Effective Church Communications provides Timeless Strategy and Biblical Inspiration to help churches create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission
Print is still one of the most powerful ways to communicate because if you do up a print piece, such as a postcard and it is placed on the refrigerator--you can't help but see it many times!
The US Postal Service reminded us of that in a little video they did, and a clip of that is in the very short video that follows. At the end of the video is a link that will take you to the template page shown.
To see the video full-screen, click on the little square at the lower, right-hand corner. Enjoy!
Ed. note: We've broken the great advice here into several articles because there is so much to apply in each one. You can read them separately or together, but no matter what order you read them in, use the advice to make yourself more productive. CLICK HERE to go to Part One of this article.
You can keep the main thing foremost in your life if you remember to make your goals your own, to set goals that can be measured and to commit your goals to writing. Ironically, many of us take more time to plan a vacation than to plan the more important aspects of our lives. Get your goals on paper now. You owe it to yourself to have a sense of direction. Be responsible for doing this for yourself.
• Act on your plans. Once your goals are identified you start the adventure of beginning to work on them and seeing them become reality. Knowledge is of little value unless it is put into action. The hardest part of any project is often just getting started.
The science of physics recognizes two kinds of inertia. Standing objects tend to remain stationary; moving objects tend to remain in motion. It is difficult to get an object with stationary inertia started. Conversely, it is hard to stop an object once it is in motion. Once you get going as a goal setter, you will be hard to stop. A first step is to be determined enough to convert your wishes into daily habits.
• Establish productive habits. As much as 70 percent of what we do is determined by habit. Your habits are always with you. They can be your biggest helper or your heaviest burden. Do something a few times the same way and a habit, good or bad, is formed.
The secret is to take habits seriously and to be firm as you work at developing productive habits. Bad habits can destroy your loftiest intentions to change; good habits can increase your chances for victory in whatever endeavor you undertake.
• Cultivate a positive attitude. Positive attitudes are like nourishment to the body and soul. The right attitude will carry you through the worst days. You can believe God’s word, “but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26.
Most of us get from life exactly what we expect to get. God has given you the privilege of making choices; you are in charge of your life. You are in control of your attitude. It is not your family, your boss, your parents or your breaks in life that create attitude. Your thoughts and reactions are totally up to you.
Expecting failure often creates failure. Expecting success releases energy to create achievement. Never make excuses for yourself.
Begin today to see yourself as the person you plan to become. You will find yourself living up to the image you have of yourself. Think bigger than you ever have before. Consider the many parts of your life. Decide which are really important to you; make specific plans to spend your life on what matters.
Goals:
• provide direction; point you toward the future
• keep you on track; motivate you to achieve what you care about
• prevent wasted time by focusing your efforts
• contribute to your sense of purpose
• form the basis of your philosophy; say, “This is who I am.”
Goals must be:
• clear and specific; write them down and give each a deadline
• realistic and valid; not wishful thinking
• achievable; consider your resources but don’t sell yourself short
• important to you; are you willing to pay the price in time and effort?
• worthy; will this make you a better person? help others? bring satisfaction?
Don’t make the mistake of wasting time, effort and energy on things that really do not matter. Keep the main thing the main thing.
The US postal service has a recent ad that starts out with the statement: "the refrigerator has never been hacked." You can check out the video below. Though the ad is obviously designed to encourage people and businesses to use the mail, it also has some great reminders for all of us as we as we work to reach out to our communities with invitations to seasonal and special events.
Below is the very short video and following it are some more applications for church communicators. At the end of the article are links to templates that you can modify to create invitations for your Christmas events.
Click on the image to go to video and then come back for some more advice.
Humor aside, the fridge is still communication central for every home that has one.
No matter how tech savvy you and your family members are, no matter how many people have mobile phones, ipads, or email accounts, everyone will see an image on the fridge many times. If you want your congregation to be reminded of a holiday event, the fridge is the place you want for your message.
CLICK HERE to go to an article with Christmas invitations.
There is a free one for everyone and a great set of editable templates for Effective Church Communication Members.
This is just one of the many resources available for Effective Church Communication Members. Membership is only $9.99 a month and give you access to a huge amount of templates, ebooks, instructional videos year round. CLICK HERE for more information.
Ed. note: No matter what time of year you read this, you will always be tempted to think that you don't have time to follow the advice in this article on goal-setting. But to make the most of all your days, you need to make the time to do it.
It would take a hundred lifetimes to accomplish all we are capable of—all we would like to do. The reality is there are no dress rehearsals in life. We have only one lifetime to do our best and to be all we can be.
If we had forever, perhaps there would be no need to be concerned with priorities. There would always be tomorrow—for us and for all the others in our life. But, time is the great ruler. Without time there is nothing. The sobering thought is that the clock is always running. Therefore, our choices make a great difference in our lives.
John 10:10 tells us, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” God intends fulfilled, beautiful lives for His children.
Goal setting implies a change in the status quo, an achievement of dreams. Unfortunately, many articles and workshops never result in much change. People may read or attend, have a pleasant time, make some resolutions and then get discouraged when they face the actual task of working toward their dreams.
Resolve now that you will use this information as a starting place to reaching your goals by acting on your knowledge. What you are reading right now is enough to start you toward making some significant positive changes in your life.
It is not for anyone else but you to choose your path in life. God has a unique purpose and plan for your life. You have the responsibility and can have the joy of discovering that plan for yourself. You have many choices. The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. Six strategies to keep you on track:
• Know what you want from life. There are always people who want to tell you what you should be doing. When you begin to feel others are making too many decisions about how you are living your life, remind yourself it is your responsibility to make your own choices. For true happiness look for a purpose that will outlive you.
• Recognize the difficulty of choosing priorities and focusing on them. Keeping the main thing the main thing is not easy. Few worthwhile things are. You will be constantly pulled in many directions. The task is ongoing; the rewards make it worthwhile. Every day you are spending time, your most valuable resource. Your goal is to spend your precious time in the most fulfilling way.
The world is full of people who want to succeed; not so many are willing to pay the price. Yet, in the long run it takes just as much time, energy and effort to live an unhappy, aimless life as it does to live a fulfilled one. Often the price for failure is far greater than the cost of success. Parents who take the easy road with children when they are young most certainly pay the price as the children grow up. Couples who do not nurture their marriage pay the price eventually.
• Define specific goals. Goal setting and wishful thinking are not the same thing. You must be specific about what you want to achieve—and you must want to achieve your goals regardless of whether others share your vision.
You may talk over a dream with someone and that person may take your goals lightly or try to discourage what they see as too ambitious. Misery always looks for company. Choose carefully those with whom you share your goals. Avoid people who are likely to rain on your parade, but more important, learn to trust God’s guidance and your own seeking of His direction.
The vast majority of people live by default, not knowing where they want to go and having no need to figure out how to get there. They have no plans to follow, no new adventures to aspire to, no ambitions to achieve. Many would like you to have as little direction as they. It is doubtful you would be reading this article if you fit that description. You do not need to be one of the many who have trouble getting a handle on goals. You can be aware of the pitfalls and chart your course around any obstacles.
____________________________
To go to Part Two of this article, CLICK HERE.
It is challenging to plan a ministry outreach for any holiday and even more so when we want to recruit volunteers to help with it. Because there are so many things to do for successful outreach and our minds are pre-occupied with the event, it is easy to short-change our congregations in how we communicate to them about what is going on and what we need them to do.
As a very practical example, at our church, with the Adult Sunday School Class we are hosting a Thanksgiving outreach dinner. I've been working on it for some time and for it to be successful, we need many in the class to be involved. Though they have known we are doing this for some time--we just got the final approval of the location last week. I needed to let the class know and to let them know what we needed them to do.
My first idea was to simply do a PowerPoint Slide and announce it, but I knew that wasn't enough. I reminded myself of what I constantly try to teach that those of us who work and plan ministry events must always remember that the people we want to involve haven't been working on it as we have; they haven't been thinking and praying about it for as long as we have. They can't read our minds.
People need a tangible, paper, printed reminder of what we are doing and what we want them to do. Once the print piece is produced, we can put it on our information table for those who might have missed the first announcement and remind people about it in subsequent weeks.
We have a lot going on, we want people to do a number of things. Though in the coming weeks I will have specific task lists and sign-up sheets I wanted to give people a flyer that specifically told them:
The flyer illustrated here is what I came up with. The information is what is most important here and it was well-received.
It seems like we never have the time to put together things like this, but they are vitally important for as many people as possible to be involved in ministry events and outreach.
CLICK HERE to DOWNLOAD a PDF of the flyer.
