Effective Church Communications

PODCAST: Don’t default to Magical Thinking when planning your seasonal outreach

21 February, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

No magical thinking for church events — HARD WORK, not Magical Thinking is what will accomplish the results we pray for in our seasonal outreach events.

PODCAST INTRO:

Easter is fast approaching and as we look at all the work ahead, don't you wish that people would magically appear at your events after one announcement from the pulpit or one notice in the bulletin and in social media?

Not only that, wouldn't it be wonderful if they'd magically come back and start attending the church regularly after one visit?

But we know it probably won't work out like this will it?

Hi, I'm Yvon Prehn and Welcome to the Effective Church Communications Podcast!

Today our topic is: Don't default to Magical Thinking when planning your seasonal outreach

Click below to listen to the podcast or listen on iTunes or any of your favorite podcast channels.

You might protest that you would NEVER count on magic to do anything in the church and mean it. But unfortunately, the communication actions in many churches tell a different story because. . . . .

Magical thinking takes place when you assume that simply by doing certain things, you will get the results you want without actually doing the hard work you need to do to get them

And sadly, churches do this all the time and wonder why they don’t get the results they want from their outreach.

In today’s Podcast we’ll go over FIVE examples of Magical Thinking in church seasonal communications, why they don’t work and what you need to do instead of Magical Thinking to assure the response you want at your church for your seasonal celebrations.

For the FREE TEMPLATES mentioned in the Podcast, CLICK HERE

For an article that has the text of the podcast, notes, and links mentioned, CLICK HERE.

Let’s get real—don’t default to Magical Thinking when planning your seasonal outreach

20 February, 2019 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

We know that nothing happens by magic in the church, but we can unthinkingly fall into magical thinking when we plan for seasonal events, but magical thinking alone won't accomplish the results we pray for.

You might protest you would NEVER count on magic to do anything in the church and mean it. But unfortunately, the communication actions in many churches tell a different story because. . . . .

Magical thinking takes place when you assume that simply by doing certain things, you will get the results you want without actually doing the hard work you need to do to get them.

This often happens in the planning and work that goes into the season or holiday celebrations at your church. Below are FIVE ways Magical Thinking can defeat the fantastic opportunities the holidays give us to invite and get people involved in the church and ultimately to meet Jesus. Holidays work so well as outreach to unchurched people because though few people today respond to the invitation "Want to come to church with me?" few people will turn down an invitation to a FREE party that has food and fun stuff for kids.

Holidays offer churches a great opportunity, but to make the most of them, you need to be aware of and correct the following FIVE destructive ways of Magical Thinking.

Magical Thinking # 1: By hosting your holiday or seasonal event people will think your church is great, wonderful, and cares about the community

Whether it is an Easter-Egg Extravaganza, a Trunk or Treat, Thanksgiving Community Meal, or Christmas Caroling and Chocolate—the first thought of people in your community when they see an advertisement of the event is probably not about your church.

The people in your community care most about themselves and their families. Their thinking when they see or come to your event is something like "Wow, this looks like a fun thing for the kids." "Hey, it's free and looks like fun and our family needs a night out."

They are probably not thinking: "Oh isn't First Church a loving church that cares about community outreach and to show the love of Jesus is the sponsor for this event." Even more than your intended audience not knowing WHY you are doing this, unless you consistently and graciously remind them that your church is putting on the event, chances are they won't even remember that your church was the sponsoring group for the event. [Read more...]

PowerPoint Slides for Backpack Ministry to remind and motivate your congregation

8 July, 2018 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Backpack Ministry PowerPoint Slides — Backpack ministries are essential to help kids be ready for school. These PowerPoint images will remind your congregation to participate.

People usually want to give to worthy causes and making sure that children have adequate supplies for school is a very important one.

However, we all need reminders to do what we ought to do and these FREE PowerPoint Slide images will help you remind your congregation.

Here is a gallery of the images. Just click on the ZIP file below them to download them.

Click the following link to download the ZIP file of the images: Backpack Ministry PowerPoint Images

Production note: when you place the image into your PowerPoint file, it will be a background and is not editable. You can add your own text over it.

Additional Resources for Backpack Ministry:

***These are all FREE! Please share with other church communicators!

Instagram Images for Backpack Ministry to remind and motivate your congregation to give: https://wp.me/pDky9-898

Bulletin inserts and Flyers for Fall Back-Pack ministries: https://wp.me/pDky9-7rX

My personal motivation for Backpack ministry—my memories and prayers about crayons and little kids in need: https://wp.me/pDky9-pL

Bulletin inserts and Flyers for Fall Backpack ministries

7 July, 2018 By Yvon Prehn Leave a Comment

Back pack supplies ministry — Getting supplies for children who can't afford them is a wonderful ministry. Help your church do that!

One of the best ministries at this time of year is for churches to assemble backpacks for kids that need them.

Following is an assortment of designs from past years that you can freely reproduce. You can use them as is or modify them to fit your church or community.

At the end of the article are two NEW sets of PowerPoint and Instagram images you can use to remind people and promote your backpack ministry.

You can click on the link below the images to download the ZIP file that has:

PDFs of all the designs
Editable MS Publisher files
The design above in MS Word file
Text for the flyers

****One more important note:

At the same time you recommend that your congregation buy supplies for backpacks, remind them that this is a great time to stock up on great buys on school supplies for Christmas shoe box ministries!