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.
People often look to churches for help in hard times and rightfully so as we represent Jesus to them. Here are some things to consider so we don't disappoint.
Yvon's note: I wrote this initially soon after the start of the previous recession. As I was reorganizing the website I found it and realized how similar our situation, challenges, and opportunities are with the current pandemic. With a small amount of editing and updating I trust it will be useful now.
We communicate with more than words as followers of Jesus. The little poem below reminds me of this. It's something I memorized years ago and I'm afraid I don't know the author or title, but here it is:
We are writing a gospel, a chapter each day
By the things that we do and the things that we say.
People read what we write, Distorted or true.
What is the gospel, According to you?
We have an opportunity to live out the gospel during this recession (and now pandemic); to communicate the love and care of Jesus in tangible ways. Let's look at one situation, job loss, and some suggestions on what to do and what not to do as a church to people who are out of work.
If only one link is broken, the entire chain fails. The connecting details in our church communications work the same way.
UPDATE editorial note: I've recently downloaded software that was attractively and appealingly advertised. Then I tried to use it and found that the creators apparently used all their energies in selling the software, but almost no time in the hard work of showing how to USE it. We can do the same if we have a splashy advertisement for a church event, but don't do the work to put in the connecting details that will get people to the event. This article from our archives will help you to avoid that mistake. We always must remember that our task is not to simply wow people with our witty, brilliant designs and catchy phrases about upcoming events, but to simply get them there so God can help them grow in their spiritual lives.
"He that is faithful is that which is least, is faithful also in much," (Luke 16:10), is a biblical principle we are all familiar with. It is also an important principle to remember in your church communications when you want people to respond to your church communication with concrete action. We don’t do church communications for people to think they look fantastic or to impress them with our technological prowess—we do them so lives and eternities will be changed. The details must be included for people to be able to respond.
If you don’t include the little details (time, date, location, duration, contact information) completely and consistently in every church communication you produce, the great design, writing, typography choices, and graphics will not mean anything. All of these design issues that many church communicators work so hard on, are virtually useless if you don’t have the details included that will actually connect people to the church events. This not to discount the importance of good design. Good design is important, but similar to James reminder that "faith without works is dead," so too, great-looking design is useless if it doesn't result in actions.
In the rest of this article I’ll talk about why we leave out church communication details and then I’ll give you a list of the details that are essential to include. PLEASE take time to read/review this article for maximum results from the hard work you do in your church communications. Pass it on, make copies of it for your staff to discuss.
Why we leave out the details in our church communications
Our default mode when creating church communications is to leave out connecting details. We do this for a number of reasons and here are some of the most common reasons why we leave out essential details in church communications:
Few things were more exciting to me as a child than a new box of crayons--and we have opportunities to share that joy with needy kids.
Remember the smell when you opened a new box of crayons? Waxy and warm with a bit of paper mixed in.
Remember what it was like to see all those new crayons? Sometimes there were new colors. The metallic crayons seemed magical. I almost hated to use them, to turn the neat, sharp points into smushy stubs. But there was always another year to look forward to, another start of school and a new box of crayons.
Crayons were just the start—pencils, notebooks with lines unfilled, sometimes a new lunch box. Back-to-school was my favorite time of year. I hated summer. I didn't particularly like to play kid's games, especially outside. I wanted to be left alone to read.
We moved every year (my father was in the military and that's what they did then) and the first place I would try to find in any house was some quiet corner to read. My very favorite was at the end of a long closet where there was a window. In front of it were some packing boxes just big enough and at just the right height for an 11-year-old girl to with a book and read and look out the window. Clothes were in front of the boxes, effectively shielding me from the outside world. Still, my mother would find me and make me go out and play. I was obedient, but I didn't like it. [Read more...]
At one time I thought technology would never get any better than the self-correcting typewriter and press-on letters. Now I'm learning to create HD videos and podcasts. As I've researched video and podcast hosting and distribution systems, at times my brain felt like a jumble of data that would never sort its way into a linear path of what to do next. I'm getting it figured out, but as I'm working out the next steps, I reminded myself of four guidelines I've used in the past to encourage people to try computers and websites without losing the focus on the importance of fully fulfilling the Great Commission. These helped me and may be useful if you are facing new challenges in communication technology:
#1—Don't confuse the media with the message
The media, the tool you use to craft and share your message is and will be constantly changing. Media changes always seem overwhelming and they are often difficult to get through. The change from typewriters to computers for church office communications, from cut and paste layout to MS Publisher to create the church bulletin, from print only to the expectations of a website and social media communication assortment for every church, from flowers to adorn the pulpit to multi-media projection systems—all of these have taken place in the recent experience of the church. The challenge is not only in learning how to use them, but to not allow the demands of the technology to overwhelm the priority of your message. Technology can be extraordinary demanding, but it must never be your North Star. Every person, every church has a North Star which guides all your communications whether you are conscious of it or not. The only appropriate North Star for the church communicator is to fully fulfill the Great Commission—to help people come to know Jesus as Savior and to grow to maturity in Him. The media is not our message—our message is our message. If our eye is on the goal of sharing Jesus truly and completely and growing followers into disciples , if that is the core of our message, though there are many parts of it and many steps in sharing it, we won't be thrown off course when new tools appear. [Read more...]
Sales reps can inspire us with their skills in outreach.
As we near the end of the year, evaluate the past, and set goals for the present, I updated this blog. . . .
Please do not take this the wrong way—to use the analogy of a "sales rep for the Kingdom of God" is not meant irreverently at all—it is meant to provide an analogy that may help all of us be a better witness for Jesus. Jesus used many analogies with the professions he knew well to illustrate his messages; I am attempting to follow his example here with an analogy meant to challenge all of us to take seriously the message with which we have been entrusted. [Read more...]
