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; we can help.

If you’ve got your church communications totally under control this isn’t for you, if not—read on!

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Overwhelmed with Church Communications
Sometimes I feel like I can't ever catch up or measure up as a church communicator--but here is how I've decided to help us all accomplish what God called us to do

I like to keep up on what’s happening in church communications through online groups and email news, but sometimes it discourages me more than helps me.

I got a major dose of that today when I was reading raving reviews and recommendations about Affinity Software (So easy to use! Cheaper than Illustrator!). And then I read about how you had to start streaming your church service and install online giving in your church before Giving Tuesday.

Please do not misunderstand—if you are a designer who thinks Affinity Software is easy to use and want to create advanced designs—go for it! It didn’t look very easy for me to use when I checked it out, but that’s just me and I did have to smile as I remembered the original Serif software the company created years ago. They have certainly changed. I thought it was too simple years ago and now it seems overly complex for practical church communication tasks.

If you’ve got time to set up a streaming service (more ways to share the gospel, what’s not to love about that?) or install online giving (that’s the one thing I hope every church implements at some time—because giving does go up, again), go for it!

But if you are like me, you already feel overwhelmed by the holidays and don't have time for all that

[Read more...]

Training course: How to use Mother’s Day to Grow your Church, Evangelize, and Disciple

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For specific ideas and communications to make the most of Mother's Day, check out the course on the Effective Church Communications Training site: How to use Mother's Day to Grow your Church, Evangelize, and Disciple. CLICK HERE to go to it.

 

 

How to become a missionary and other church communication conference notes

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One of the challenging statements from the Shaddleback Church Communication Summit 2015
One of the challenging statements from the Saddleback Church Communication Summit 2015

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Saddleback Church Communication Summit 2015 (also called "marcom2015" for church marketing and communications).

I wasn't sure what to expect. I hoped it wasn't led by a bunch of young, snarky tech types who had huge church budgets and were enamored with how cutting edge they could be in their social media wizardry.

Also, I had just injured my hip and would be hobbling around with a cane and felt hugely self-conscious because of that. I came close to cancelling at the last-minute.

But I went because I wanted to see what they had to say that might be useful for all of you--the members and readers of Effective Church Communications and I wasn't disappointed.

How I'm going to share what I learned at the conference

I'm going through my notes slowly, thinking and making notes about them. Some of the material will end up as articles on this website, but a number of things I learned are shorter and more of a conversational nature and I'll be putting those on the Effective Church Communications Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/EffectiveChurchCommunications

Please go to the page and "Like" it and you'll receive automatic updates when I post something new there.

About the illustration on this page

The conference started with one of the pastors from Saddleback Church and his challenge to base our church communications on a healthy, balanced vision for discipleship in the church. And the quote in the illustration was a challenge to all of us to prepare our people to be the kind of Christians that can walk outside the church and share Jesus.

When he said that I was reminded of the verse in Hosea 4:6 ". . . my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." In this passage and similar ones, the importance of teaching people God's will and ways and the consequences if we aren't faithful in our calling is emphasized. That is the job of church communicators—from pastor who communicates the Word of God clearly to the volunteer who creates clear descriptions and directions to discipleship small groups—our primary message is to help people first find Jesus and then grow to mature disciples of Jesus.

To help you remember the importance of equipping missionaries (all your church) in your communications, I made a PDF of the image above. CLICK here to download and print it out. It's 4-per-page and an odd size, but with a little trimming it would make a good handout or bulletin insert.

One of the most important things I learned from the conference

One more reason I hope you go to the ECC Facebook page and one of the most important things I learned at the conference is the importance of sharing with each other. We need each other's ideas, insights, comments, and questions. Church Communicators so often work alone--we especially need people to exchange ideas with, to ask questions, to make comments. Social media like Facebook is the perfect place to do it.

I haven't been the most involved person on Facebook—but after the conference and seeing how many of the church communicators I met use it in positive ways, I have a new vision for its value in creating a community. I will be posting on it lots more, so please go to the page, comment, post your ideas and questions and together we'll all grow in our effectiveness as church communicators.

What to do when you’ve been asked to lead a conference or training session, part one

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If you've been asked to lead a conference, here are some tips to help you do it well.
If you've been asked to lead a conference, here are some tips to help you do it well.

Your professional association is having its annual workshop. You have been asked to lead one of the training conferences.

What a nice complement! Someone believes what you have to say will be interesting, helpful, informative, or inspirational—perhaps all of the above. You are delighted. You accept. The date goes on your calendar; it seems very far away. You tell yourself you have lots of time to prepare. After all, you have been asked to present a topic you know about. (if the subject is one you don’t know about, decline the invitation—or suggest a more familiar topic.) How tough can this be?

The answer begs another question, “How effective do you want to be?” Delivering a successful presentation takes effort. It absolutely can be tough. But you can do it. [Read more...]

Webinar: How I create webinars, online videos, and audio files

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People often email me to ask how I create the online videos, the webinars and online videos that I do to create the materials on my websites for my church and communication ministries.

In this webinar, I'll give you a tour of the software and programs I use.

I know there are other programs that do what I'll be sharing with you, but these are the ones that work for me and I'm quite happy with all of them. I'll give you brief descriptions and costs of the programs I use in my workflow.

Below, for ECC Members is a video of the webinar, along with a PDF of the notes for it.

PLEASE, if you have comments on any of the programs or other ones you would suggest, please post them in the comments section here. Thanks so much!

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Video notes for How I createClick on this image to download the PDF of the notes.