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.

Mother’s Day Connection Cards can minister to family members

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Mothers Day Connection CardIn addition to having a way to connect with guests so you can follow-up and invite them back, the set of connection cards here can also minister to unchurched spouses and family members who may be visiting. There is a link below to a FREE set of downloadable ready-to-print PDFs and editable MS Publisher files for you to use for Mother's Day. These can do more than simply get a name by adding these messages:

Thank you for being part of our Mother's Day Service today. We'd love to stay in touch, answer your questions, and pray for you. PLease fill out the information below and put it in the offering plate. May your Mother's Day be joyful!

Then the normal fill in information sections on the card.

Across the bottom is the following checklist:

If you'd like info on any of the following ministries, please check the box:
Single's Events
Men's Group
Women's Ministries
Children's Ministries

These messages accomplish several things:

[Read more...]

How to use Mother’s Day to Grow your church, evangelize, and disciple

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Mother's Day gets the third highest attendance at church right behind Christmas and Easter. What churches often forget is that the large increase in people does not come from more Mothers attending--they are there every week! It comes from the unchurched children and spouses who show up to make mom happy on her special day.

Churches that recognize this and use church communications in a way that makes the most of it can make it a day truly worth celebrating for Mom's because nothing is more wonderful to a Mother than for her child to come to know Jesus.

Our Church Communications Training School has a short video course: How to use Mother's Day to Grow Your Church, Evangelize, and Disciple—and it will totally change how you approach Mother's Day!

Below are the sets of communication Templates shown in the video with preview images. Click on the title to go to the set you want.

    Click on any image to enlarge and see more detailed previews. Click on the link below the images to download the Templates to your computer.

    [Read more...]

    PODCAST: What can happen if you work hard on your event, but don’t have time to work communications FOR the event

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    Easter joy and links to free Eastertemplates Will you get the same number of people the Sunday after Easter that you have on Easter Sunday?

    We know we won’t, but in Today’s podcast we’ll talk about how you can increase the response by what you do on Easter Sunday.

    Today we’ll talk about…….What can happen if you work hard on your event, but don’t have time to work communications FOR the event

    This is a true story.

    Though the specific event discussed is Easter, the lessons learned from it can apply to any event. In addition to applying to any event, we can all identify with the situation here. The challenges of ministry are so huge, it is very easy to get overwhelmed in one area and totally forget another one. May the Lord have mercy and help us all.

    In one of my seminars, at the break, a lady literally came running up the aisle to talk to me.

    “Oh, thank you, thank you,” she said, “Now I understand what went wrong.” [Read more...]

    PLEASE modify the Templates from Effective Church Communications Resources—an example to show you how!

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    Poem about Resurrection
    This is a creative modification of one of some of the FREE template and text material available to you on this site. You are encouraged to do whatever you'd like with the materials.

    The free templates from Effective Church Communications can be used as is—but you can also modify them!

    Many ECC Members have done that over the years and I love it when they send me the final result.

    The one here (after the link) is by Georgia Bamber from Harvest Assembly in Toronto, Canada. She took the postcard with this text on it, changed the background and put it into her newsletter that she does in MS Publisher.

    Not only did she encourage me (and I hope inspire all of you with her shared example), but she called the text "a poem." I hadn't really thought of it as this and a number of similar things I'd written (and make freely available to you) as poems before. I looked up the definitions of prose and poetry and she was right. I ought to have known that; I was an English teacher many years ago. But having that label on them, I hope to be much more intentional about creating them in the future.

    Poem or simply "inspiring text" as I called it, is available to you along with the many free templates and other text messages. The links are at the end of this blog.

    PLEASE DO send me your creations or modifications along with permission to use them and I will pass them on to inspire others. [Read more...]

    Notes to Boomer church leaders as you prepare for Easter

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    We may be shocked at today's culture and amazed at what people don't know about Easter, but we can't let those attitudes make us less effective as we reach out to our world with a clear message about the resurrection of Jesus. This article has some practical tips to help.

    You don’t have to be an astute analyst of the culture to understand that we live in a far different world than Baby Boomers grew up in. Many Boomer church leaders may be aware of the changes in life, technology, and culture (“You can show that on TV now?), while at the same time planning for Easter church celebrations the same way they did when Ozzie, Harriet and family was the target audience. Being shocked about TV is one thing, sticking with outdated and ineffective ways to promote and celebrate Easter has far more serious consequences.

    If you want share the power of our risen Lord in ways that will change people today and forever, you may need a new strategy, but before we get into that, let me be clear. . . .

    This isn’t about Boomer bashing, any age group can make the same incorrect and ineffective assumptions

    The mindset that needs a new strategy isn’t confined to any one age group, though many leaders in the Boomer generation seem to be stuck in it. I’m not bashing Boomers, this is my generation  and many of my peers in ministry provided the inspiration for this article. The mindset (not the age range) that I see with Boomer friends and church leaders of various ages, but similar mindset, assumes:

    1. People outside the church know the basics about the Christian faith and what’s in the Bible.
    2. Your community members know the story of Easter and are looking for a place to celebrate it.
    3. All we have to do to get them to get saved and be part of our church is to have the biggest, loudest, most colorful Easter service in town, complete with a petting zoo for kids and brunch served on the premises.

    These assumptions range from totally incorrect to ineffective.

    As we plan Easter outreach and celebration, we need to realize that contrary to the assumptions above:

    [Read more...]