Challenges, commentary, and free templates to help churches create communications that help people come to know Jesus as Savior and grow to mature disciples.

In other words, to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

Effective Church Communications

Timeless training from Yvon Prehn to help churches create communications that will enable them to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

For GIVING TUESDAY—my gift to YOU—dozens of FREE CHRISTMAS Templates!!!!! No strings attached…..really FREE

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Free Christmas Templates
Just one of the dozens of free Christmas Templates for you to download and use.

Giving Tuesday was created when two organizations, the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation came together in 2012, about a month before that year's Thanksgiving. Their intention was to set aside a day that was all about celebrating the generosity of giving, a great American tradition.

I do love the idea and the motivation behind it, but I must admit many of the ministry requests for giving to various organizations that I support that came in the midst of the crush of demands for Black Friday often felt like one more case of financial badgering. I know that isn't true. I'm glad many ministries I support double donations on Giving Tuesday.

I understand the need to raise funds whenever possible.  When I was senior editor at both Compassion International and Young Life, I wrote many of those fund-raising appeals myself.

I thought about doing a plea for support for the Effective Church Communications Ministry.

But I just couldn't. Then I realized......

This is an opportunity for me to GIVE to YOU!

It isn't anything new really, just a reminder of the many TEMPLATES and especially the Christmas ones I have for all of you for FREE!

Some of you have discovered these, but many of you are new to the site. We've had lots of new sign-ups recently (WELCOME!) and I thought I'd sent out this post telling you about them. They are totally FREE. They are not a situation of, "try this one and then here is the real cost." No, these are truly FREE.

We have lots of different ones from some of the cards illustrated earlier on this page, to this one, which is my favorite. It can be used as a postcard or bulletin insert or shared through social media. It reminds us that Jesus is the reason for the Season by citing the words of the Nicene Creed.

More than just pretty templates—Templates with a ministry purpose

The templates from Effective Church Communications aren't only designed to look good and be useful, but they are templates with a well-defined ministry purpose. For example, the collection of Christmas Templates are designed to take people from outside the church to welcome them to a Christmas activity, to invite them back, and enable them to consider Jesus (that's in the template set "Because He didn't stay a baby")

To expand and illustrate more what I mean by the templates having a ministry purpose, I created a VIDEO that explains why ECC Templates are unique and how they can help you.

VIDEO: ECC TEMPLATES and an overview of FREE CHRISTMAS TEMPLATES

PLEASE Share these resources

The Templates, Christmas and otherwise really are free and very easy to use. They are in PDF and MS Publisher format and can all be printed either in your church or using online or other printers. Please pass them on to any and all churches who could benefit from them.

Just CLICK HERE to go to them.

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For Giving Tuesday itself, here is a source for free images about it: Free images for Giving Tuesday

 

 

Don’t hide the real reason why you celebrate Christmas—communicate it!

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Don't forget Jesus is the reason for the season!
Be sure to tell people about Jesus at your Christmas event, don't simply entertain them.

From our archives a useful article as you do your Christmas planning:

Many churches consider the Christmas season a huge success if they have a large turn-out at Christmas events, but sadly, many of them remind me of the line from Macbeth where he describes life as "fully of sound and fury, signifying nothing." That may seem a bit harsh, but it is tragedy to celebrate the birth of the Savior without telling people about Him. Following is a true, but sad story about one such event  and how it could be different…..

Sad, but true story of a city-wide Christmas outreach

As in all the stories I tell on the Effective Church Communication website, this is a true story, but without details, location, people, or church mentioned. I also remind people who because I look at and am passed on stories about communications from churches literally from all around the world (one of our latest members and stories came from a Pastor leading a group of churches in the Australian bush), if you think the story is about you, it probably isn't.

Here is what happened: a church in a large city decided to host a Living Nativity for their community. They were given a large lot with a winding driveway leading up to it in a location near a busy shopping area. Because of generous donations by many members (it was a moderately large, well-off church) they put on an extravaganza. There was a huge turnout every night for the week it was held. And no wonder—they put on quite a show. They had live animals, a full size inn, angel choirs, and leading up the road, Roman soldiers and shepherds in the field. They had 3 shifts of actors in full costumes and make-up. They had cider and cookies for guests as they left.

What was the one thing they didn't have?

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