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; Effective Church Communications can help.

How to fill your church communications with purpose and power

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Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life" (Jn. 4: 13, 14).

What is inside us comes out in everything we do and our communications are no exception.

  • If we love sports, our communications will be filled with analogies from sports.
  • If home and children make up our world, our life lessons will come from kitchen and nursery.
  •  If we have a cynical view of life, our words will bite and be tinged with satire.

We are all far more transparent than we realize as Jesus reminded us when he said that out of the abundance of our hearts our mouth speaks (Matt. 12:34).

Christian communicators have the ultimate reasons for wanting their communications to be powerful-the eternal destinies of souls are at stake. Christian communicators don't create sermons, websites, church bulletins, blogs and newsletters only to fill the empty minutes of their days, but to enable people to know Jesus as savior and grow in Christian maturity.

John 4:13 tells us how to accomplish those purposes with power. The core way to do it isn't reliant upon technology or spotting trends or attempting to be relevant to the issues of the day-though all of these actions have a proper place. The core action, the essential thing we must do to communicate with power, is to drink deeply of Jesus.

Jesus, permeating our lives and our message, is the key to communicating with power. If we spend time in his word; in prayer, in study, in worship; if his values and viewpoint permeate our lives it will show.  It will spill out into every piece in print or online that we produce.

Not only will we be refreshed and satisfied when we create out of a heart filled with Jesus, but it will become a "spring of water welling up to eternal life." People are attracted to what truly satisfies. If you want your church communications to satisfy the deepest desires of their souls, first fully fill yours with Jesus.

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Devotions for Church CommunicatorsFrom Devotions for Church Communications by Yvon Prehn, available either as a free download for ECC Members or in paperback book from amazon.com.

Flashy multi-media in church communication and why it doesn’t always work

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True story here: A church wasn't getting the response they wanted to get people to attend the various events of the church including small groups.

Their response: Instead of asking folks why they weren't coming, or doing an informal survey to see what they were or were not communicating with current materials, someone made the suggestion that the church start a new video newscast during the church service. The thinking was something like  "this is what will appeal to people today."

Two interns from the local Bible college were the newscasters, and with a team and a bit of time and effort, produced a highly entertaining video. Announcements were made for more folks to join the news team and to help with the production; mention was made of upcoming events of the week and the congregation encouraged sign up for small groups. The congregation loved the videos for the two weeks they were produced. They were filled with chatty banter, silly jokes, and tasteful humor.

Did that increase attendance at church events and especially in small groups?

Sadly, no. There was no increased attendance in small groups. [Read more...]

Incarnation-a continuing challenge and model for church communication

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"The Word became Flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:14).

The ethereal became earthly, the intangible became touchable when Jesus became flesh and blood. In a similar way, your church communications help make the intangible realities of your church flesh and blood in the lives of the people in your church and those you want to reach. A grief recovery workshop helps no one until the materials announcing it are created and responded to. The greatest youth program involves no one until postcards and email inform the teenagers of the dates, times, and locations of meetings. The most inspiring conference helps no one if the church is empty because no one took time to promote it professionally and prayerfully.

To help our communications be effective in making the message of Christianity tangible and touchable in our world today, let's look at the Incarnation, at Jesus becoming flesh and blood, for inspiration on ways to lead and to make our communications real and response-producing in the lives of people we want to reach.

[Read more...]

The media isn’t our message—our message is Jesus

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Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked,

 "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!" "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:40-42).

When Marshall McLuhan, early pioneer of electronic media, pronounced in the early sixties, that "the media is the message," he was predicting that the means of communication would be more important than the message it carried. For his time, the primary media was television; more and more in our world it is computers and the resulting forms of digital communication: desktop publishing, the internet, cell phone, and small screen communications.

Though it is easy to get caught up in the complexity and power of digital communications, as Christians we must constantly remind ourselves that these incredible innovations, and any that are to come, are only tools. The power doesn't come from the tool or media-the power comes from the message.

As the apostle Paul said , "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes" (Rom 1:16). The world "power" used in this verse comes form the Greek word, dunamis. It's the same root for our world dynamite and it means a "miraculous, mighty, wonderful power."

Our message, not the media we use to share it, is the source of true power. It was the same for the early disciples writing with pens on parchment, it will be the same for us if we are creating virtual reality holograms to illustrate Bible stories in the years to come.

We live in an age where the pace of change is incredible. Many of you started out in communicating with pencils, progressed to typewriters, and now operate computers on your desk more powerful than the ones they used to put a man on the moon. This pace will not slow down.

We need to always remember that no matter how powerful, overwhelming or impressive the technology, there remains, "only one thing that is needful" -the good news of salvation found in Jesus.

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From The Heart of Church Communications by Yvon Prehn, available either as a download or in paperback book form from www.lulu.com/yvonprehn.