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.
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Effective Church Communicators Toolkits, an Introduction & Overview

27 March, 2010 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

To make it easier for you to access the information on this website for your own training and for training others, with or without the computer, I'm organizing the content into ECC TOOLKITS. The TOOLKITS contain instructional webinar/videos, corresponding PowerPoint presentations, PDF notes that go with them, associated e-books, and editable MS Publisher Templates, all focusing on one particular topic in church communications such as: church invitation cards, church visitor or connection cards, church bulletins, church websites, strategy for church communicators, and numerous holiday connected materials.

To access them you have two options:

Option #1: FREE Website TOOLKIT access for ECC MEMBERS

ECC Members have immediate, 24/7 access to all TOOLKIT materials as soon as they are released.

For each topic, all the material we have gathered for that topic will be accessible under the area of TOOLKITS, a tab on the Home Page of www.effectivechurchcom.com.  Each topic will be in a separate TOOLKIT.

PLEASE look at the OVERVIEW file for each TOOLKIT as the contents vary and for suggestions on how to make the most of each TOOLKIT. If you are using the videos for training a group directly from the website, any of videos can be enlarged to full screen size and projected. The quality of the videos projected from an internet connection is not as good or reliable as the ones from the CD, but it is possible to view them with a group in this way.

You also have permission to make copies of the e-books PowerPoint handouts, and other print materials, and the templates for your church communications team without purchasing additional memberships.

The TOOLKITS offer some similar materials, but differ in organization from the Free Member's Download section in that the Download section has separate files (templates, jpgs, e-books, PDFs) that you can download and use individually if you want a specific type of resource. The TOOLKITS are organized around a particular topic, holiday, or communication tool and have everything you need in a variety of formats, in one place, on that particular topic.

Option #2: Toolkit CDs from www.lulu.com/yvonprehn, all $19.95

This option is available for anyone, members or not, who would like the material accessible on a CD. This works especially well for the churches or church support organizations that do not have high speed internet access for the videos and some of the larger downloads.

The CDs will contain one TOOLKIT per CD and are very reasonably priced ($19.95 each) to enable individuals, churches, church support and training organizations to collect a library of TOOLKITS useful for all their members. The www.LULU.com  company that I use for production and shipping produces excellent quality CDs in hard plastic cases with spine labels—enough packaging to be useful for shelf storage and protection, but not too much with wasted software boxes.

The reproduction rights we give you with the TOOLKITS

Because we retain copyright to all the materials in our TOOLKITS, we can be generous with giving these rights to you. We do this because we want you to use the materials not only for your own learning, but to train others.

If we are to do all the communication for sharing the gospel and growing the Kingdom of God that needs to be done, we need many Great Commission-committed church communicators. We encourage you to not only look at these materials yourself, but use them to train others.

That is why we allow you to make copies of the e-books for staff and volunteers at your church if you either are a member or purchase CDs. That is why we grant you permission not only to use our materials to train volunteers if you are a member (you do need larger church or organizational membership for this) or purchase CDs, but you can charge a reasonable amount for that training and keep it.

You have permission to keep the CDs in your library and allow people who are members of your church or organization check them out, put them on their computer, print off e-books and not feel guilty that you are violating a rule about the CD only being able to be used on one computer.

We’d rather you didn’t reproduce the CDs. However, we can grant you a special license or provide group pricing if you want to give CDs to folks at a conference or training event. We can also provide wholesale pricing if you would like to sell the CDs and make a profit.

Questions, suggestions, ideas

If you have any questions about ECC TOOLKITS, suggestions for topics you would like to see in a TOOLKIT, or any other ideas on how we might help you become a more effective church communicator, please email: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

My inspiration for creating the TOOLKITS

Inspiration for this organization method came from an unlikely source. Stephen King who, as a little boy, won his first Bible by memorizing verses for Methodist Sunday School and who now makes lots of money writing scary stories, provided a near perfect description of the situation confronting many church communicators today and an inspiration for how to help in his book, On Writing.

In the book King tells a story of when he was eight or nine, he helped his uncle replace a window screen. Though a fairly simple job, requiring only a screwdriver, his uncle carried a huge toolbox to and from the work site. When King asked his uncle why he went to all the work of lugging around the huge toolbox, when it seemed like a simple screwdriver, carried in his uncle’s back pocket, would have been sufficient, his uncle answered:

“Yeah, but Stevie,” he said, bending to grasp the handles. “I didn’t know what else I might find to do once I got out here, did I? It’s best to have your tools with you. If you don’t, you’re apt to find something you didn’t expect and get discouraged.”

King goes on to say:

“I want to suggest that to write to your best abilities [or to create the best church communications, my note] it behooves you to construct your own toolbox and then build up enough muscle so you can carry it with you. Then, instead of looking at a hard job and getting discouraged, you will perhaps seize the right tool and get immediately to work.”

That’s my purpose in creating these TOOLKITS, so church communicators will have a selection of resources so they can “seize the right tool and get immediately to work” to help their churches create communications that will enable us to fully fulfill the Great Commission.

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Filed Under: Church Invitation Cards Tagged With: Church Business & Invitation Cards, church business cards, church communication basics, church outreach, ECC Toolkits, yvon prehn

How to create resizable graphics with MS Publisher, Webinar, On-Demand

2 March, 2010 By Yvon Prehn 3 Comments

Wouldn't it be great to have graphic images you could resize and use both on the web and in print? Wouldn't it be great to use something like that for a unified graphics look for holidays or ministry campaigns? Wouldn't it be great to be able to create something like that inexpensively without using an expensive program like Photoshop?

YOU CAN! With MS Publisher! This video and PDF tutorial will show you how.

Use either one or both to see how to do it--they cover the same process.

How to create customizable graphics with msPub
PDF Tutorial: How to create customizeable graphics with MS Publisher

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Filed Under: Graphics, Images, MS Publisher, Videos Tagged With: church communication design, church communications video, church outreach cards, Communications, yvon prehn

The Five Steps Strategy #1: Create multi-channel communication

14 February, 2010 By Yvon Prehn 1 Comment

Multichannel communication is needed in churches
We live in a time of Multichannel communication--a time of both/and not either/or.

In this time of ever-changing options for communicating in our churches, it is easy to be overwhelmed and we naturally want to simplify our communication workload.  This is expressed by the question I get frequently  in my seminars and through email when people ask me, “What is the best way to communicate with people today? Is it the web, email, or podcasting?  Do we still need to do print? What works best to reach the most people?”

People may not realize when they ask, that they are asking for a ranking of communication channels including: print, online, web, small screen, and many more are the communication channels used to communicate today. When overwhelmed with channel choices, it is natural to want to narrow it down to one or two that will be effective.

I always feel bad as I answer because I know people want me to give them a simple answer and to tell them that one channel, especially if it is the one they prefer, is all they need, but I can’t do that. I can’t do that because to be effective in your church communication ministry, to fully fulfill the Great Commission, there is no one way.

[Read more...]

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Filed Under: 5 Steps of ECC, Multi-Channel Communications, YP Foundational Tagged With: church website, Communications, Five Steps of ECC, multi-channel communication, Multi-media, yvon prehn

The medium isn’t the message; the message is the message

11 February, 2010 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

With all due respect to Marshall McLuhan, referred to by many as the "high priest of pop culture" I believe his dictum, "THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE" has led many communicators, including some in the church, astray in a tendency to focus foremost on the tools they are using to create their messages, rather than the content and results of the message.

I believe he meant the statement as an observation, not a recommendation as to what is most important in communication. Let me explain. In stating the "medium is the message" McLuhan helped us to see that the media used to present a message becomes part of the message itself. For example, a visual image of a rock concert affects the viewer in a vastly different way than a newspaper report of the concert. Stated more correctly, one could say, "the medium influences our perception of the message."

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Not quite as catchy, but I think more accurate. Where things went slightly off track is that somehow this statement in practice turned into "the medium forms the message and gives power to the message."

His statement was popular at the same time many new media in the church appeared: desktop publishing, multimedia projections, the internet. For many churches, it was so hard to learn the new media, (computers, the new software and hardware was not easy), that an unspoken conclusion came about that if we somehow got the message out using these tools, we were communicating.

"We did it with desktop publishing!" "We did it with Adobe Creative Suite!"  "We have a new projection system in the church!" "We now have a web site!" And similar affirmations were heard. The subtle, and often unspoken and unanalyzed, shift assumed that if we created the church communication with a high-end desktop publishing program or we created a multimedia project to teach or market a ministry or put it on the web that it would be successful just because we were using these great, cutting-edge tools. The medium made the message. The implication continued, often unevaluated, that the better we got at the medium, the more color, action, white space, flash animations, or whatever the latest and greatest technology we mastered, the more powerful our message would be.

It didn't turn out that way. Over the last almost 20 years, huge numbers of desktop-published pages, multimedia projections, and web pages have been produced. During this time when our tools to communicate are more powerful technologically than they have ever been in the history of the church, church attendance is declining; biblical literacy is at an all time low; and North America is considered "post-Christian."

The message is the message

Obviously the tools and our expertise in them is not the answer. It's the content of the message itself that is important, not the medium used to present it. It's the story itself, not only the grand theme of salvation, but the details of our individual stories: the times, places, and tangible locations where the salvation story is lived out every day in churches that are important.

For example, today, a church can project an awesome youth-themed, PowerPoint background during announcement times before the service, but if parents don't have a bulletin insert or get a postcard during the week giving them the time, location, and how much money is needed for a church event the following weekend that they can post on the refrigerator, the teenagers in the family most likely won't attend.

If a church newsletter has the awesome graphics, an abundance of white space and typography choices that could win awards, but the writing is boring or judgmental, if the topics would interest only the writer's seminary professors and not address the needs of people in the pew this week, it's almost useless, no matter how much it cost to produce.

If a church proclaims on the outside of the building, with professionally produced banners, that PEOPLE MATTER TO US! but once inside, if the church doesn't provide directions on how to find the nursery or the bathrooms and there is no handicapped access to the adult classes, or visitor information center, the unspoken message that they really don't care comes across loud and clear.

The message is the message. Everything else: the medium used to share the message, the tools used to create it, the money spent, how it looks-all these things have a place, but they are not primary. If people aren't coming to your church and staying; if they are not trusting Jesus as Savior and growing in their faith, no matter what your technology media methods, your communication is not successful.

Realizing the message is the message, that the gospel story and details of how to connect your people with how your church is living it out is the core concept to communicate. You do not need to take complex surveys, do up elaborate marketing charts and graphs or spend hundreds of thousands on computers and software to do this. You simply need to get to know the people in your audience (walk the neighborhood, get to know them face-to-face) an d then share with them the gospel story and the stories of your church clearly, completely and frequently with whatever tools you have and in whatever channels they frequently access.

If most churches in America would simply send out a postcard (half of an 8 ½ x 11 sheet) to their members (and the homes surrounding the church ) every week simply listing the seeker friendly events going on in the church with the date, time, (starting and ending), location, if child care is provided, and the cost, along with a paragraph of encouraging words from the pastor in a space on the front, there would most likely be revival in America-or at least increased attendance for events at your church. People are lonely and spiritually searching but I know most homes surrounding churches have no idea what is going on inside the church walls on a weekly basis.

This is not to say that doing our best with the latest and greatest in technology isn't useful. If the postcard above could also direct people to a well-done website with visitor friendly sections, streaming audio and video for those who have the bandwidth for it and interest in it, and perhaps even online chat for those with questions about the Christian faith, it would greatly expand the possibilities for the outreach of the gospel message.

Every additional media channel is useful, but every channel is only that, a channel. If we are tempted to think too highly of ourselves or our tools as we craft the communications of our churches, we need to look outside and remember that Jesus could at any time raise up a stone from the parking lot to communicate his message more eloquently than we can imagine. Being able to serve as his channels, to communicate his message, is not a necessity for him; it is his gift of grace to us.

An edited and expanded excerpt from my book, Ministry Marketing Made Easy, which is currently being revised.

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Filed Under: Multi-media Tagged With: Communications, Multi-media, yvon prehn

Overall Church Newsletter Samples #1

24 January, 2010 By Yvon Prehn 5 Comments

Below is a selection of church newsletters sent in as part of our Great Idea Swapalong with brief comments by Yvon Prehn. Church newsletters are still one of the most useful church communication pieces whether they are sent out or delivered digitally and the samples below are shared to help make yours more effective.

These samples are not shared for design and layout ideas alone, but for a variety of layout, content, and style considerations that are highlighted with the brief comments by each one. Study the newsletters from other churches always with the prayer of what you can learn that will help you be more effective with your congregation.

To study each more closely, you can click on the image and it will take you to a downloadable PDF of the newsletter.

Newsletter Out of BlueOut of the Blue
The Blue Ridge Bible Church

This is one instance where the name of the church provides a great name for the newsletter--it doesn't always work out this way, but it's fun when it does.

The editor of this newsletter has a wonderful way with words in other areas of the newsletter:  the children's ministry is called ZONE which stands for: Zeal for God; Oneness in relationships; Nurtured with the Truth; Expressing the Love of Christ. One more: "Why do we dye?" an article about Easter Eggs—great stuff!

To download a PDF of the newsletter, click hereor on the image of the newsletter.

Newsletter from Laurel ChurchThe Family News
The Laurel Church of Christ

Notice how nice and clean the layout is on this newsletter. Though there are lots of colors and images used, the creator stayed within the grid lines. The grid is the invisible underlying structure of your communication piece.

To see what I mean, look at p.3 and notice how each entry stays within the three column lines. Many church newsletters don't do this. They may have similar collections of ads, updates and information, but they scatter them around the page without regard to any underlying structure. Because of that they look much less professional.

To download a PDF of the newsletter, click here or on the image of the newsletter.

Smaller Size NewsletterThe Net
St. Andrews Lutheran Church and Early Childhood Center

You don't have to be big in size to be big in impact. This smaller-size newsletter packs a lot into its pages: articles, church service schedules, birthdays and other special events, plus a number of excellent resources for people attending the church to get a program to listen to the Bible as well as online devotions.

To download a PDF of the whole newsletter, click here or on the image of the newsletter.

East Presbyterian NewsletterThe Eastminster Light
Eastminster Presbyterian Church

I really like the logo of the church in the name of this newsletter and it is another example of using an image intrinsic to the identity of the church (the light) to tie in with the name of the newsletter.

This newsletter does a really good thing in these days of multi-channel communications where the editor uses a printed piece to talk about the website and other forms of digital interaction. Each channel of communication has its own strengths and audiences and our communication is most powerful when we use all we can.

To download a PDF of the newsletter, click here or on the image of the newsletter.

Church Newsletter, plain thoughtfulSaints & Sojourners
All Saints Lutheran Church

Every church has a tone, a style, a personality that says "this is this unique Church." That tone and personality should be the same when someone comes into the church and when they read the newsletter from the church.

The gentle, thoughtful tone of this newsletter is different from some of the ones on this page (all wonderful in their own way) and it's a great illustration of why we should always be ourselves when we create our communications. Read through the different newsletters and envision in your mind's eye the folks who created them—and you will most likely be nearly correct.

You don't want surprises when people see your website or read your newsletter and then come to your church—that's not nice. Not every person seeking God is under twenty and in need of being entertained by lively graphics. Quiet and thoughtful is the still voice that draws many. Be who you are in print and online and allow the Lord to draw to you the people perfectly suited to worship with your church family.

To download a PDF of the newsletter, click here or on the image of the newsletter.

__________________________

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Filed Under: Church Newsletters Tagged With: church communication basics, church newsletter, church newsletters, church outreach, Communications, newsletters, yvon prehn

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