link below.

Click here to download the PDF of the Bulletin Book.

Why a printed bulletin in church is as essential as a menu in a restaurant or a program in a concert hall

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Bulletins are as essential in church as menus are in a cafe
Printed bulletins are as essential in church as menus are in a cafe. In both settings, they tell us what the place is all about.

People's habits don't change that much when they go to church. When we are in a new place or where we don't know ahead of time what is going on, nothing beats a piece of paper in our hands to inform us about what's going on or help us do what we want to do. Though we might use our smart phone for nearly non-stop interactions throughout the day and use our computers for business and school, consider these two situations:

In a restaurant when you sit down to eat

The menu might be on the restaurant website and/or the waiter may have told you about today's specials, but what do most of us do? We look at the menu in our hands and skim it to find the food we want to order. The menu might also tell us about this history of the place and any interesting specials they are known for. We may not want to ask again about specials or strain to look at a scribbled board. We certainly can't remember everything on the website and the social media feeds about what people enjoyed there aren't always what we are hungry for.

We want a menu. Our very own menu. We want it to make sense with accurate descriptions of the food and prices clearly marked.

We don't consider a restaurant out of touch or not with it because they still have a printed menu. We would be highly irritated if they didn't. [Read more...]

Why your Church Bulletin is the most important piece of Christian literature printed today outside the Bible

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Church Bulletins
Church Bulletins really can be the most important piece of Christian literature outside the Bible--read here to find out why.

“The church bulletin? You must be kidding!”

That statement may sound outrageous, but think about it. The church bulletin (or worship guide or whatever you choose to call it) is, for some people, the very first piece of Christian literature they see. It is certainly the very first information a visitor reads about your church. For many it is their first serious introduction to Jesus.

In our secularized society today many people grow up without reading the Bible or any kind of Christian material. At the same time:

  •  everyone has a spiritual vacuum inside;
  • the Holy Spirit is active in our world convicting people of their need for God;
  • tragedies happen personally and globally.

In response to all these promptings, people will come to your church looking for answers.

When they come to your church, they will read anything you put into their hands.

When that happens, what do you give to a person whose eternal destiny may be decided in the next hour?

You give them the bulletin. What does it say to them? [Read more...]

Sample of seasonal jpg file in a church bulletin, and how you can use the ones on this site for your publications

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This is a wonderful example of how a church communicator took one of the jpg images, available to Effective Church Communications Members for all the holidays, and how she took the one for Easter and used it in her bulletin.

Some churches prefer not to have loose bulletin inserts (either way works, it is matter of what your church prefers) and so this church communicator emailed and asked that I do the inserts in a graphic file format. I was every happy to do that and don't know why I hadn't done it before! The RED arrow points to the jpg graphic from Effective Church Communications. If you click on the image you can download a PDF where you can see the entire bulletin. It is very nicely done and I'm sure you'll get some great ideas from it.

Many of the Template files now have images included with them for you to use either in print or social media. Many have a line drawn around the images so they will stand out from background. If you want that removed, you can go to the original MS Publisher files, remove it from the Master Page and resave that page as an image file.

Not only does this illustrate an idea of how to use an image, but two other things:

  1. I really appreciate and try to carry out your suggestions when possible on what you would like on the site and what might be useful for you, so do feel free to send them to me at yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.
  2. It is great to have samples of how people are using materials from ECC in their publications. Please send them to me with your permission to use them.  These GREATLY help your fellow church communicators. For information on our Great Idea Swap, CLICK HERE.