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.

Captions define what we see, never publish a photo without them

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Captions define what we see, never publish a photo without them
Captions define what we see, never publish a photo without them

We've all heard the saying: "A picture is worth a thousand words."

That is one of the dumbest statements ever because without a complete and clear caption, the question is, "which thousand?" No picture is self-explanatory. We have to tell people what to see in a photograph.

This PDF illustrates how a variety of captions can give completely different meanings to a picture.

Keep the lessons here in mind not only when you create print communications, but when you create PowerPoint and web pieces where you use a lot of images. You can never be sure that your images will mean the same thing to your audience as they do to you.

Sometimes (especially on websites with lots of little pictures) the images don't add clarity, but sometimes distraction and confusion. The addition of unnecessary little images to websites reminds me of the early days of desktop publishing when people were so excited to be able to use clipart that they often added lots of little clipart images to every church publication whether they were needed or not.

So many of the websites and blogs where people seem compelled to add an image (and many templates come with "thumbnail placeholders") results in many images that have little to do with the content of the text and sometimes result in a "what does that have to do with anything?" distraction for the reader. Your readers are not little children to have to be entertained by pictures if you have content worth reading.

Click here or on the image 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.

Brochure Redesign: from ignored to effective

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PDF of how to create an effective brochure
PDF of how to create an effective brochure

This PDF illustrates the process of how to take a brochure that merely describes a ministry to one that is redesigned to meet needs. The result of the redesign was a huge response to the ministry.

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Click here or on the image 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.

Don’t dump the TV ministry, it may not be as unimportant as you think

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Recently I heard about a church that wanted to discontinue its television ministry. Though they acknowledged it was watched primarily by the elderly and shut-in, they did not feel it was cost-effective any longer. They wanted to direct all the funds to their internet ministry.  The situation prompted me to remember....

More than a lifetime ago for my nephew who is grown, married and has a son of his own, I was religion reporter for the Colorado Springs SUN newspaper. In this Vatican of America, home to over 100 Christian organizations, reporting on religion involved much more than retelling stories about the variety of pies at the local church supper. Sometimes I got to interview interesting people in the Christian world and one week my assignment was to interview Robert Schuller.

I was ready for it, with what in my mind were insightful, cutting questions, that would expose what a disgrace he was to the Christian faith. I was a reader of the Wittenberg Door, a sort of counter-culture Christian magazine of the 1970's, that had recently done an article on the financial excesses of the building of the Crystal Cathedral, with the numbers on how many hungry kids each pane of glass would feed and similar statistics. The guy started his church in a drive-in theater for goodness sakes, what kind of a pastor was that, I thought in the passionate judgementalism that comes from inexperience in real-world evangelism.

My editor told me I had to go to a bookstore where he was signing books and I could interview him when he was finished. I got there and was directed to a chair near his book signing table and told I could wait there until he was finished. I'd called ahead, he had been signing books for hours already, it was late in the day and I figured he was almost done. I was highly irritated and impatient when I saw the line out the door, around the block . This was going to take hours I groushed; Schuller must be tired, he'd been at it all day I thought, but  it didn't seem like he was going to send them away.

For almost three hours I watched him sign books. His daughter was helping him, she would open the book and pass it to him. He would pause, look up at the person, ask their name, chat a bit, sign the book. This is going to take forever at this rate, I realized.

Most of the people were not well-dressed. Many were older.

Again and again the older people would say, "You are my pastor, I don't know what I would do without you."

"I can't get to church," another would say, "But you encourage me."

Schuller would tell them it was his privilege to be their pastor. Sometimes he would stand up and give an elderly lady a hug. More than a few wanted their picture taken with him and he gladly obliged.

He never rushed anyone.  He would hold a trembling, older hand and pray. He prayed as if there was no one else in the room, but that person in front of the book-signing table and the Lord. A large Latino family came up to the table and the father said something I couldn't hear to Schuller. Schuller stood up, walked around the table, laid his hands on the heads of the children and prayed. He was their pastor. It was obvious, he took that responsibility very seriously.

I was trying very hard not to dissolve in tears. When it finally came time for our interview, I babbled and could only ask in a rather inane way why he did some of the seemingly outrageous things he did. He laughed and said, "People don't understand, I'm very conservative at heart, but that is what the people need in Southern California--I'm their pastor. I do what I need to do to reach them for Jesus."

I think it would be a sad ministry mistake if that church (or any other church so enamored with current technology it forgets the older folks who don't even know the meaning of the term podcast) does drop its TV program. But if they do, I hope they tell their homebound folks about Robert Schuller. He's still on TV, and I'm certain, still ready to be their pastor.

Church jargon can sabotage your outreach effort—examples and solutions

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Jesus commanded us to reach our world and most churches make a serious effort to do that. At the same time a  survey by George Barna shows 91% of unchurched people feel the church is not sensitive to their needs. Why is that happening if our primary calling is to reach them for Jesus? I think part of the answer is in our church jargon in our publications.

Jargon encounter:

An unchurched person walks into your church. Maybe a friend invited them, maybe they were simply lonely and wanted to be around people on Sunday morning. We know that they have a god-shaped vacuum inside. We know their hearts are restless until the rest in Jesus. We know the Holy Spirit is at work to convict them of their need for salvation. They sit down in the quiet minutes before the service and they will read anything we put in their hands.

What do we give them? The church bulletin.

What does it say? Try to put yourself in the place of a total stranger who may not have grown up in a church or ever read the Bible. Imagine your response.

Bulletin cover: often either picture of church, clip art, or color picture of scenery. Names of church staff, address, sometimes lists of other names of elders, board members, etc.

Possible response: Who are these people? I know what the church looks like, I walked into it, I'm sitting in it. Why a picture of it?

Inside the bulletin:

There may be an order of service...or maybe not, which means the person has no idea how long the singing will last, how long the service will last, what will happen, what they are supposed to do. If there is an order of service it may contain terms like:

Prelude songs or Introit

Congregational reading

Songs of praise

Hymns such as "Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus", choruses: "Open the Eyes of My Heart, and Be Magnified" no words or page numbers given

Announcements (actual examples given):

"We are so glad for those who were able to come to the licensing Service for Rusty. I know you received a blessing from the Lord."

"AWANA GRAND PRIX RACES: Check in 11 am. Racing begins at 12 noon. There are racing divisions for: Chubbies, Sparks, Pals, Chums, Pioneers, Guards, and Leaders. "

"Moses had Aaron and Hur to hold his arms up. Would you be willing to join a pastoral prayer team to hold up our pastoral staff? Sign up on the Feedback Sheet."

"Upcoming events: Friend Day with Cathy McBride-November 4; Greater than Rubies-November 13; Caring Hearts Luncheon-November 28"

Possible response to all of the above that made little or no sense to the visitor reading it: What are these people talking about? As an outsider, I obviously don't belong here.

We often aren't aware of our jargon

We know we shouldn't use terms like justification and sanctification when we are first talking to unchurched folks, but we don't even see so much of our church jargon. The examples above are all out of real church bulletins and similar ones could be repeated thousands of times.

Our insider talk, terms and jargon permeates the initial printed pieces we give visitors telling them that this church is for those in the know only. We don't even see it, but they do and they don't come back.

Get visitor input

Look at your bulletin and other publications that are first seen by visitors and ask the Lord to help you see them as a visitor would. One eye-opening way to find this out is to hire (that's right, pay them a decent hourly wage) to look at your church bulletin and simply ask them to put into their own words what you are saying.

Don't ask them if they like it or if it makes sense or anything like that—many folks are honestly nice and they will lie to you to make you feel good. But if you ask them to resay what they just read and you find them stumbling around and saying things like: "Well, I think here you are talking about...um....little kids? Or what is promise land again? Or what are the "Becomers" becoming?....or I think you're supposed to put a little key code (this really was the case in one church) on this slip of paper and then tear it off and put it into a box in the back if you want to participate in a beach clean up...is that right?...." If this is the sort of response you get, if what you want people to do, isn't immediately clear, you might want to work on your communications to improve their clarity.

Paying people to test and see if they can use your website is a very big deal today; it's the  world of "usability testing." Though I agree this is extremely important to do if you want your website to be useful it is just as important to make sure your church bulletin is useful.

Start by being clear with your welcome

Ask yourself what would make you feel welcome? What would be confusing to you if you were a complete stranger to church?

At the least, as part of welcoming people, tell them what is going on. On pages of announcements, in addition to explaining the event, give complete information such as beginning and ending times, locations, contact phone numbers, etc. In addition, to let guests and infrequent attenders know they are welcome at events outside Sunday morning, you  might consider some sort of heading such as:

Church Family Activities: below are all of the events taking place in our church this week. We realize that newcomers might not be familiar with all the programs or people. Please call xxxxxxx, email xxxx or visit our website xxxx for explanations and more complete descriptions. We welcome you and invite you to participate in all of the activities of our church.

A brief notice such as that at least acknowledges that strangers might be in the congregation.

Don't assume understanding, follow up

Follow up with some visitors-especially those who are new to church and ask them what would make them feel more welcome, what would they like to see in the initial literature they get when they come in the door.

Some churches send out postcards asking for feedback along with a welcome letter. A number of churches in my seminars have found this very helpful. I personally think it's really irritating and bothersome, but it has worked well for quite a few churches. Others do casual phone calls and ask for feedback; others wait until someone is part of a membership class and then as part of it they ask how welcome they felt as visitors, what made sense and what did not. Bottom line here is that different methods work for different styles and types of churches. Try different ones until you find something that works well for you.

However we decide to do follow up after we do it, make some changes and then ask for responses again. We have incredible communication tools and technology and we may need to fine tune our communications and get rid of our jargon so visitors feel the church cares for them as much as the Savior who died for them.

The Lord's approval, often the only reward for our work

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And the LORD said to Aaron, "You priests will receive no inheritance of land or share of property among the people of Israel. I am your inheritance and your share." Numbers 18: 20

A church secretary recently shared with me that she had spent great effort redoing her church bulletin. It looked fantastic. It was much easier to read, her choices in typography and layout were clear and professional looking. But, she said, almost nobody noticed or commented on the changes.

Though it didn't seem like it, her experience was actually a great complement. As the experts in typography continuously affirm the best graphic design and typography should be invisible. The best designed bulletin, or newsletter, or publication of any kind should never cause our audience to say at first, "What a beautiful design!" The first response should be a clear understanding of the message and a proper response to it.

It is often an overly busy, cluttered or unclear design that gets noticed. People will say something is hard to read or they won't respond to the message.

It isn't that we shouldn't work hard to make our ministry publications artistically pleasing and the very best in design and beauty, but those considerations must always be secondary to choosing type, layout, and graphics that work best to communicate the message. This is especially true as we share the gospel.

When we create ministry communications for the Lord, like the priests in the Old Testament, the Lord himself and his favor is often our only reward. Like the old hymn says, we are "channels only." In our work, not only will our audience often not notice changes, but they won't even know who did the work, because much of what we produce will be unsigned.

But our Lord knows. And like the priests of old, he is our inheritance. And it is in his approval we find "the path of life" and "fullness of joy" (Psalm 18: 11, NAS).

All of the devotions on this website and many more have been collected into The Heart of Church Communications by Yvon Prehn. To either download or purchase a copy, click here.