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.

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.

 

It’s not about your creativity, it’s about serving your congregation with your church bulletin

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Letters need to be organized to communicate.
Letters don't mean anything until your organize them into clear, consistent communications.

Though the church communicator emailing me was asking about another topic, in passing she mentioned that she was going to be taking over the production of the church bulletin and was looking forward to changing it every week so she could express her creativity through it.

Her excitement about the new project and a wish to be creative was commendable, but it isn't a good idea to change the format of the church bulletin (or any other church communication) on a weekly or any other frequent basis and here's why:

People don't read the bulletin because they are looking for creative inspiration, they read it for information.

People access information by means of the structure you give them in your communications. The structure of your bulletin consists of the layout, the type and illustrations that you use, plus how you organize material into sections.

You want to come up with a clear system of how you use these structural tools so that people will not be conscious of the building blocks of your system, but will be able to easily access the information.

Type is one of the most important building blocks. On your church newsletter or bulletin, if someone says, "that was an interesting typeface," it isn't a compliment.

Did you notice the typeface on any blog you read regularly, on Facebook, or your local newspaper? You don't because you should always see through the typeface to the content. If people notice the typeface it can be a distraction to your message. [Read more...]

Why and how to create a digital church bulletin

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Church Bulletin SAMPLE
Your church bulletin is the key to essential information about your church--be sure to have it in both print and digital formats.

Many churches forget that Sunday is no longer a sacred day and many people either have to work or have sports events that involve their children on Sunday morning. These same people might be very interested in activities during the week: small groups, activities for children, service opportunities, training and prayer times.How can we keep them cared for and informed?

Though social media is being used by many churches, it is seldom updated consistently or complete in the information it has. Church websites look better than ever, but again, most churches don't keep them as updated on essential details that connect people to events. Realistically, the church bulletin is still  the primary communication tool about these activities in many churches and if you don't get the bulletin, you miss out.

Make certain that doesn't happen by having a PDF bulletin on your website that anyone can access even if they have to miss on Sunday morning.

One of the easiest ways to create a digital bulletin is to simply make a PDF of the print bulletin you produce and upload it to your website. The purpose of this PDF on your website isn't to replace the print version, but to add to the communication reach of the content in it. You only have to create the content once, but creating a PDF gives you another way to distribute the information that will help people connect with the church and grow as disciples.

A PDF bulletin can be downloaded, printed, and read like the regular bulletin. This is a wonderful ministry for shut-ins or people who cannot attend Sunday morning regularly.

Don't think either the PDF Bulletin or any form of social media is the only one necessary—you need both.

Remind people your digital bulletin is available through emails, Facebook, Twitter or other social media you use. Social media are effective for instant, brief communication, but your Bulletin can contain much more information and it can be saved and put on the refrigerator as a reminder.Social media is also an ever-flowing stream and it's hard to look up the time to an event or directions or why you should come if you didn't get it (or most likely weren't told it) in a tweet.  In addition, the Bulletin can refer to the website for even more details about an event or ministry. In the PDF version of a digital bulletin you can link directly to more information, detailed schedules, sign-up forms.

This is not a time of either/or in our communication methods if we honestly want to involve everyone in the activities of our church that can change lives; it's a time of both/and. This means doing all we can do through every communication channel possible to help people come to know Jesus as Savior and grow to mature disciples. This means creating both print and digital bulletins.

Additional tips if you create a PDF Bulletin

  • Be sure the bulletin is available for download on your website by Sunday morning – again, keeping in mind someone who may not be able to attend the church in the morning, but may need information about an event in the afternoon. As soon as you print the bulletin, put it on the website.
  • Make the bulletin easy to find on your website. Have a tab or advertisement or box or whatever works on your website to let people know that the church bulletin can be accessed and have the location clearly labeled once a person gets to that section so they know what they are downloading.
  • When you save the bulletin as a PDF, you can then save the PDF as a graphic jpg image. You can place a small thumbnail of that image on your website along with the date of the service. Make the image a link to the PDF so a visitor can download the bulletin PDF by clicking the image. You could load up the image to your church Pinterest account if you have one.
  • To make your bulletin especially useful to someone who downloads it, insert hyperlinks in your text so that people can find out more about ministries. For example, you could have a link on the title "Children's Ministry" that would take people to the Children's Ministry section on your website. This tip assumes that your website is complete and up-to-date.

A Biblical precedent for making your Bulletin accessible in a variety of formats

We admire the Apostle Paul who said he was "all things to all people that he might win some."  Paul adapted himself to the needs of his audience because he knew all of them needed Jesus. He used a variety of communication methods and messages to reach as many people as he could.

We follow his example when we take the time to create print materials, turn them into PDFs, post them online, tell people through social media they are available and create relevant links for people who need more information. If we want people to come to know Jesus in our secular, busy world we need to meet people where they are and use every communication tool possible to link them to our church and to the ministries that will help them come to know Jesus as Savior and grow to mature disciples.