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.

Typography: a powerful tool to create effective church communications

By Leave a Comment

Type is one of your most powerful design tools and this book excerpt will help you use it effectively.
Type is one of your most powerful design tools and this book excerpt will help you use it effectively.

Type is one of the most powerful design tools you have in creating effective church communications.

Even though we are not always aware of it, we've all grown up with a typography vocabulary. For example which one of the two examples below is a headline and which is text:

THIS ONE?

or

this one?

You didn't even have to think about it did you? Bigger, larger, bold means headline; smaller and not bold means text. There are many more unconscious ways we read type and to be an effective communicator you need to understand them and use them wisely. This PDF chapter excerpt will help you do that.

To download the PDF, click here or on the image.

note: this PDF is from Yvon Prehn's archives and is the only format of this article available presently. Not the greatest quality to be sure, but shared with the belief that the content is useful.

Graphics: lines, screens, clipart overview

By Leave a Comment

PDF of some Graphic Design Basics: lines, screens, clipart
PDF of some Graphic Design Basics: lines, screens, clipart

This PDF is the chapter from my first book on desktop publishing that gives you some ideas on how you can use the most basic elements of graphic design to help tell your story.

You may never have thought about how a line can actually tell a story, but it can and one of the sections here shows you how. Screens and reverses are graphic design tools that look great in high end printing, but in lower resolution materials you print in the church office they don't always come out looking as good as you want—this chapter will help you understand why.

It also has some tips on matching the style of your clip art to the style of the type in your communication piece.

Though we can do so much with some of the high-quality images we download from the web, you'll use them most effectively if you understand some of the basics taught in this PDF.

To download it, click here or on the image.

note: this PDF is from Yvon Prehn's archives and is the only format of this article available presently. Not the greatest quality to be sure, but shared with the belief that the content is useful.

A giant postcard is used for successful promotion of a Christian Camp

By Leave a Comment

This BIG postcard worked well as great PR for a Christian camp, and an updated one can serve all sorts of PR purposes for your church
This BIG postcard worked well as great PR for a Christian camp, and an updated one can serve all sorts of PR purposes for your church

This PDF is from a number of years ago and you'd definitely want to upgrade the design. We have come a long way since the early days of desktop publishing in the kind of designs we are able to create.

But regardless of the way you design your postcard the ideas in this are timeless and two of the key ideas are: 1) the value of a postcard and 2) the impact of a BIG postcard. Even in this age of digital technology, a big postcard with ONE message is certain to make an impact.

Today for postcard creation and production, check out www.morguefile.com for free artwork and www.vistaprint.com (or other online printers) as a way to get full-color, free images and cheap printing.

To download the PDF of the article, click here or click on the image.

note: this PDF is from Yvon Prehn's archives and is the only format of this article available presently. Not the greatest quality to be sure, but shared with the belief that the content is useful.

Little details are the most important part of your communications

By Leave a Comment

PDF of an article on the importance of the little details in your church communications
PDF of an article on the importance of the little details in your church communications

The little things are the most important part of your communications because they are the links that actually connect people with the events and ministries of your church.

They are also the most boring, tedious, and difficult parts to include in a communication piece whether it is on paper or online. We'd much rather work on fun illustrations or polishing our catchy marketing slogans or brilliant headlines. As important as these parts of communication creation are, you can have the most brilliant headline and the most appealing images ever, but if people don't know when something starts, how to get there, and if child care is provided—chances are they won't show up.

{+}

And don't expect anybody today to "call the church office for more information." Folks don't take the time to do it and even if they do after being shuttled around through voice mail, they may leave not thinking nice things about the church and certainly not planning to come to an event that might have changed their eternity.

Include the little details in your communications, it can have an impact well worth the hard work it takes to get the details gathered up and put into your communications.

To download the PDF, click here or on the image.

Also look at the article and PDF on REPORTER FORMS. It will give you a practical way to collect all the information you need.

note: this PDF is from Yvon Prehn's archives and is the only format of this article available presently. Not the greatest quality to be sure, but shared with the belief that the content is useful.

Reporter form, a great tool to enable you to get all the information you need for your communications

By Leave a Comment

Reporter form, a great tool to enable you to get all the information you need for your communications
Reporter form, a great tool to enable you to get all the information you need for your communications

As a church communication creator, the value of the information that you put out in print, on the web, in your bulletins, newsletters, and other communications is only as good as of completeness of the communication information you are given.

To help you get the complete information, a form like this can be a life-saver. Often people don't give you the information they need because they forget or don't realize how important it is (and sometimes they are just onery, but this form can't help with that).

This form gives them a checklist to fill out and then you can take the information to create the communications you need. Instead of asking people to write things of a specific length or style, you have the facts and you can do up what you need. It might seem at first that this takes longer, but it doesn't and you have far fewer misunderstandings and problems over what might have been left out if you do it this way.

Also, sometimes it is easier to call people and interview them for the necessary information and a form like this enables you to have something to fill out while you are on the call.

Click here to download the PDF.

note: this PDF is from Yvon Prehn's archives and is the only format of this article available presently. Not the greatest quality to be sure, but shared with the belief that the content is useful.