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.

Have you closed with Jesus? Something to consider if church communications seems impossibly difficult

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The Good Shepherd
Jesus can carry us in our work if we know Him as Savior and obey Him as Lord.

And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. So whoever has God's Son has life; whoever does not have his Son does not have life. (1 John 5:11, 12 NLT)

Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as 'Lord,' but they still won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven. On judgment day many will tell me, "Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name." But I will reply, "I never knew you. Go away." (Matthew 7:21-23 NLT)

My sheep recognize my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them away from me. (John 10:27-28 NLT)

If you've been reading the posts on this website and if you have done church communications work for any time at all, you may have one of two responses. Either the words here have been an encouragement and a challenge to you in your work as a church communicator or perhaps they seem empty and your job remains a frustration.

If your job seems a constant frustration, beyond any solutions in technology or work setting, I would be remiss if I didn't ask you to take a few minutes to examine your personal relationship with Jesus. Church communications is ultimately and at its core communication about Jesus. Unlike other kinds of communication work, you will have a hard time doing church communications work if you don't know Jesus. Knowing him, listening to our shepherd's voice, is essential if our work is to pass the test of eternal value and to be bearable as we do it day-by-day. But how can we be sure if we have this kind of relationship with Jesus?

Please now, take a few minutes by yourself, without distractions, to read this section and think about it.

One way to evaluate your relationship with Jesus

Evangelists in the past used a term that we don't often hear today when they would ask, "Have you closed with Christ?" Their use of the term "closed" was taken from real estate back then and they used it just as we do today. You can look at a house, walk through it, admire it, want it, even invest time in getting a loan on it, but until you "close" on it, the house is not yours.

What happens when you close? On closing, only then does the house then becomes truly, legally yours. For that closing to take place, you have to give up something, usually a considerable amount of money, and you have to make a commitment to keep investing in the house for it to one day be yours completely.

No analogy is ever perfect, but this is a pretty good one to explain what it means to know Jesus personally. You can look at Jesus from far away, you can even get up close, perhaps visiting or regularly attending a church to examine his teachings. You might even work at a church and do communications work in his name. But unless a personal transaction takes place, unless you know Jesus personally and he knows you, you haven't "closed" with him.

That act of closing with Jesus is a serious commitment. That closing takes place between you and God, in prayer where you admit your sins have kept you from God and you recognize that Jesus death on the cross paid a penalty for those sins that you could not, and you ask that Jesus become the forgiver and leader of your life.

The cost of the transaction

If you do that you have closed with Jesus and you move into an eternal relationship with him. Though there is no monetary cost to this transaction meaning there is nothing you can do to earn or deserve a relationship with Jesus, at the same time before making that closing transaction, the Bible does encourage you to count to the life cost. The Bible is clear that the cost involved in closing with Jesus is that you now turn over the control of your life to Him: your priorities, your time, your focus, your decisions are now all to be under the leadership of Jesus. You aren't asked to make monthly payments (though giving regularly to your church and those in need is an expectation of all Christians), but you are required to give up your time regularly in the study of God's Word, in prayer, and in service to your world in the name of Jesus. In return the Christian receives much more than an earthly house that will deteriorate—the Christian is promised an eternal home in heaven and on earth peace, strength, and joy for whatever life God gives.

I'm bringing this up because at this point because as I've said earlier, doing Christian communication work is one of the hardest jobs imaginable and to last in it, you need every resource available in Jesus. You have to have a personal relationship with Jesus for his strength to flow through you to do this work; you must be on good terms with him to do it happily. Our relationship with our God is personal—more than a theology or belief system or set of rules—one with much more, but no less than the personal qualities of a relationship with an earthly friend.

If you have not closed with Jesus, count the cost of following him and if you are prepared to commit your life to him, close with
Jesus by praying the prayer that follows.

A prayer of "closing" with Jesus

Dear Jesus,

I admit that though I've known about you for a long time, I've kept you at arm's distance. I don't want to do that anymore. I admit that I need forgiveness for things I have done. I realize that in coming to you I acknowledging that you died on the cross to pay the penalty for my sins and I want you to come into my life and be my forgiver and leader. I realize that in doing this I turn over
the control of my life and eternity to you and I pray you'd help me to live a life that is worthy of you. Thank you for your salvation and for being willing to have a personal relationship with me for all eternity. Amen.

If you sincerely prayed that prayer, welcome to the family of God! More than ever before you will have Jesus beside you as you do your work for him. Be sure to read your Bible every day and go to a church that preaches the Bible and you will grow and experience the reality of a friendship that will never end.

Evaluate your ongoing relationship with Jesus

If you are in a relationship with him, how is it? We take time to evaluate our human relationships and it is very important to give time and attention to our relationship with Jesus. Is it the happy, peaceful time you want it to be? Is a bit of resentment festering? Talk about it to Jesus. Is there sadness inside you that you don't feel will ever end? Share it. Have you forgotten to be thankful for the blessings of food and shelter that so many of our brothers and sisters around the world are without? Catch up on your thanks. Do you forget he wants to help you in every detail of your life? Invite him to share this moment.

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," the apostle Paul said. (Phil 4:13, KJV)

Now that your relationship is right with Jesus, charge into your day in his strength.

Don’t steal videos for ministry—create your own with animoto!

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animoto video creation web software
Use animoto video creation software to legally create fantastic videos for ministry.

As I talked about in a previous article, it is illegal, it is stealing, to download and use videos from YouTube that you did not create. It doesn't matter if you are using them for church or if you don't get caught—you aren't supposed to do it.

It is a lot more work to create your own, but the online video creation software, animoto, makes it easy to create great looking videos for a variety of ministry purposes.

The software is SUPER EASY to use. After the demo videos below is a short video I did to show you how simple it is to use. It isn't cheap, currently it runs $22 a month if you pay for a year's subscription, but you don't need editing software, or any knowledge at all and your can create great church videos.

Two videos I created with animoto pro:

First is one I created using the free images from www.freebibleimages.com, a site I cannot recommend enough for a wealth of both drawings and pictures of actors in Biblical settings. You can use them to create your own videos as well as any other communication project in print or online. The second one is for Mother's Day and following it a short video that shows how I used animoto to create the Mother's Day video.


Video of how easy animoto software is to use

The video below was created a couple of years ago and animoto has made the process even faster and easier, but this video still give you a good idea of how the software works.

 

Q&A, “Is it illegal to download YouTube videos for use in ministry?”

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The legality of use for YouTube videos
The legality of use for YouTube videos goes beyond the letter of the law for the Christian communicator.

The context of the following question was an email conversation that about downloading YouTube videos, shortening them, and using them in animoto. I highlighted the question.

Question:

I think it’s OK to do that  with a YouTube video [one she downloaded]. Do you know anything about it?  I’m not changing the content only shortening it.  Info. I have about copyright laws from the Canadian Council of Christian Charities says there is an exception for YouTube etc. videos in 2012 and you can use them to create other work as long as it meets criteria and says what that is.  Non-commercial purposes, info. about original mentioned if reasonable, it doesn’t infringe copyright, not a substitute for original and not a substantial negative impact on markets for original material.  I used www.keepvid.com to download the video.  Hopefully all OK.  It’s not easy getting exactly what I want.

 My answer:

To answer the question, I tried to get access to the copyright laws from the Canadian Council of Christian Charities and was unable to do so because I am not a member.

However, regardless of the opinion of that group, I researched the question, "Is it illegal to download YouTube videos?"

The short answer is "yes" it is illegal. No question about it. 

First I'll share the resources that support my conclusion that come from YouTube and a secular and then Christian web . In addition to sharing the sources that answer the question of legality, included are opinions of a couple of online commentators and finally some comments that I believe should be important to all of us a Christian communicators.

From: YouTube answers

In general, downloading videos that other people have posted on YouTube is not allowed. However, you can download MP4s of your own uploads.
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6035694?rd=1

From: PC Advisor website (good quotes of original Terms of Service)

Consider the fact that lots of the people who create YouTube videos rely on the money they make from the adverts displayed on their clips. And downloading video from YouTube does breach Google's terms of service, too. Within Section 5.1 it states: "YouTube hereby grants you permission to access and use the Service, subject to the following express conditions, and you agree that your failure to adhere to any of these conditions shall constitute a breach of these Terms on your part: you agree not to access Content through any technology or means other than the video playback pages of the Website itself, the YouTube Player, or other means as YouTube may explicitly designate for this purpose. See also: How to download YouTube videos to your iPhone or iPod touch.

"You agree not to access Content for any reason other than your personal, non-commercial use solely as intended through and permitted by the normal functionality of the Service, and solely for Streaming. "Streaming" means a contemporaneous digital transmission of the material by YouTube via the Internet to a user operated Internet enabled device in such a manner that the data is intended for real-time viewing and not intended to be downloaded (either permanently or temporarily), copied, stored, or redistributed by the user.

"You shall not copy, reproduce, distribute, transmit, broadcast, display, sell, license, or otherwise exploit any Content for any other purposes without the prior written consent of YouTube or the respective licensers of the Content."

In other words, you are permitted to view YouTube video only through Google's own website and apps.

From:http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/internet/3420353/is-it-legal-download-youtube-videos/

From:  www.communicatejesus.com website

I thought I’d check out the CCLI (Christian Copyright) website to see what they had to say about churches using YouTube clips. The only article I could find was from 2008 entitled – ‘Playing it safe – internet content and copyright‘and it said,

As far as I can tell, the long and the short of it is this – in most cases, it is not legal to download YouTube videos for church use, personal use, or any other use, . . . . Similarly, I discovered that should you (for some reason) want to reproduce (e.g. quote) comments made against videos, this too is a breach of the terms of use.

Steve Fogg wrote in with the following comment:

“…it is actually illegal to play this kind of thing [YouTube videos] in a church service or public space unless you have written authorization from the ORGINAL copyright holder

Which means if people who put together videos for YouTube sample vision or sound from somewhere else you need their expressed written permission.

CCLI who give license for music offer video license for most major movies which gives you rights to play a clip for a sermon. Outside of this, if you don’t know created the video or don’t have their express permission as copyright holders it is breaking many intellectual property laws and could break a small churches bank totally as fines for these kinds of thing are massive.”

http://www.communicatejesus.com/2009/08/only-two-legal-scenarios-to-download-youtube-videos/

A troubling trend in many of the answers

Because I did not want to cause confusion, I quoted the resources above that made clear, statements about the stated legality of the practice.

However, those were not the only kind of answers I found that were similar the one above, that after clearly stating it was illegal and against terms of service to download the videos, had a link to an article for how to download them to your iphone or ipad. Did you notice that? I had to reread it several times, because I couldn't believe that after telling people it was illegal to do this, they gave a link to an article that told you how to do it. In addition, the one below is typical of many others:

 From: Yahoo answers

Well if it's music or music videos that you don't own, then yes it's technically illegal, but if you use a YouTube downloader or Keepvid.com to transfer them, nobody's going to know anyways.

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110118162831AAVjWmG

The idea that yes it was illegal to download videos, but "nobody's going to know" so it is OK to do what is illegal if you don't get caught, was a common theme in the answers to the question and is sadly a common theme for so much digital content today.

But for the Christian communicator who seeks to honor God in all his or her work, it isn't OK.

There is no such thing as not getting caught for a Christian. Our work is open to our Lord as are our hearts and motives as we do our work. We might wish it were different when it is very frustrating to work hard to find the right video or piece of artwork to illustrate the message we want to illustrate only to realize when we take the time to read the fine print of rights and terms of use that we can't use it or download it for our purposes.

But we must always remind ourselves that we are doing what we do to honor our Lord and advance His kingdom and that isn't always easy. The hosts of heaven are watching us.

Reminder of a temptation long ago, but one that always returns

In situations like this I always remember when I was first starting out in desktop publishing. Young Life, where I worked as senior editor, had shut down their in-house communication program. I was on my own, single, and desperately poor. I was making my living as a Christian free-lance designer and the resources I needed to do my job were very expensive. At that time, my laser printer cost about $5,000 and individual typefaces cost hundreds of dollars. To do freelance work I needed more than the few that came with my Mac and someone offered to give me a pirated copy of the entire Adobe type library for free.

I am ashamed to admit I had to think about it overnight before I turned her down.

Today when more typefaces than we want or need junk up our hard drives, it's hard to imagine how difficult that decision was, but I now suspect it was far more important to the health of my soul than it was to the health of my financial state. Typefaces might be free today, but there is always something that tempts us to betray what we know isn't right for reasons that make perfectly good sense when we are tired and stressed to finish a job.

Money is still an issue (You mean I have to PAY for clip art? Every year???), but so is time (You mean I have to look for hours for something legal when I can find, download and paste any image I want from Google in minutes?). Since both are in short supply, I have lots of excuses to cheat--or so it is always easy to tell myself that. 

But as I thought back then and have to still remind myself today: how can I do the Lord's work with stolen tools?

The question isn't trivial because, as C. S. Lewis reminds us:

“Good and evil both increase at compound interest. That is why the little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of. An apparently trivial indulgence in lust or anger today is the loss of a ridge or railway line or bridgehead from which the enemy may launch an attack otherwise impossible.”

It is not a small, insignificant decision whether to follow copyright and fair usage rules or not as you create church communications.We don't get a pass because we are tired, stressed, or didn't have the time—all of that is a given in ministry. Our work involves the eternal destiny of the souls entrusted to the care of our church or ministry.  The little decisions we make as we do our work will be reflected in the quality and integrity of the result and in how the Lord will use it. As much as is possible, in everything we do, we need to remember:

Now in a large house there are not only gold and silver vessels, but also vessels of wood and of earthenware, and some to honor and some to dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.  2 Timothy 2:20-21

We want to be clean vessels so that the Lord can use us and bless the work we create to help people come to know Jesus and to grow into maturity in Him. Ultimately the success of our communication work never depends on time or money saved, never by "might or power" but always by the blessing of His Holy Spirit, who touches hearts and changes lives through the communications we create for Him.

A tool to help us in our work

There are many tools today that can help us do our work in time and cost-saving ways and one of my favorites is: animoto. This program is so easy to use, very powerful and free. CLICK HERE to go to an article that illustrates some vidoes made with it as well as a short video on how to use the program.

_____________________________________________

If you have a question, ask me! Just email yvon@effectivechurchcom.com

Just as the church communicator did who was the inspiration for this article did. I have a number of other questions that are in the pipeline to answer in articles in the coming week and I want to do this regularly. Send questions about any aspect of church communications to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.  I can't guarantee how quickly I will get to the answer, or if I will answer it with an article, but I will read all of them and send you a private response.

Free ebook on Church Leadership and Teamwork in the church

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Free ebook on Leadership and Teamwork in the church
Click on the image here to down this free ebook on Leadership and Teamwork in the church by Robert Sherbondy

For the last two weeks I've written about church communication teams and in this context, I am excited to share a training manual, Leadership and Teamwork in the Church by an ECC Member, Bob Sherbondy. If you follow the advice of this book it will help you build a team for effective church communications.

Bob has very generously made the book, in e-book format, available as a free download for readers of this site. You can download the book by clicking on the image to the left. Following are Bob's description of the book as well as a brief bio from him.

There is a large amount of valuable information and practical application in this book. I urge you to download it, read it, use it and please let Bob know your response to it: bsherbondy@gmail.com

Bob's overall comments and description of the book

Leadership and Teamwork in the Church is written as a manual for a series of 8 training workshops involving group discussions and a special exercise on cooperation for these church workers. Its greatest benefits will be experienced as its principles are taught and practiced by church teams. This is a manual for the practice of teamwork in churches and not just an e-book about that matter.

I've used parts of the manual as resources for brief teaching sessions with church members and leaders, and this approach has produced some helpful insights within them, so I know that it can be used in parts.

A partial understanding of these principles may not enable a team or a committee of church leaders to be completely effective in the efforts to work together. It would be like a basketball or football team that didn't understand the principles of playing good defense as well as functioning offensively. I trust that [readers] can recognize the important principles for effective teamwork that are presented in this manual.

About Robert Sherbondy

I am an old retired Baptist minister who has had a lot of special experience and training in over 50 years of service as a pastor, Christian education specialist, designer and writer and editor of curricula, marketing, and fund-raising.

I’ve served on local and national and international committees, including positions of leadership as the president of the Religious Education Section of the Adult Education Association of America and president of the Chicago Chapter of the Religious Public Relations Council.

I have a BA degree in Sociology and a BD in New Testament and special training in group leadership and organizational development.

Everywhere that I have served I have seen a need for effective teamwork between individual workers. This is the reason for the writing of this manual on “Leadership and Teamwork in the Church” as well as the other resources on my website regarding “Christianity and what is good forever” at http://www.christianityetc.org.

I will be glad to answer any questions that anyone has regarding the use of this manual if they contact me at my email address: bsherbondy@gmail.com

 

Why ministry leaders aren’t always good communicators and what to do about it

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Leaders communication challenges
Leaders can't sit at their desks to create all communications needed--they need a team to help.

The important term in the headline here is "aren't always." Ministry leaders, including pastors, leaders of groups like Young Life, and missionaries are almost always great verbal communicators or they wouldn't be in ministry. They do great talking to groups, teaching, challenging, motivating. But in today's multi-channel communication universe, that isn't enough.

What's needed today

When the Apostle Paul said he needed to be "all things to all people that he might win some," he had no idea of the multitude of communication tools and effective ministry program needs today, but his words couldn't be more true in this area.

You need a variety of communication tools because no church or ministry is a homogeneous group when it comes to what communication tools works best for each person in it.Your message stays the same, but for different groups of people to take it in and act on it, you need different ways to reach them. Here are some examples:

What works in a church

In the church, some people like the traditional bulletin and print newsletter to find out what's going on at the church. Others prefer to get their church news online. Others will only pay attention if they get a text message just before an event and others need large print format to stay informed. In the church if you want your people to know what is going on and to take part, it doesn't matter what you as a leader like or think is useful and proper for the church. What matters is what channels of communication are the various people in your church are responding to.

In the church we always need to remember that the majority does not rule when it comes to being a servant to all. There may only be 4-5 or 10-20 people who still need the newsletter printed out and mailed to them, but we must always remember that our Lord went after the one little sheep. He expects us to value the straying and weak in the same way. [Read more...]