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 Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission.

Webinar: Why your church needs to create Multi-channel Communications, or why you can’t just put your church bulletin on the web and be done with it

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What is the best communication channel for your church to reach people  today? Do you put everything, including your church bulletin, on your website and quit? Or is social media the answer to all your needs? Is print outdated or is it essential? Given that churches have limited time, money, and resources, how can we know we are using all of them in the best ways possible?

This webinar may surprise you with some of the proposed answers, especially with what it has to say about the continuing importance of a printed church bulletin. The webinar would be an excellent one to show during a staff meeting and to discuss following the viewing.

Below the video is a PDF of handouts for the webinar and these are for Effective Church Communication Members only. For ECC Members there is also a link to the ebook: Are Written Bulletins Still Needed in the Church?

Here are the handouts that go with the video.   Print them up ahead of time, so people can take notes.Church Handouts Mulit channel

Just click on the image and the PDF will open on your screen for you to print.

 

 

 

 

 

The ebook, Are written bulletins still needed in the church?, is also free for Effective Church Communication Members. CLICK HERE to go to it.

Clipart for World Religions, tools to help you be a modern-day Paul

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There are many reasons why you might want to find clip art for religions other than Christianity, including to study and understand them or to do outreach. The Apostle Paul in Acts 17 carefully studied the pagan idols so that when he preached to the people he used what had learned about their religions as a bridge to share the good news of the true God and Savior Jesus. Below is how Paul did this and following are some websites of high quality clip art that you can use to reach the Athens in your world:

Acts 17:22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.

24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’[b] As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’[c]

29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others.

Taking your cue from Paul, if you want to study the representations of  other faiths today, below are some sites that will help. Please enter any that you know about that I may have missed in the comment section below this article.

Good overall site to purchase high quality software

http://www.fotosearch.com

This site is listed in the categories below, but it is by far the highest quality site. The site has samples from many other sites, some of which are not widely advertised. You can buy the images individually and the site links to the collections the images come from. There are many beautiful, innovative and interesting images for the Christian faith in addition to a large variety of world religion images.

There are no free images listed and some are quite expensive, but the quality of many is quite high. Do take the opportunity to browse through it for ideas even if you don't purchase something.

JEWISH CLIPART COLLECTIONS

http://www.fotosearch.com/clip-art/jewish.html
Wonderful collections and images, links to complete collections.

http://www.jewish-clip-art.com/

Contemporary, informal style, some cost

http://www.jewishsoftware.com/products/jewish_clipart_84.asp

Very nice CD, a comment on it: "Jewish observance permeates the content of this disk, which will be welcomed by Jewish schools here and in the Diaspora that need artwork to decorate classes or newsletters, religious children who want to illustrate school reports, and synagogues that produce bulletins to their members."

ISLAMIC CLIPART COLLECTIONS

http://www.fotosearch.com/clip-art/islamic.html

Professional, quality images, priced per image, beautiful images. Also has links to more complete collections.

http://www.sakkal.com/IslamiClip1.html

Traditional calligraphic images

BUDDISM

http://www.fotosearch.com/clip-art/buddha.html

Beautiful collection, contemporary, professional, links to complete collections.

http://karenswhimsy.com/buddhist-statues.shtm

Really nice black and white drawings. Don't let website title mislead you, this site has many vintage images that are excellent in a number of categories, check it out.

World Religion Collections

The quality, type, and religions represented below varies tremendously, but many religions represented.

http://www.fotosearch.com/clip-art/world-religions.html
Clip art sets, high quality, that have images for a group of religions.

http://www.aperfectworld.org/religion.htm

http://vector-images.com/cd_contents/mythology.php

http://graphics.elysiumgates.com/cultural.html

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Please do add additional sites that you use for images for Christian or other religions in the comments below—thanks so much for sharing!

 

 

GREAT Church Bulletin Sample: order of service, newsletter, evangelism tract, refridgerator reminder and more–all on ONE sheet of paper

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This church bulletin sample is truly an example of genius in layout and design. I'm not using that description because of its use of fancy graphics, but because it packed in essential communication components, including an order of service, place for sermon notes, announcements, a gospel presentation, and a weekly schedule that is ready-to-post on the refrigerator, all the parts that a church needs for its various audiences all into ONE piece of 11 x 17 paper.

It is a few years old and you will want to modify for your church, but the idea, the layout and the essential communications it packs into one piece of paper are timeless.

This was sent in as part of our Great Idea Swap, where church communicators share with church communicators.

Below  are two images of the bulletin for everyone to view.


How it works and how it was created

[Read more...]

From a Father’s Heart, a touching and useful tool for evangelism

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As part of our Great Idea Swap, Mary, from Cambridge, Ontario sent in this note:

We give as a gift to visitors a text page and an audio CD of “The Father’s Love Letter,”  along with just a note of welcome and a magnet of the logo of our church. Here is the website for "The Father's Love Letter."

http://fathersloveletter.com/text.html

They also receive a ‘Welcome Folder’ with information about our programs, our Vision, our history and statement of
beliefs.

Please go to the website to read or listen to this piece. It comes in a variety of formats including a one page PDF, a bulletin insert and a variety of other layouts. The audio is beautifully recorded and you can download the mp3 file or listen to it online. I do recommend having a box of tissues handy if you read it—I cried as I was so touched by hearing those words from the Bible in a new way that deeply expresses God's love and invites others to become part of His family.