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.

Notes available for first video on Desktop Publishing in the Church, How to Use Your Computer to Create Better Newsletters, Bulletins, and More! by Yvon Prehn

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Cover of How to use your computer to Create Better Bulletins, Newsletters, and More!
The cover of my book on desktop publishing in the church. I found the printed notes that go with the video series (done 27 years ago), scanned them and you can download them. The video is available on YouTube. A link to it is in the article.

Several months ago, I posted the first video I did on desktop publishing in the church, How to Use Your Computer to Create Better Newsletters, Bulletins, and More! 

I uploaded CDs of it that had been created from the original VHS tapes. The quality is not what we expect today, but it was and is interesting to me how the basic principles of good design and communication haven't changed in almost 30 years from when I first wrote the book. Nor have the needs of churches and the still too frequent challenges they have in creating effective church communications. This book was based on Tap the Power of Desktop Publishing which was the first book out on desktop publishing for churches and as far as I know on doing communications with the computer for churches.

The first version of the book was published by David C. Cook and the second edition by Gospel Light. Though both books seemed to do OK, the second one did well enough for the company to do this video series, both companies told me they decided to not continue printing it because they didn't see a future for the computer to be used to create communications in the church. In fact, Gospel Light said they didn't see technology as a whole had any future use in the church.

Well, that was a miscalculation.

But I wasn't deterred--I made photocopies of the book at Kinkos and they sold well at the seminars I taught all over North America for many years.

It wasn't until recently I found the CDs of the seminar and put them on my YouTube Channel .  The link will take you to the first video.

I was frustrated because I couldn't find the notes that went with the videos though I thought I looked all over for them. However, recently, as often happens in my messy office, I was looking for something entirely different and there were the notes, misfiled.

I scanned them and made them into a PDF, which you can download HERE

The book it was based on is out of print, but I retained the rights to it and scanned most of it, and turned it into an ebook. I left out the chapters on computers and software as they were outdated and no longer useful. I renamedCover of Back to Basics, foundational skills for church communicators by Yvon Prehn the book, Back to Basics, essential foundational skills for church communicators. It's part of the soon-to-be-released Effective Church Communications Library, but I wanted to give you a free copy of it to go with the notes. Here is the link to a download of it: https://payhip.com/b/RK9hW
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Free Christmas graphics inspired by Christmas Carols, formatted for Instagram and Postcards

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Free Christmas Card Social media images based on Christmas Carols
Christmas carols are inspirational for more than singing. They can also inspire our Christmas communications.

Christmas carols are not only wonderful to sing this time of year, but many of the lines in them are both inspiring and encouraging to our faith.

My pastor recently preached a sermon challenging up as to whether we had room in our lives for Jesus. In addition to finding it personally motivating, I also realized it would make a great theme for a Christmas graphic, Instagram image, and postcard.

As is usual with these things, one thing led to another, and I created an entire set of images that you can use for whatever you want, plus they are formatted for Instagram and postcards. In addition, I did a layout of the postcards in MS Publisher and created ready-to-print PDFs that you can print off and use.

Below are pictures of the images and below the images are links to download a ZIP file that has them in various formats.

If you would like to create your own Christmas communications using Christmas Carols

Little Christmas angel
This is another one of the images in the Christmas set below.

All of the wording for the images below came from Christmas carols that are now in the Public Domain and that you can quote freely. Following is the link to a website that has a useful list of Christmas carols, both those that are in the Public Domain and those that are still under copyright protection:

https://www.easysonglicensing.com/pages/help/articles/copyright-law/christmas-songs-in-the-public-domain.aspx

Note: if a song you want isn't on the list above, simply google it, as I had to do for one I wanted.

After you know which ones are free to use, it is then helpful to have the words printed out. Here is a site that has that for you:

http://ldsguy.tripod.com/Christmas.carols.html [Read more...]

A Free Template of the Christmas Story and short gospel presentation based on “Hark the Herald Angels Sing!”

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Christmas evangelism bulletin insert size
This is a set of bulletin insert-size Christmas evangelism publications--please share!

This has been one of our most popular communications for Christmas—it's an upbeat, but thought-provoking presentation of the good news about Jesus for Christmas based on the popular hymn, "Hark the Herald Angels Sing!" and I wanted to share it with you this year.

When I first created the piece it was a full-size sheet and in a 3-panel brochure format, but after sending that out (CLICK HERE for original article and for 8 1/2 x 11-inch size flyers and for brochure size) I got a request to create a bulletin insert-size piece. What a great idea! And I was happy to do that. The images are below and below them a ZIP file for everyone to download ready-to-print PDFs, the editable MS Publisher file, and images of the pieces.

I wrote it and created the communications and you have my permission to share or use it in any way you want.

Be creative in how you use it

Of course, you can print them up and use them at Christmas outreach events or as a bulletin insert.

You can also copy the text or the entire communication and share it on social media for your church or personally.

It's also useful to make copies for your congregation to put into their Christmas letters. Either with the templates here or the ones in the link above (where there is a full-page version), you have my permission to upload any of the PDFs to your church websites for your people to download to print at home and share with their friends and family. I've printed them out for my Sunday School classes and people have greatly appreciated it.

Encourage your congregation to put them into their Christmas cards or enclose with gifts (remembering Jesus is the greatest gift of all!).

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A Christmas letter you can use to share Jesus with your church, friends, and family

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8.5 x 11 size Christmas Evangelism PDFs images_Page_2
A Christmas letter that explains the true meaning of Christmas is an essential outreach tool for your Christmas events.

We want our people to share their faith and this communication gives them an easy and non-threatening way to do it. One year, I posted the material below on our Adult Sunday School Class website and gave out a sample to our adult class. I printed the black and white image on a blue parchment-type paper. I encouraged them to go to the website and print it out for their Christmas letters and to share with friends. You are welcome to copy any or all of it and you can put them on your church or class website for your people to share.

Below the sample that I shared with my class are some color versions, spot-color separations, and versions that are in a tri-fold brochure format. All of these are available in two ZIP files at the end of this article. This letter/brochure or any other piece that clearly explains the reason for Christmas and the meaning of salvation in Jesus is essential for your church to share at all your holiday outreach events. Jesus came to save us from our sins, not to give us reasons to buy stuff or even so we can have wonderful family celebrations. We need to be clear about the true Christmas message to people who may only come to our church at this time of year--this piece gives you an easy and effective way to do it. [Read more...]

Introducing the Bibleverse t-shirts and mug shop, merch for you–support for ministry!

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Bibleverse t-shirts
We advertise so many things with our t-shirts and sharing our faith is one. The Bibleverse Shop has lots of them, click on the picture to go to it.

At the end of this blog is a video tour of the Bibleverse t-shirt store, first I wanted to share why I'm doing this.

When you see a snarky t-shirt, how does that make you want to act?

I want to be snarky.

When you see a coffee cup that reminds you of a happy vacation what do you think about?

I think about that happy place.

It seems to be a core fact of human nature that we are influenced by short messages we see around us. Moses made note of it when he was attempting to get the children of Israel to listen to God’s commands about their lives. They heard God speak at Sinai; Moses wrote 5 BIG books of very detailed rules.

Yet during all that, he also recognized the need for less thunderous and lengthy reminders, when he said:

Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates Deut.6:6-9, MSG

Today our visual reminders are not on doorposts or phylacteries (the leather boxes, Orthodox Jewish men wear on their heads and arms during prayers) but as I realized when I was praying about how to get people to think about God’s Word more, want to learn about it, and live by it, today we have mugs and t-shirts!

There is a t-shirt for everything.

A major event happens, and t-shirts appear almost before the news blast is over. People’s politics, beliefs, causes, and attitudes are all loudly proclaimed by the t-shirts they wear.

So as part of my ministries of wanting to get people to focus more on God’s Word (www.Bible805.com) and effectively creating church communications, I thought I need to learn to create t-shirts! Maybe that tiny turning to the things of God will lead people to greater exploration.

That was my first idea, but it took the longest to bring to reality. I started researching it, but oh my how complicated (cheery, loud, YouTube videos aside) it is in reality.

While researching that I came across the idea of Printables, (Bible verses and saying printed out and frames as visual reminders) which I quite like and had already been doing for my personal use. That resulted in the Bibleverse Shop, (www.payhip.com/Bibleverseshop) and you can read all about that lengthy process on that site.

But I still wanted to do t-shirts and mugs.

Designing them was super easy for me but how to sell them? And more importantly, how to sell them without being consumed with the business details of sales tax, shipping and much more?

My primary ministries are teaching and writing (through www.Bible805.com and www.effectivechurchcom.com ). The creation of these items I realized could be an important way to support the ministries, which I desperately need to do, but I could not let that overwhelm my teaching and writing time.

Fast forward through months of trial and error (I am a slow learner in some things) and I’ll detail it more on my blogs, but I finally found www.payhip.com to sell the Printables (check out my store at www.payhip.com/bibleverseshop  ) and www.bonfire.com to sell my t-shirts and mugs.

Here are some of my final products:

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Yes, for those of you who know about such things, I could make more profit with other companies than Bonfire, (for a $17-$23 product I get maybe $4-$5), but Bonfire does ALL the hosting, handles the shipping, and most important of all to me pays the proper sales taxes to the states and countries that require it.

The Payhip and Bonfire people have been quite pleasant and helpful to work with, do not charge anything until a product is sold, and their interface for uploading products quite simple and intuitive (compared to dreadful ones like Shopify, Woo Commerce, and others).

I am extremely excited about this new adventure. I love to create designs when my mind is too tired to write or teach, and I feel like it gives me a way to make the most of my time for our Lord.

But what I feel is not as important as what I pray the mugs and t-shirts do for you. When you sip your morning tea or coffee, I pray the encouraging words will help turn your mind to Jesus. When you wear a t-shirt with a Bible verse or Bible-inspired setting I pray it will help you remember to represent Jesus well and give you an opportunity to share about your life in Him.

I also pray the shop will be a practical way to support the Effective Church Communications and Bible805 ministries—a win-win for all concerned!

Here is a video review of it: