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.

A new Blog section added to Effective Church Communications

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Yvon looking off to side pic
In this blog I'll try to keep you updated with what is going on behind the scenes, about changes and I'll also share prayer requests. One silly detail--I usually don't wear a suit when I'm working--just finished a Skype interview here.

Why this new blog on ECC:

I talk to myself (and the Lord) quite a bit as I put together the material for this website. I spend most of day in a tiny office (a rather delightful one--I must share pictures one of these days, need to tidy first) working on the computer creating publications, recording videos, wrestling materials into formats for distribution online, and then creating the email newsletters to let you know they are on the website waiting for you.

Because I work alone and because I very much need your prayers and input, I've tried various systems to keep both visitors and members updated--but doing that in newsletters, Facebook, and Twitter (which I will still do) all have the drawback of being a very fleeting communication. When the current communication stream on these passes along, the message is pretty much out of sight and mind. The blog I'm adding will enable you to go back and check out an updates, prayer requests, and news when you want through the "Blog" tab on the home page.

I will use this to communicate ECC news to you and then using the comments section you can either respond, comment, or ask a question about a topic. This will be very useful because then your communications won't get lost in the many kinds of email that flood my ECC email. You don't have to respond or comment. I know all of you who come to this site are extremely busy and it really bothers me when blogs or articles ask inane questions at the end so people will make unnecessary or useless comments. This is often done, I suspect to either increase search engine ranking from the host's part or to sometimes express an opinion better left unexpressed on the part of the audience.

I hope the previous statement didn't come across as too harsh. Many of you have made helpful, useful comments in the past and I treasure them. I simply did not want you to think that because I'm starting a blog here, you have to comment. Read quickly, pray for me and Effective Church Communications, and get back to work—we have a world to win for Jesus!

One purpose of your church website: to explain Sunday services, at least as well as a document does for an oven

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Answer church questions
People shouldn't leave your church with more questions than when they came in

Gerry McGovern, one of my favorite web gurus, had the following observations on how documentation for products is shifting. I think his thoughts present a challenge to the disconnect between what the picture of Christianity presented on Sunday morning and the reality of what it means to live out the Christian faith.

We need to evaluate our Sunday morning service, website content and everything else we produce to see if it is clear about the content of our gospel--in other words, does the product of our lives and worship back up the documentation of it in God's Word?

[Read more...]

Having fun and not sinning is not the point of the Christian life or of Christian communications

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Is having fun what defines a Christian? Is FUN what makes a church even worthwhile? Is fun why we do what we do (whatever it is) in the Christian life?

When you look at many current church communications, you'd assume the answer was "yes." A recent scanning of material on the web as I was researching alternative Halloween events overwhelmingly advertised events or promoted activities where the FUN promised is promoted as the primary reason people should attend. Though the focus of this blog is on the combination of Halloween communications and the emphasis of FUN (intentional shouting with the all capital letters), the same concerns and cautions apply to our communication of many church outreach events.

How fun becomes the primary motivation for Halloween alternative events

Much of the thinking process behind many of these "Christian" alternatives to Halloween on the web seems to go something like this:

  1. Halloween is evil.
  2. To take part in a traditional secular celebration of Halloween is evil and sinful.
  3. Christians shouldn't do evil and sin.
  4. Instead Christians should have good, clean fun.
  5. Therefore our church will do a fun event for Halloween.
  6. People will see we are Christians by our fun.

I don't have a problem with the list up to #3—much of traditional Halloween celebrations are evil. Maybe not as evil as some timid folks fear, but probably not activities that would fall into the class of edifying Christian activities. Dressing up as demons and witches and glorifying magic is not what Christians ought to be doing. Sending your kids out alone to beg for candy in most areas today isn't safe.  But the alternative to fighting evil or working to fulfill the Great Commission is not to simply have safe fun. [Read more...]