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.

Why inviting people to “Easter” at your church may not get a great response and what to do about it

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A simple Easter card
Many of the church outreach pieces I've seen this year are similar to this. They might look nice, but what do they communicate?

A number of years ago, George Barna released one of the results of his studies where he found that over 46% of the random audience surveyed did not know the true meaning of the word "Easter."

I would imagine that statistic hasn't changed much if at all since then.

To most people, Easter is about bunnies, chocolates, and spring flowers. And though we enjoy those things, it's important to remember that Easter is about the pivotable event of cosmic history when the incarnate son of God rose bodily from the grave after giving his life as a payment for our sins.

I'm not writing this as a hand-wringing, oh isn't the world awful observation. For church communicators, it poses some serious challenges. Let's look at them along with some suggested changes.

We need to remember that our audience probably doesn't give the same meaning to religious terms we do

Let's get practical. In looking at many designs church communicators are sharing online, including the ones from some of the major marketing groups, it seems like the majority of them prominently feature the word "Easter" with a variety of designs often surrounded by flowers or colored designs. They all look good, but what do they communicate? [Read more...]

Notes to Boomer church leaders as you prepare for Easter

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We may be shocked at today's culture and amazed at what people don't know about Easter, but we can't let those attitudes make us less effective as we reach out to our world with a clear message about the resurrection of Jesus. This article has some practical tips to help.

You don’t have to be an astute analyst of the culture to understand that we live in a far different world than Baby Boomers grew up in. Many Boomer church leaders may be aware of the changes in life, technology, and culture (“You can show that on TV now?), while at the same time planning for Easter church celebrations the same way they did when Ozzie, Harriet and family was the target audience. Being shocked about TV is one thing, sticking with outdated and ineffective ways to promote and celebrate Easter has far more serious consequences.

If you want share the power of our risen Lord in ways that will change people today and forever, you may need a new strategy, but before we get into that, let me be clear. . . .

This isn’t about Boomer bashing, any age group can make the same incorrect and ineffective assumptions

The mindset that needs a new strategy isn’t confined to any one age group, though many leaders in the Boomer generation seem to be stuck in it. I’m not bashing Boomers, this is my generation  and many of my peers in ministry provided the inspiration for this article. The mindset (not the age range) that I see with Boomer friends and church leaders of various ages, but similar mindset, assumes:

  1. People outside the church know the basics about the Christian faith and what’s in the Bible.
  2. Your community members know the story of Easter and are looking for a place to celebrate it.
  3. All we have to do to get them to get saved and be part of our church is to have the biggest, loudest, most colorful Easter service in town, complete with a petting zoo for kids and brunch served on the premises.

These assumptions range from totally incorrect to ineffective.

As we plan Easter outreach and celebration, we need to realize that contrary to the assumptions above:

[Read more...]

Effective Easter Outreach: Door-hangers, an invitation you can’t ignore

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Door hanger about hope
A person is usually alone when they read the message on a door hanger.  It can be an effective way to help them consider the meaning of life, Easter, and personal salvation.

You can't ignore a door-hanger—you literally have to do something with it and even if you toss it, chances are you'll glance at the message. One of the most powerful reasons door hangers can be effective Easter outreach is because often the  person reading them is alone and may not be thinking about anything else.

In addition to this quick glance, I recently read an interesting article about the impact of tangible, touchable marketing. It is from a study done by the Centre for experimental Consumer Psychology at Bangor University in the United Kingdom and used MRI brain monitoring to measure response between ads printed on a paper flyer and ads viewed on-screen. Here are their comments:

The ads that could be physically touched as well as viewed stimulated the most activity on the brain. . . By having something physical in front of them, the brain placed more authority and emotional resonance to that ad versus the one the participant could see only via a monitor. The takeaway from this experiment was physical involvement versus just visual involvement equated to a deeper connection. . . . . . It's also an important reminder that effective marketing needs to integrate all faces of the tools available, from print media to email, display ads to social media, and word-of-mouth to influencer marketing campaigns.
http://bit.ly/2ieEhkU

Here is one more reason door hangers can be effective Easter outreach—often the  person reading them is alone and may not be thinking about anything else.

Finally, there isn't anything magical about print or door hangers, but in addition to the reasons above, their low-cost and the ability to involve your congregation when you give them out (discussed in the article here) make them a useful addition to your Easter mix of outreach.

As the following images illustrate, we have a selection of door hangers for you to choose from for Easter. Some have room on them for church information on the front, others you can put it on the second side. One has a message for you about hope and that is below the images illustrated.

Message on the back of the door hanger about hope:

[Read more...]

Recipe for Greek Easter Bread, an outreach treat for Easter guests

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Easter bread recipe
This delicious Easter bread recipe is a fun way to invite people to attend your Easter events.

Which would you rather get to encourage you to come to church for Easter? A postcard that tells you how wonderful the church is or a really great recipe? Of course churches are going to talk about how wonderful they are at Easter time, but a great recipe for free—that's different and might get attention in a way something else won't.

Everybody loves recipes and this Greek Easter Bread is exceptionally delicious. It's my version of a recipe given to me years ago by a very dear Greek friend. It's a sweet yeast bread (not a coffee cake) and bakes up beautifully. In addition to serving the main version for Easter, I came up with an alternate version to serve with soup, especially something like tortilla soup, any time of the year. In this variation, you add jalapeno peppers and cheddar cheese--it is sooooooooooo good. The regular version makes great French Toast and the Cheddar/Jalapeno version is fantastic oven-toasted. Either way, it's something everyone would love.

Below are finished cards for the recipe that you can personalize on the back and below I included a print of the recipe. The link to the ZIP file for them is at the end of this article.

Here are some ways you can use the recipe for Easter Outreach:

[Read more...]

4 short Easter challenges for the web, email, social media, print

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The short messages below were written for Easter but as people have taken and used them in a variety of settings I thought it might be helpful to make them available in text format.

Please use them in any way you want to share the message of eternal life in Jesus this Easter. Some ideas:

  • As short bulletin challenges
  • Facebook entries with links to longer articles
  • Twitter intros with links to your church website
  • Other social media links to YouTube videos
  • Text with music or images as part of a video
  • Postcards, bulletin inserts with links to more material
  • Invitations to seeker Bible studies about the Christian faith

If you use them in a different way and have time to send me your creation to yvon@effectivechurchcom.com,  I'd love it, but it isn't needed. You've got lots to do this Easter season and I understand.

To use these no attribution or link or anything is necessary—other than your prayers that however you use these words that they will bring people to Jesus.

The Bunny and the Cross—why both at Easter?

It makes much more sense than you might imagine.

In many cultures bunnies symbolize life, rebirth, and the tradition of a spring bunny bringing gifts to children.

The cross, though once a tool for a tortured death, because of Jesus, has become the symbol of eternal life, possible because Jesus rose from the dead.

The Easter bunny tells a story of abundant life, giving, joyful living, pictures of the reality that Jesus made possible on the cross.

Join us for our Easter celebration—we’ve got bunnies and candy for the child in all of us, but we’ll also tell the story of the creator of bunnies,  and all things joyful and life-giving—Jesus.

darkness to life

how dark is your life?

have you lost your

job, security?

money, status?

friends, family?

health, happiness?

hope?

when jesus died, the disciples lost

their leader, healer, friend, future

they hid in fear, without hope

but the dawn came on the third day

and everything changed.

it can change for you—join us this Easter and let us share how

 

A serious Easter Invitation

Music is inspiring and candy is delicious, but we’d like to invite you to a serious presentation and opportunity for discussion about the true meaning of Easter.

No gimmicks, fluff, or marketing an empty message.

We believe that Jesus lived, died, and bodily rose from death. We have historical, legal, philosophical, and scientific reasons why we believe this and we would like to share them with you.

Not to win an argument, but because we believe the eternal destiny of every person depends on how you respond.

Join us on Easter or check out the websites below:

http://www.leestrobel.com/

http://www.whoisjesus-really.com/

Easter is about so much more than you can image

What do you think your life would be like if you believed in the Jesus?

Boring? Constricted? An endless series of don’t do this or that?  Intellectual suicide?

We don't think so because. . . . .

Christians claim that Jesus conquered death.

If that’s true imagine what it would mean to become a friend and follower of Jesus, someone, totally and eternally ALIVE?

Someone who spoke and the worlds, galaxies, stars and starfish, came into being?

Someone who, when he walked the earth, played with children, was a great party guest, healed sick people, loved enough to die for all of us.

Challenging, exciting, never-ending and never alone—more than you can ever imagine is the life you can discover this Easter, in Jesus.