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.
  • Home
  • ABOUT
  • BLOG
  • PODCAST
  • FREE PRINT TEMPLATES

Cautions on writing, creating, sharing personally revealing stories AKA testimonies, the possible negative results, and what to do instead

6 November, 2022 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

We all want to share stories, yet we must always be respectful of the person whose story we want to tell and above all, we need to keep primary God's story and God's Word.

Storytelling is very popular currently. Just today I got yet another promotion of a “Learn How to Tell Stories” webinar.

Though storytelling is perennially popular, our Bible is made up of stories, after all, we must also be aware of some cautions when we tell stories—and that’s what this podcast and blog is all about…. The podcast is below and the blog on the same topic follows.

With the current trend of excessive sharing influenced by current media and the public revelations of indiscretions of previous Christian leaders, it seems there is nothing that is off-limits in public discourse.

There truly is no longer shame in what is shared.

The secular news media is one area; the church is another and it's important to set limits for what we share in the church in our written and digital communications and spoken public and digital sharing. This includes written and spoken testimonies and regardless of our reasons for wanting to share them, please consider the following cautions as we do them.

Please consider the following suggestions as both the ignorance of possible consequences of oversharing and the abuse of it can have lasting, though often not intended consequences for the people in our church.

We can never separate the content from the person

Allow me to first share my background on this issue as it comes from years of writing about people in difficult situations when I wrote about people for a number of Christian ministries in Colorado Springs and also was a religion reporter for the Colorado Springs Sun.

When I was a senior editor and writer with Compassion International and progressed to teaching writing and publication creation to other ministries, one thing I was adamant about was that we never, ever show people who were recipients of our ministry from a victim position either in what we wrote about them or how we photographed them.

No pictures of children with flies on their faces, no women beaten and bruised, and no men slumped in a pile of rags. Regardless of their previous need, I felt we should always treat people with honor. [Read more...]

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window) Email
  • Tweet
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Pocket
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Share on Tumblr

Filed Under: Blog, Devotions & Challenges for Church Communicators, Social networking, Twitter, Facebook, etc., Video, how-to, Videos Tagged With: communicators responsibilies, forgetting the past, forgivenss of sins, sharing testimonies

Link to Easter Templates of all sorts

Seasonal Templates

  • OVERVIEW of TEMPLATES for Church Communicators, please read first
  • Valentine’s Day Templates
  • Lenten Templates
  • Easter Templates
  • Mother’s Day Templates
  • Father’s Day and Men’s Ministry Templates
  • Graduation Templates
  • Summer-related Templates
  • 4th of July, Canada Day, and GRACE for All Nations
  • See You At the Pole
  • Harvest Festival and Halloween Templates
  • Christmas Templates

Recent Posts

  • Social media images for Easter with challenging messages
  • From our vault: Everything you need for Easter: Templates, strategy, inspiration and encouragement for all your Easter communications
  • Why just “Come to Easter at Our Church” isn’t enough–FREE invitations with short, but powerful messages
  • ESSENTIAL Christmas Communication advice and free tools to implement it
  • A Free Template of the Christmas Story and short gospel presentation based on “Hark the Herald Angels Sing!”

Most read posts

  • Bulletin inserts or social media content for Father's Day; poetry, challenges, encouragements
  • A Prayer for Graduates, Free flyer, bulletin insert
  • An important reminder for Father’s Day that not all the men in your church are married Dads or Dads at all
  • FREE PRINT TEMPLATES
  • Father's Day and Men's Ministry Templates
  • Summer-related Templates
  • Q&A: How to report church financials in the weekly bulletin

Misc. Church Communications Templates

  • Church Connection Cards
  • Business/Invitation Card Templates
  • Back to Church for Kids in the Fall Templates
  • Church Bulletin Template
  • Volunteer and Encouragement Templates
  • 2-page Senior Adult Print Newsletter Template
  • Misc. Church Templates
FREE Bible Verses and Sayings in both print and social media format at Bible805Images.com
FREE Bible Verses and Sayings in both print and social media format at Bible805Images.com
  • Home
  • ABOUT
  • BLOG
  • PODCAST
  • FREE PRINT TEMPLATES

Copyright © 2025 · Enterprise Pro Theme On Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in