Effective Church Communications

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.
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4 ways to overcome the fear of being too pushy about Christmas evangelism

15 December, 2016 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Prophet Elijah preaching judgement
You don't have to be like the Prophet Elijah preaching judgement, but don't be afraid to share the true message of Christmas.

True story that prompted this blog:

As part of the process of planning their upcoming Christmas outreach, the communication team from a church, that will remain unnamed, asked me how they could get a better response from people who attended their Christmas outreach last year.

The presentation itself was not the problem. It was an almost Broadway-quality musical drama paired with a gourmet dessert buffet. Each night was full with visitors from the community and their response was enthusiastic.

But the following Sunday almost none of huge turnout for the Christmas program showed up for church and as far as they knew, nobody became a Christian because of the event, even though they did it as an evangelism outreach. Why, they asked me, didn't more respond? [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Christmas, Evangelism & Outreach, Seasonal communication strategies Tagged With: Christmas evangelism, Christmas outreach, church outreach, fear of witnessing, outreach at Christmas

We all know we should invite our friends to church—here’s how

30 August, 2015 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Every Christian knows they should be sharing their faith. Or at least inviting our friends to church. For many a consistent murmur of guilt is ever-present in the back of your mind, sometimes loudly, sometimes softly.

We can’t escape it. We know the Great Commission wasn’t just written to pastors and missionaries, though we wish it were.

What to do?

A wonderful solution to this spiritual challenge is Back to Church Sunday (in the U.S. September 20, 2015). Though this particular Sunday is a day that has been made a national time to invite people to church with support by various denominations and Outreach.com, http://backtochurch.com/, the ideas and challenges presented aren’t confined to this one day on the calendar.

The summary idea is that this Sunday or any other you choose to emphasize inviting provides provides a focus and tools to motivate people to be obedient to Jesus and to share his love.

Following are a couple of very short motivational videos on Back to Church Sunday and Biblical Encouragements to inspire you to get involved. Following them are links to many more resources on this site that provide the tools to equip your church to participate.

Invitation Cards for Back to Church Sunday

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2014/09/invitation-cards-for-back-to-church-sunday/

The link above goes to the invitation cards pictured in the video.

Come back to church, two videos

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2012/08/come-back-to-church-two-videos/

PLEASE check this out, it has one of my very favorite videos here on inviting a stranger to church, plus an older video, but still an EXTREMELY important one about Invitation Cards and how essential they are for year-round inviting.

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Filed Under: Church Invitation Cards, Church Outreach and Marketing, Evangelism & Outreach Tagged With: a season of inviting, back to church Sunday, Church Invitation Cards, church outreach, evangelism tools, free church invitation card

Want to attract young families to your church? These communication tips may help

27 October, 2014 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Lots of tech tools and challenges are needed to reach younger audiences.
Lots of tech tools and challenges are needed to reach younger audiences.

Many churches in America have aging congregations and a constant prayer in all of them is that they attract young families to the church.

A primary response to this need is for churches to upgrade their children's programs and make certain their nurseries are spotless, attractive, and well-staffed. Though facilities responses are essential, other communication responses are also important if your church wants to have a family come back more than once.

You've got to speak the same language as younger people

Imagine if you were invited to a party by a close friend. The friend tells you that the people are great and you'll have a fantastic time. You approach the party with excitement—but when you open the door, you discover that the party guests are all speaking the language of their native country and English isn't allowed. They are all English speakers, but they prefer to not speak it at their parties. They smile and are very nice. They offer you food; they have a game room for your kids; but when you try to talk to them, they shake their head and say your language isn't allowed. You will probably leave as quickly as you can and decide you never want to associate with that group again.

The language of many young people today is technology and if you don't speak that language, they will feel about as welcome as the guest in the story above.

Technology communication tips

Attitude is one of the most important things in learning to speak the language of technology.  You may not know how to do the things that are suggested below, but admitting that your church is working on these areas and perhaps even asking for help to implement them, will go a long way to making technology speakers feel at home.

None of the comments that follow should be taken as a recommendation that you do away with any of your current means of church communications. You still need printed Bibles, email, phone calls, postcards, and whatever else the people in your church use for communications. The challenge today is that we can't do away with past means of communication, but we continuously need to add new ones and here are some to consider:

Allow the use of cell phones and tablets in church and adult education classes

This seems so basic, but I still see church bulletins that tell people not to use their phone even to read their Bibles in church. One church went so far as to give a mini-lecture in print on how irreverent it was to read the Bible on your phone and how distracting it was to those around you.

I don't imagine many who were used to reading the Bible on their phones came back a second time to that church.

In contrast, at another church when it's morning time to read the Scripture for the morning, the Pastor invites people to follow along, "either on the screen in front, your printed Bible, or whatever electronic device you enjoy using."

It isn't surprising that this church, with a large aging congregation, has recently been running announcements in the bulletin asking for volunteers in the ever-growing children's programs.

Be sure your website is responsive and constantly updated

A responsive website is one that can be easily accessed on a smart phone.  A responsive website resizes so that text can easily be read on the smaller screen. A website that isn't responsive can be accessed with a smart phone, but it's hard to read and extremely difficult to find anything on it. For people who use their smart phones to look up every part of their lives, if your church makes that impossible, they won't bother to go to a desktop computer or call the church office.

Making a church website responsive can be as simple as changing the underlying template for the site, if your site is built using WordPress.

For a more complete explanation of what responsive sites look like and how they work, CLICK HERE https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2012/09/a-primer-on-responsive-websites-what-they-are-and-why-they-are-important/—this article is a couple of years old, but is a good illustration of them.

Text important messages

Email is no longer the latest and most efficient way to contact people. Many people today don't ever look at a desktop computer unless their job requires them to. They access all the media and information they need through their smart phone and seldom look at email. It can be depressing to realize after all the work you do on creating email newsletters that many people won't look at them.

Texting is the next challenge to learn if you want to communicate with the people who don't access email. Here is an article that tells you how to send group texts on your smart phone: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/3472964/how-send-group-texts-from-android-iphone/

Have the option to give electronically

Many people pay all their bills electronically today and some have few or no paper checks. If you want them to give to your church, you need a system where they can do this. Not only will this make it easier for people who prefer to pay this way, but many churches have discovered that electronic giving makes contributions much more consistent. I was going to link you to a Christian Computing article about this, but they switched to a Wix site and don't have a search box, so the best advice on this would be to ask churches in your area what software  they are using and if they like it.

Have your pastor's sermons and those of other teachers available online, preferably on iTunes

Sunday is no longer a sacred day and many people have changing work schedules. Because of that, they may not be able to attend church regularly. If people miss, they may want to hear the sermon and if the only way you have them available, if you do, is on CD or tapes, many younger people simply won't bother. Many of the church website templates have automatic ways to put audio files on your site. Getting your material on iTunes is more complex (I still haven't done it, hope to do an article about it soon), but important to do it if you want to make your message available.

Make social media more than a logo on your bulletin or a link on your website

If you or someone on staff isn't regularly interacting with your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Google+ accounts, don't just put these on your bulletin or as a link on your website because that's the "in" thing to do. These tools are called "social media" for a reason. If you aren't involved with them, don't bother. Better though is to get a volunteer who loves interacting on these sites and will do it for the church.

A final note—the technology advice above is for more than younger families

Confession time here—though I do think everything I said above applies to attracting young families to your church, the article above could also have been labeled, "Some tech communication  lapses in churches today that really bug Yvon."

I am far from being described as a member of the young family target audience, but my love of and involvement with technology make all the issues above important to me. I was motivated to write it after viewing one too many church bulletins and church websites that didn't have these things and personally being bothered by them.

The point here is not about my cranky preferences—it is about being all things to all people that we might win some, no matter what technology they use or what age they are.

 

 

 

 

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Filed Under: Evangelism & Outreach, Social networking, Twitter, Facebook, etc. Tagged With: church outreach, church outreach to tech people, church outreach to young parents, reach younger people for church

Be proactive, not reactive in your church communications as you look ahead in the New Year

2 January, 2013 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Plan, measure, evaluate your church communications
As the year begins, take time to plan, measure, evaluate your church communications.

The start of each year is a good time to set goals to make your church communications more effective in growing your church, introducing people to Jesus, and helping them grow into mature disciples. One of the best ways to do that is through a proactive approach to communications.

To understand what proactive communication is, it helps to first look at its opposite—a reactive approach to communications, which is how most churches do their communications. While there is little "wrong" with this approach, it isn't always the most productive.

The characteristics of reactive communications

Last-minute communication production is a key characteristic of reactive communications.This is communication that is created after the event planning is done and the event is about to take place. Because everyone is overworked and often stressed, the details of many events aren't in place until a short time before the event and so the church staff waits until then to begin telling people about it. Unfortunately, by then many people have other plans or won't hear your message. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: New Years Tagged With: church communication basics, church outreach, proactive communications, Seasonal, yvon prehn

Hurricane Sandy Relief–update and appeal from an Effective Church Communications Member

6 November, 2012 By Yvon Prehn 2 Comments

Pastor Gil Monrose, helping the victims of Hurricane Sandy
Pastor Gil Monrose, shares his projects helping victims of Hurricane Sandy and invites us to join in.

Pastor Gil has been interacting with our site for many years in addition to his many ministries serving God's people. When I got this email, I wanted to pass it on and encourage you to participate. Churches helping those around them is one of the most powerful ways to witness. If you can give money--great--but we can all pray.

To be without power and in the cold--how scary that would be. Pray the Lord turns the current storm away and that many people come to know Him through the love and care of his people.

***At the end of this article, please add in your comments any other links to groups, denominational or those you know and trust for Hurricane Sandy Relief.

Dear Friends,

Oh taste and see that the Lord is good and his mercies lasts forever.  Amen.  Praying that all is well with you, family, and those around you.  I wanted to provide a quick update as to our progress and ways you can help. [Read more...]

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Filed Under: Misc. Advice and Articles Tagged With: church outreach, donations letter sample, Hurricane Sandy help, outreach communications

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