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.

Free resources, images, videos, photos for church communications

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Free video footage resources
Many churches are willing to share video footage they've created--check out the resources here.

"Wouldn't it be great if people who created church videos would be willing to share them?" commented a man at a newly formed committee for church communications. When the comment was passed on to me, I responded that many people have already done that and here are some of the resources I passed on.

This first site is primarily a subscription site, but each week has free images and a monthly free video:

https://www.lightstock.com/  really good images and video footage, sign up for their weekly free images and monthly free video

The sites below are all collections either from very large churches or people who contributed—lots of material, challenge is that it takes some time to screen through them—but they are free! [Read more...]

Resources for how to create and use video for church and outreach ministry

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Video creation doesn't take a team like this
You don't need a team like this to create church videos--today one person with a computer can do great things!

Though video is a popular tool to promote, advertise and instruct in almost every area of life, many churches and ministries do not use it to its full potential. This week I posted two videos on how I create training videos and the links to them are below.

But there is much more to video training, creation and use. The links following will help you get started. The most important one is the first one as this article gives you not only how to's but great ministry examples and inspiration.

Video creation does not need to cost very much and is not difficult to do--it is merely one more tool that enables us to be "all things to all people that we might win some." [Read more...]

Lessons from YouTube for church communications

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Video in Church Communications
Video is an increasingly popular channel of communication and one that churches are learning, even though it is much harder to learn than it first seems.

We all know video is growing as an increasingly popular communication channel, but when USAToday recently (mid July 2012) used one third of their page that previously was all television scheduling to list recommended web video programs, my initial response was that it was an interesting article.

A few days later I realized that this listing of web video channels, YouTube series, and featured video programs wasn't a one-time article, but a consistent feature. This is a significant shift--including web video with mainstream television--following are some observations and advice for church communicators. We want to learn all channels of communications so that we might communicate clearly the gospel of Jesus. With that in mind, following are some comments and initial suggestions on learning video for church communicators. [Read more...]

Powerpoint, Screencasting & Video: how to improve your church communication on the big screen

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One of the things I love best about this ministry is that I get to research resources for church communicators and then pass on great ones to you. I do this in a way that is perhaps a little bit different than some reviewers or bloggers in that:

  • I only pass on what I genuinely like. I pay for all the materials I review, I don't get free review copies.
  • I don't take any kind of affiliate or referral compensation, to keep my referrals honest (I have a selfish heart and I couldn't trust myself if I did).
  • I use what I like in real ministry settings. My husband is a bi-vocational pastor and we are responsible for two significant teaching ministries at our church. I do all the communications for them as well as a large part of the Bible teaching. If the products I try don't work in those settings, I don't pass them on.

With those disclaimers in mind, I'd like to share a resource that I have found extremely helpful:

Web Video University

This site is run by Dave Kaminski, one of the best online teachers I've observed. He knows his material really well and does a great job explaining and illustrating it.

To check him out, don't go directly to the website www.webvideouniversity.com, because it looks like just another sales pitch for making money with internet video. In ministry we have very different reasons for doing video and though his sales page wasn't tacky or as tedious as some, it didn't tell me what I needed to know. In fact, it was this page that kept me ignoring his site for months. My opinion changed however when I signed up for the free weekly video tip. A collection of these is at the link below and I STRONGLY recommend that you check this out:

http://webvideouniversity.com/podcast/

Once I started getting his weekly video podcasts and checked out the podcast site, I was impressed.More than impressed, I realized that Mr. Kaminski had a depth of knowledge that would be useful for the things I wanted to learn to do.

I had been looking for a way to improve my webinars and was very interested in learning how to do both Screencasts and videos with a flip camera. Screencasts are a sort of PowerPoint on steroids that you can then turn into webinars or videos. Though I've used PowerPoint, literally since it was invented and have taken a number of classes on it--I knew I was not making the most of it and using animations to make things move, expand, appear, etc. was not something I ever felt I made the most of. It seems like a lot of videos these days consist primarily of moving words. Though there are a number of ways to do this, a screencast using PowerPoint is probably one of the easiest. After watching his video training series Screencasting, —it has changed the entire way I approach teaching with PowerPoint and in the coming months you'll see the results of that on this site.

I have recently signed up for the course on creating videos with the flip camera and the overall video course--lots to learn, but I have been extremely impressed by the site and resources so far and wanted to share them with you.

Never let your videos stand alone

Video is a fantastic resource, but it is not the only resource you should you use to communicate your message or market your church. Please read this article: "Is video the best way to market your church" (Click on title or HERE to go to it0 for some advice on some excellent examples of church marketing videos as well as advice on the print and other communications you need to create to make the most of your videos.