Yvon Prehn is the founder, director, and primary content creator of the training site for church communicators: effectivechurchcom.com, a website that provides practical training in print and digital communications to help churches fully fulfill the Great Commission. Yvon has degrees in English and education, an MA in Church History, in addition to attending seminary and doing graduate work in communications.
Yvon worked in communication ministry for over 25 years. She was a free-lance newspaper reporter and religion writer for the Colorado Springs SUN newspaper. When desktop publishing was first invented, Yvon was a top-rated, national trainer in desktop publishing for Padgett/Thompson, the nation’s largest one-day seminar company and she wrote the first book on desktop publishing for the church, The Desktop Publishing Remedy.
She worked as a communications consultant and trainer for many of the ministries headquartered in Colorado Springs and was senior editor at Compassion International and Young Life International. For fourteen years she traveled full-time all over North America teaching seminars on church communications to thousands of church communicators.
Yvon has written for many of the major Christian magazines and has written a number of books on church communications. Currently, Yvon is not traveling, but creating articles, books, videos, podcasts, and other materials to educate, equip, and inspire church communicators.
Yvon and her husband Paul, live in Ventura, CA, where Yvon teaches an adult Bible class and puts into practice what she teaches creating communications for it.
The 5 Steps of Effective Church Communications & Marketing, to enable your church to fully fulfill the Great Commission
Church staffs work hard and create great-looking materials, but tying them to any lasting fulfillment of the goals of the gospel is often difficult. To change this, you’ll learn the 5 Steps of Invite, Include, Inform, Instruct, and Inspire that will show you how to make your communications not only individually more effective but also how to make your entire church communication ministry work towards the one goal of fully fulfilling the Great Commission. In other words, how to use church communications to take people from outside the church and lead them to become mature disciples of Jesus.
More info →Church Connection Cards, connect with visitors, grow your church, pastor your people, little cards, big results
If people don't tell us they are at our church, if they don't give us their contact information, we can't reach out to invite them back or pray for them. This book gives you detailed instructions on how to make the most of the cards and use them effectively to pastor your people and grow your church.
More info →Devotions for Church Communicators
This book provides what is needed through a Biblical perspective for how to keep your heart focused on what is unchanging: our Lord, his Word, and your calling in church communications to fully fulfill the Great Commission. The book contains not only encouragements but challenging, thought-provoking short essays that remind church communicators that their work is far more important than they realize. They may think they are "only working on the church bulletin or website or whatever" but in reality their work is changing the destiny of eternal souls.
More info →STOP Declining Church Attendance with Your Church Communications
There are many reasons why churches are going down in numbers, but the solutions to the challenges aren't obvious. This book uses current research and observation to propose come ways you can change this by becoming intentional and strategic about your communications ministry. Effective church communications won't solve all your problems, but no church can prevent decline without an effective church communications program.
More info →e-book Gospel Presentations
The most important thing we do as a church is to help people find Jesus as Savior. If you agree with that statement, does your church tell people what that means and how to do it in your church bulletin? This book will help you do that effectively.
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