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.

Performance-centered vs church interactive, serving celebrations, what it means to the spiritual growth of your congregation

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Keep your celebrations focused on Jesus
Celebrate, but be sure your holiday celebrations don't present an incorrect view of the Christian faith.

As many churches plan their seasonal outreach celebrations, they often focus on putting on a big program for the community. It could be a play, serious or humorous. It could be a concert consisting of anything from the choir presenting a formal choral arrangement to the music ministry doing a special seasonal musical to hosting a visiting Christian Rock group.

There is absolutely nothing inherently wrong with these events and if you follow the advice of Effective Church Communications and are conscientious about connecting with people at your events, explaining what is going on at the church, explaining the Christian faith,  linking them to more resources, and inviting them back, these events can be effective ways to grow your church. But something else is going on that we need to consider if you want your event to have a positive impact on your congregation beyond the event itself because. . .

"What you win them with is what you win them to."

Seasonal events don't stand alone. How we celebrate them reflects both the core beliefs of the church and the effect of them on the spiritual growth of church members. [Read more...]

Christmas SAMPLE: A Christmas Tree that encourages giving

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Family Christmas Tree Bulletin Insert
Click on this image to download the PDF of the bulletin insert. It is a fantastic example of community outreach and service during the holidays.

We can preach all we want about how we ought to share with others during the Christmas season, but many people honestly don't know how to do that.

Help your people help others

This wonderful bulletin insert explains a program where church members can take an ornament from a tree and buy a gift for a family that needs it.

This is part of a larger program where the church  (the Olathe Bible Church in Olathe, Kansas) is involved in the local Salvation Army ministry.This is a fantastic example of ministry during the Christmas season that greatly honors our Lord and cares for those in need who are dear to His heart.

Click on the image to download a PDF of the insert and use it for inspiration for your church to do a similar Christmas ministry.

Why church ads in the newspaper don’t work and an alternative that does

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Though the use of newspaper ads for church advertising is declining, they are still one of the key pieces of advertising considered by church staffs. Though your church may want to run one on special occasions if you have the extra money, it is the position of Effective Church Communications that church ads are not the best use of your outreach budget, nor are they the most effective.

With the computing power available today to churches including the ability to create your own invitation cards, postcards, websites, email newsletters, social networking  and a host of additional digital communications in every form from podcasts, mobile messaging, and  videos, there are far more effective ways to market your church, especially if you want to reach unchurched people.

In the midst of all this technology, there remains a tiny, paper-based communication piece that can make a powerful impact if used properly.

For this alternative to newspaper ads for reaching people and growing your church, read on—

Take a realistic look at your unchurched audience

If you are a person who does not go to church, who has never had anything to do with church, but as St. Augustine said, you have a restless heart that you suspect only God can fill, where would you go for answers?

Sadly and honestly today, most people don’t immediately think, “Oh, I’ll look at the religion section of the Saturday paper and see what church looks like it would be a good place for me to attend to find answers to life.”

Unchurched people are usually not great fans of the Saturday religion section and even if they go to it, there is usually little that will appeal to an unchurched person. Most of the ads are full of church jargon and many of them today promise the same things, “A friendly church, upbeat music and a great children’s program!”

Not every seeker today wants friends, likes music, or has kids. What they want are answers.

In addition, some of the church ads even have embarrassingly similar sermon topics. Particularly around the holidays if a number of the same pastors in a town are downloading the same sermons from Sermon Central or pastors.com, it can be hard to distinguish one church from another.

Some churches with big ad budgets and catchy slogans will attract church shoppers/hopper who are looking for something “more” at church than their current church offers them or a different place to attend if the pastor in their current church wasn’t inspiring enough or if the music became a bit boring, but what appeals to a church shopper/hopper will seldom draw in an unchurched person.

A few final bits of advice about church ads, before moving on to a possibly more effective outreach tool:

Take the money that you would spend on a church newspaper ad and with the help of someone who is recently converted, come up with an offer that would appeal to someone who does not attend church and put it somewhere in the paper other than the religion page ghetto. Our local paper will give the religion rate to churches for placement any day of the week in any section. If your newspaper doesn’t offer that, ask, newspapers are desperate for ad dollars these days.

For example: put the ad on Friday in the Entertainment Section and maybe say something like:

Tired of your usual weekend? Come to the encounter, a coffee, music, and discussion time on Sat. night, 7-9pm at The Journey Church, at Main and Telegraph—thought-provoking answers to real life questions. For more about us, check out our website at: www.yourwebsitehere.com.

In the sports section what about:

Had enough of playing games with life and people? The men at OUR CHURCH are inviting the men of the community to hear local sports star talk about “How I decided to get real with God and people.” Join us for a BBQ and talk, details at (again give website and other contact details).

An alternative to ads: equip your people

It might be difficult to connect unchurched people with the religion section of the newspaper, but one thing they are certain to come in contact with are other people.

While it is sadly true that once someone becomes converted, they soon have few friends who are not believers, that doesn’t mean that they totally withdraw from the world. Most people still work at secular jobs and everyone has many contacts a week with people in the business community such as:

• the waitress or waiter at the coffee shop,

• the Starbucks employees,

• the clerks at various stores,

• the person standing next to them in lines at airports, or the driver’s license bureau,

• the person sitting next to them on the bus or subway.

These brief moments are often filled with casual chatter, but that casual chatter could redirect an eternity with a simple statement such as this….. “Yes, I agree our world is a mess today, but you know, this week we’ve having a Saturday night discussion (or a Sunday talk, or a Wednesday soup and classes or whatever) and our topic is ‘How to be at peace in an unpeaceful world— I’d like to invite you to come.”

What happens next is incredibly important, because what moves that encounter from a pleasant, momentary conversation to a potentially life-changing connection, is a an invitation card.

Invitation cards, a low tech connection tool with high impact

An invitation card is simply a business card you have created with your church’s information on it: location, meeting times, map if necessary AND most important of all these days, your website and email.

This in itself is simple to create, you’ve got the technology in your church to do it, but what is important is that this provides a very non-threatening link to more information about your church and Jesus.

It does this for two reasons:

First, because it provides essential connecting details:

It gives them the specifics of time, location, address, etc. to actually get the invited person to your church event. Without these connecting details a nice verbal invitation is easily forgotten no matter how appealing it seemed at first. It doesn’t matter how big, small, prominate or interesting your church is; it doesn’t matter if you could find it in your sleep, many people don’t know it exists or how to get there.

Second, because it links to your website.

In our culture today, when we want to check out anything from a national car company to the latest movies, to airline prices and restaurant reviews—we check out the website. Websites are great because they allow the viewer to not be pressured, to maintain their distance, and yet explore a product or service without commitment.

Of course to be useful to a curious, exploring, unchurched person, your website must have more on it than a list of service times, in addition, if you are actively giving your people invitation cards with the intention of driving lots of unchurched people to your website, this should be a great motivation for you to re-evaluate your website and make sure it has on it information that is complete, up-to-date and in language understandable to an unchurched person.

In addition to the basic information, your website should contain invitations to specific ongoing events of interest to an unchurched person, answers to their questions and an email connection for more information or answers to questions. On your website you can get as complex and innovative as you want with links to blogs, podcasts, on-line discussions, email newsletters, videos, music, whatever your church creates to share the good news about Jesus.

Your church might have the most engaging, exciting, seeker sensitive website imaginable, but how are people outside your church going to find your content-rich website or your sensitive, interactive blog?

The humble little business/invitation card can make that link.

How to connect people with your church using invitation cards

Here is a process that can make a significant difference in your church attendance and outreach at your next special event.

**Create a section or blog on your website about your event. If your website program makes it difficult to do this, you can create a free website/blog with WordPress. Go to https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/category/church-communications/church-websites/ for articles, videos and  information on how to create a website with WordPress.

**In addition to the attendance information, on the site explain the importance of the event. For example, for Christmas why Jesus really is the reason for the season, for Easter, explain the importance of the resurrection, for Halloween, what really happens after we die. On this section have explanations from your church but in addition links to sites that explain in detail what it means to be a Christian. Some you might include are:

http://www.whoisjesusreally.com

http://www.christianity.com/becomingachristian/

http://peacewithgod.jesus.net/

http://www.leestrobel.com/

http://www.equip.org

**Make invitation cards with an invitation to your event and prominately display your website link to the additional information about the holiday and the Christian faith.

**Make up enough cards for every person in your congregation to have 10 of them.

**Give them out at a service where you tell people to simply give them out in the coming week to anyone meet in the course of life or with friends and neighbors. No pressure or intimidation, just share.

**Have a challenging message on the card, something like: “Everybody feels like they will live forever…..the question is, in what neighborhood?  Check out our website for some options and an upcoming event…….”

**In addition to informational links on your website also have a confidential email address with volunteers who will interact with seekers promptly.

**Monitor your web statistics to see what happens.

**Report the results to your congregation and challenge everyone to pray for the people who receive the cards.

Don’t stop with doing this for just one event

Make the creation of invitation cards for every special event an ongoing ministry so people expect them, pray about them, and look forward to seeing how God uses them in your church.

 

Why we need to share the gospel at Halloween and the tools to help you do that

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In church communications, we do what we do because we believe that the eternal destinies of people depends on how they respond to Jesus. We know that--but in the midst of long days and overwhelming demands it is easy to forget.

As we approach Halloween, I know this isn't a holiday most people think of as being particularly spiritually challenging, but it really is. At this time of year, everyone is thinking about and talking about the supernatural and that makes it one of the easiest times to bring up the topic of the one person who conquered death--Jesus.

Erasing hell, a great motivational book for Halloween outreach
This book provides great motivation for Halloween outreach because it is a reminder of the eternal consequences of our decisions about Jesus.

Francis Chan's and Preston Sprinkle's book, Erasing Hell. In addition to being a very well-researched and well-written book, I greatly appreciated the tone of the book, which is one of gracious, gentle conviction.

Though the tone is gentle, the topic is about one of the hard issues of our faith--the eternal destiny of people who die without Jesus as Savior. Universalism, the idea that eventually everybody goes to heaven, is the popular answer today (one of the great promoters of this being Rob Bell's book, Love Wins), but popular as the idea might be, as this book shows through careful historical facts and careful biblical exegesis, universalism is simply wrong.

As much as we might wish it were otherwise, the eternal destiny of every person--literally heaven or hell depends on what we do with Jesus. Your job is to make that clear and that is why your work in church communication is of extraordinary importance. We can do that with our church communications and below is a list of communication resources for Halloween.

The purpose of this website is to help you create communications that enable your church to fully fulfill the Great Commission. That is why we do all we do.

[Read more...]

Simple Timely Tips for the Holiday Season beyond the PC by Gayle Hilligoss

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Gayle Hilligoss Picture
Article by Gayle Hilligoss

Ed note: We all need ways to save time, but at no time more so than at the holiday season. The computer makes so many things possible, but with that come increasing demands and Gayle's advice will help you in ways that will help no matter what technology you have in your church office.

The computer has taken over so many office tasks it could be easy to neglect the scores of time saving tips having nothing to do with technology. Here are some to review—and to keep in your tool box:

• Plan your errands. Make one trip do the work of several. Visit banks and stores at their least busy times.

• Accumulate matters to discuss with your supervisor rather than having several conversations during the day.

• Let a ring of the telephone signal you to relax for a mini-second. Take a deep breath, exhale slowly, ease your shoulders, smile.

• Sort mail when it arrives. Make a stack for each person; place priority mail on top.

• Instead of taking time to read non-essential mail when it arrives, put it on hold in a convenient drawer. Scan it for helpful information during your low-energy time.

• Develop simple forms for hospital information, requests for assistance, funeral arrangements, and the like.

• Use the four Ds of paperwork. Each time you are confronted with paper, either Do it, Delegate it, Delay it, or Drop it.

• Handle each piece of paper as few times as possible. Each time you handle a document move it toward its ultimate purpose.

• Keep a list of needed supplies on the inside of the supply cabinet door. Check your list before each visit to the store or online order.

• Order spares of necessary supplies. Emergency purchases waste time and money.

• Keep your desk orderly. Avoid UPOs (Unidentified Piled Objects). Have a place for everything. Clutter is a time and energy waster.

• Purge files regularly. As much as 90 percent of material filed is never used after the first year.

• Establish a message center at your desk for staff members. A message center for church officers, committee members and others who are in the office seldom is best in an area away from your desk.

• When you work, work. When you relax, relax. Take breaks away from your desk rather than bringing a snack to your desk and having a “working” break.

• When counting cards, count only a fraction of what you need—25, 50, or 100— and stack. Make other stacks of the same height until you have the required number.

• Eliminate forgotten enclosures and save the time involved in sending them in a second letter. Put a paper clip at the enclosure notation before giving a letter to your supervisor to sign. When the letter comes back to you, you’ll be reminded to send the necessary enclosures.

Time management is a skill to be learned like any other. There is no magic formula, just basic principles. Right now you have the knowledge you need to make a significant step toward enhancing your time management ability. Put what you know into practice and you will see results.