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; we can help.

How to overcome procrastination in the church office

By Leave a Comment

How to overcome procrastination
When we procrastinate, we are our own worst enemy--here's how to overcome it.

Ed. note: going into the fall, it's easy to justify procrastination when we really need to be more disciplined. Gayle has some great tips for how to overcome it.

To procrastinate, says Webster, is to “postpone or delay needlessly.” It is not having too much to do and too little time to do it. Instead, procrastination is the practice of simply putting things off. Nearly always the task is eventually done, usually at the last minute—not a satisfying work style.

What makes us procrastinate and how can we avoid or overcome this troublesome habit? [Read more...]

How to download a Free Image editing program, paint.net

By Leave a Comment

How to download Paint.net
Paint.net is one of the best FREE image editing programs--here is how to download it.

This is one of my favorite image editing programs--much easier to use than Photoshop and best of all FREE! Even though it is very easy to use, it is extremely powerful and lots of fun to play around with. It doesn't get a lot of PR, (maybe because it is free), but it is a program that I think every church should have a copy of.

Below is the video on how to get it--here is a link to a series of videos I did that are on YouTube that show you how to use it: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL6709E3C376551C36

On this video I demonstrate how to download it. The link for the download is: http://download.cnet.com/Paint-NET/3000-2192_4-10338146.html

3 reasons why you need to “put the long term ahead of another quick fix” in church communications

By 2 Comments

Keep eternity in mind as you create your communications
The communications you create in church have eternal consequences.

The advice above to "put the long-term ahead of another quick fix" comes from an editorial in USA Today and, as you might assume, applied to the U.S. economy.

While the merits of that advice, or any other, when it comes to economic policy in any country, can be endlessly debated, the wisdom of that statement when it comes to creating effective church communications is beyond doubt. Following are three reasons why we should consider the long-term effects over quick fixes: [Read more...]

Why words are more important than images in church communications

By Leave a Comment

Words are the primary carriers of meaning in our church communications.
Words, not images, are what clarify meaning in our church communications.

No matter what tools we use to create our message; no matter what channels we use to share it, the one thing that never changes is our core content. Our content, permeated with the truth of the entire Bible and culminating with a call to salvation and discipleship in Jesus, must be the anchor of every communication piece we produce.

The obvious question then is: what is the best way to communicate our content?

Here is one of the greatest errors, challenges, controversies, problems—it's hard to pick just one word—confronting church communicators today and that is the mistaken priority use of images over carefully crafted words to communicate our content. It doesn't matter what technology channel we use, the issues of the communication value of words vs. images is the same.

Words are the primary carriers of content, of clear propositional truth. Words however, are difficult to wrangle into meaning. It takes work, thought, planning, and editing to even approximate clear communication. [Read more...]