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.

What not to do in connection card ministry, part one

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What not to do with Connection Cards, part 1
PLEASE don't do these things if you really want to connect with visitors!

note: this is an excerpt from the book: Connection Cards, connect with visitors, grow your church, pastor your people

I’ve been teaching church communications for over twenty years and have looked at many communication cards and discussed their use with many church communicators during that time. From my experience, and many years of personally using them in a variety of church settings, I’ve found the following activities and tools don’t contribute to maximum communication success in getting either initial contact or continuing ministry information from people.

I also realize that, though not the most successful, many of the following practices have been done by many churches for a long time and it is difficult to imagine doing things a different way. If that is your situation, please suspend defensiveness or judgment until you’ve finished this entire publication to see the recommendations that might replace these actions.

Change is always challenging and difficult and if your church does some of the things listed below, I appreciate your willingness to consider alternative ideas. After each suggestion of what not to do, I’ll briefly list the alternative action as “A better idea,” and after this section, the alternative actions will be discussed in more detail.

#1 Don’t use “Friendship Pads/Booklets”

In some churches, much more so in the past than today, the procedure for capturing contact information from visitors and members involves a booklet with lined pages inside that is passed down the pew for people to fill in and then passed back down the pew to be collected by ushers.  As it is passed back, the leader often recommends that people “Notice who is a visitor.”

This tends not to work very well for visitors today. There are a number of reasons why, one of the main ones being the current privacy concerns of people. To many, this is simply too public a way to give out personal information.

Perhaps I am more sensitive to this because I work with single adults, but to a ask a single woman who visits your church to write her name, address, phone number, email, and then pass it down a row of strangers, while adding that people make note of new people in the pew beside them—she probably won’t do it.  Most likely you don’t have people in your church who will stalk or take advantage of a single woman alone, but the trust level towards the church or strangers, for many people today, men and women, is quite low.

These “Friendship Pads” may have worked well years ago when the world at least seemed to be a safer and more friendly place, but our world has changed.  In addition to personal safety issues, privacy concerns and concerns about identity theft cause many visitors to pass them on without filling them out.

A better idea: a card that can be filled out, folded over, and personal information handed in without being made visible to others.

#2 Don’t use a tear-off piece

There are several reasons for this—consider them carefully  before discounting my comments, because this method is used in lots of churches and it seems like such a simple and easy way to do things.First of all, if you primarily use connection cards to find out about visitors, keep in mind that study after study shows that visitors do not like to stand out. Being the one person in your row tearing out a piece of paper in an otherwise quiet church service is a rather loud operation and one guaranteed to turn heads in the visitor’s direction. Few people want that to happen.

To avoid that situation, some churches have everyone “tear it off all together.” That seemed like a good solution to me (it’s what is done at the church we now attend) until we brought to church a dear woman who had recently become a believer in her late 60s. As everyone was tearing off their form in church, I was watching her out of the corner of my eye and noticed she was having a rather difficult time grasping the flimsy paper. The arthritis in her hands made it difficult and after several tries, obviously embarrassed, she glanced around and tried to unobtrusively put the bulletin down beside her. Her connection card did not get turned in; no follow-up came from the church, and though she wouldn’t really tell me why, she didn’t want to come there again.

My heart hurt watching her and I thought if it makes one little lady embarrassed, if she can’t communicate to the church her visit, her recent spiritual decision or perhaps a prayer request, perhaps there are better ways to use a connections piece. There are lots of little ladies in our world. People come to know Jesus and visit at church for the first time at many ages and with disabilities of varies types  and we don’t want our method of paper handling to get in the way of connecting with them.

A better idea: a separate connection card made of card stock that does not need to be torn out and that is easy to write on. Specifics on how to create the card are discussed later.

____________________________

Church Connection Cards

.......for more read the rest of the book:

This 8 1/2 x 11 book connection cards has 111 pages of instruction, samples and detailed how tos. It is FREE for ECC Members and can be bought for immediate download. CLICK HERE to go to it. To go to the Kindle and paperback versions, CLICK HERE.

What not to do in connection card ministry, part two

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What not to do with Connection Cards, part two
Connection Cards don't work automatically--and here are some reasons why.

note: this is an excerpt from the book: Connection Cards, connect with visitors, grow your church, pastor your people

#3 Don’t tell people about connection cards without giving them time to fill them out.

This is probably the single biggest reason churches do not get connection cards turned in. In most churches, either the pastor or another church leader will mention the connection card very quickly in passing, often when people are still standing up after singing a song. Sometimes it will be mentioned when people are sitting down, but often then it is part of a long series of announcements and no time is given so people can actually fill it out. [Read more...]

Always keep the spiritual and the practical in balance

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So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning (Exodus 17:10-11).

In his devotions, Charles Spurgeon has this comment about the passage above, "So mighty was the prayer of Moses, that all depended upon it. The petitions of Moses discomfited the enemy more than the fighting of Joshua. Yet both were needed."

From this passage in the Bible and Spurgeon's commentary on it, we are reminded that our work always has two sides-the spiritual and the practical. It benefits us to keep them in balance.

The workings of a computer are not beyond the realms of prayer. We can ask for wisdom to understand computer manuals, to remember to slow down, to execute computer commands in their proper order. We can pray about what software to purchase and when; where to get training and for the resources to afford it. We can pray that we might learn all we need to complete our present tasks without overwhelming ourselves.

We can pray for insight as we create ministry communication pieces and that the Lord would prepare the hearts of those who read our message. We can encourage ourselves by remembering that the changing of lives is always, "‘Not by might or by power, but by my Spirit,' says the Lord of hosts." (Zechariah 4:6, NAS)

At the same time that we commit our ultimate success to the Lord, we must remember "both were needed." Joshua had to actually fight a bloody, dusty, horror-filled battle. There will be days that our work in ministry communications doesn't feel spiritual at all but is mundane, disciplined hard work. To do our jobs well, we don't stop praying, but we must also we must apply every earthly skill of business organization, communication, marketing, and computer training that we have to succeed in the battle entrusted to us.

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from the book by Yvon Prehn, The Heart of Church Communications. To either download or purchase a copy, go to www.lulu.com/yvonprehn

Flashy multi-media in church communication and why it doesn’t always work

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True story here: A church wasn't getting the response they wanted to get people to attend the various events of the church including small groups.

Their response: Instead of asking folks why they weren't coming, or doing an informal survey to see what they were or were not communicating with current materials, someone made the suggestion that the church start a new video newscast during the church service. The thinking was something like  "this is what will appeal to people today."

Two interns from the local Bible college were the newscasters, and with a team and a bit of time and effort, produced a highly entertaining video. Announcements were made for more folks to join the news team and to help with the production; mention was made of upcoming events of the week and the congregation encouraged sign up for small groups. The congregation loved the videos for the two weeks they were produced. They were filled with chatty banter, silly jokes, and tasteful humor.

Did that increase attendance at church events and especially in small groups?

Sadly, no. There was no increased attendance in small groups. [Read more...]

Incarnation-a continuing challenge and model for church communication

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"The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

The ethereal became earthly, the intangible became touchable when Jesus became flesh and blood. In a similar way, your church communications help make the intangible realities of your church flesh and blood in the lives of the people in your church and those you want to reach. A grief recovery workshop helps no one until the materials announcing it are created and responded to. The greatest youth program involves no one until postcards and email inform the teenagers of the dates, times, and locations of meetings. The most inspiring conference helps no one if the church is empty because no one took time to promote it professionally and prayerfully.

To help our communications be effective in making the message of Christianity tangible and touchable in our world today, let's look at the Incarnation, at Jesus becoming flesh and blood, for inspiration on ways to lead and to make our communications real and response-producing in the lives of people we want to reach.

[Read more...]