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.

Typesetting for kid’s communications

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PDF of Typesetting for Kids publicationsCreating communications for children can be lots of fun, especially with the fun typefaces you can use.

This PDF gives you some guidelines to make your use of them more effective. Though it has some useful tips, the companies cited are no longer in business, but http://www.fontspace.com/ is and below are some of their current fonts that are great for children:

All the fonts above are from:  http://www.fontspace.com/ and are free downloads.

Google fonts also has a great selection of free fonts

One very important guideline to keep in mind is to NEVER use the typefaces that have reversed letters (such as a reversed "e" or "s"). It might seem like that would be a harmless, cute thing to do, but when little children receive a printed piece from a respected person in the church and the penmanship is all wrong, it can be confusing.

Have fun, do kid-friendly things, but always remember the position of authority and influence you have in young lives.

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.

Great Idea Swap: Samples of Children’s Ministry Communications

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Note: these are from a previous GREAT IDEA SWAP, but are some wonderful samples for Children's Ministry that I thought would go well with the Postcard samples we just shared.

Children's ministry requires a large number of communication pieces for a successful ministry. The following pieces are a from various churches and should give you some ideas for your ministry. These samples are from our Great Idea Swap. A brief description and a few comments goes with each one.

Click on the the image to download the PDF and to be able to see the entire communication piece.

Children's ministry Brochure

This brochure that describes the Preschool ministry at this church is short, sweet and to the point, but it gives you the information you need and how to contact someone at the church for more information.

One other thing I really like is the image used to illustrate the ministry—instead of just a piece of clip art of children (and there is really nothing wrong with that), they used the watering can and water illustrating growth—neat image and I have an idea a really neat ministry also.

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

Christian growth bookMy Christian Growth Book

Don't let the simple cover fool you, this booklet is a jewel.

It has a detailed, complete program of discipleship for children presented in a systematic, upbeat way, with prizes and rewards as the children work through different levels.  The program includes becoming a Christian, baptism, life-style guidance, learning books of the Bible and the flow of Bibical history, plus a group of key passages and verses for the children to memorize.  You can of course adapt the material to the training of your church, but the important thing here is that this can inspire you to have a discipleship training program for your children.

To download the PDF, click here or on the image. [Read more...]

Multi-channel communications advice from the publisher of USA TODAY

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Multichannel communication is needed in churches
We live in a time of Multi-channel communication and here is advice on how to work together as a team  to make the most of it.

When Larry Kramer, founder of the successful MarketWatch website, took over as the new publisher of USA TODAY he made some comments that provide a challenge to communication ministries in churches when he talked about how he wants to give people the news. He said, “The paper will build ‘closer relationships with our readers’ through new uses of technologies. ‘We’re going to give people what they want, when they want it, where they want it. You want it on your watch, I’ll give it to you. Or inside of your sunglasses.’ ” (http://wapo.st/Jw8EBg ) In the church, we may not have all these options to communicate through all the channels available to Kramer, but we have a world to reach with the gospel, so what can we do?

We don’t have the money, but we have the resources

Individual churches don’t have the money to provide communications in the multitude of channels—print, digital, and every variation imaginable in both these areas—in the ways that USA TODAY can. But that doesn’t mean churches can’t keep up with this constantly changing communication revolution with the resources that make them successful in every other ministry endeavor. That way is to realize that the task of providing communications in every channel needed for the church, isn’t a one-person job, but a challenge for the church body. No one person can keep up with technology; no one person can create all the communications needed for a church communications that ministers to all the people at all the church. In practical terms this means:

You need a communications team made up of people who are proficient with the various channels

Quit looking for one person who can do it all. You need a team made up of some who love print; some who dream in HTML code; some who love images; some who love type and words in order; some who can create a great postcard and others who can text with their eyes closed, some who love the discipline of a monthly newsletter with consistent columns and articles, others who gravitate to the free-flowing forms of social media. You need people who are good in person-to-person communications, people who love the web, and people who manage databases effortlessly.

Please reread the paragraph above. Many churches today think they only need to work on what they consider "cutting-edge communications" and that they need to get the youngest, most tech savvy person available to do them. But the church is made up of many people of many ages and skills, of many degrees of access to different technologies. As a church body, we must be committed to serving all of them.

As you do that, here are Four Suggestions on how to create and manage multi-channel church communications: [Read more...]

Foundation of The Five Steps: Disciple-making

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The importance of discipleship for church growthWe all know we should obey Great Commission and that the Great Commission commands we make disciples, but beyond the personal  spiritual significance of that command, it’s easy to forget the practical power of disciple-making in church growth. Building disciples isn’t only what we are supposed to be doing, it’s how to grow people and churches.

Discipleship ministry at first appears to take excessive time to develop a few people when aggressive outreach marketing seems to reach many more people much faster. But first appearances can be deceiving as this article will show you.

It’s important to read this article before getting into the practical nuts and bolts of creating church communications. The purpose of The Five Steps is to fully fulfill the Great Commission and that means to make disciples. If discipleship is your goal, if fully fulfilling the Great Commission is the measure of success in your church communication process, you will approach your communication ministry much differently than if success is measured by how many people you get in the door on Sunday or how impressed visitors are with your website.

Why discipleship is essential for the church to survive —and why your communications are essential to develop disciples

Today we have aggressive atheists who are the darlings of the popular press. When men like Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris slander and malign the Christian faith in a way that is not only false, but nasty and vicious, their mockery is quoted and promoted without question throughout the internet and across the globe.

Church leaders who are exposed to public scandal are reported in the in press and individuals Christians don’t fare much better. Studies frequently show Christians behave no differently than non-Christians in morality and that many people who call themselves Christian have little or no understanding of what the Bible says and how it teaches them to act (which is probably why their behavior is no different than that of their unbelieving friends).

I could bore you with reams of studies and statistics, but you know in the quietness of the your heart and the turmoil of your mind that the Christian church is losing ground, so let’s skip the statistics and get to solutions. [Read more...]

The One Goal of Effective Church Communications

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5 Steps of Effective Church ComThere is one goal and one foundational purpose in all we do in church communications and that is to make disciples.

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." Matt: 28:18

These verses are our marching orders, what we are supposed to be about as representatives of Jesus here on earth-that seems obvious. The actions required by these verses also seems obvious-go, baptize, teach-with the end result of making disciples.

Why discipleship is essential for the church to survive—and why your communications are essential to develop disciples

What is  painfully obvious in America today (and most of North America) is that as a whole, we aren't doing a very good job [Read more...]