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.

Bulletin Inserts: Shop for Your Christmas Child Boxes during back to school sales

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Sam Purse bulletin inserts 1
If you shop during Back-to-School sales you can get great deals you can put away for your Christmas Child Shoe box. These bulletin inserts contain this and other great tips.

This time of year, when lots of sales are going on for Back-to-School, is a great time to buy for the Samaritan’s Purse Operation Christmas Child. This is a wonderful ministry where people in your church pack shoe boxes for children in need around the world.

A bulletin insert like the ones to the left are a great way to remind people in your church to buy these items ahead of time.

I'm making our archived designs free for everyone in a ZIP file that has:

  • Ready-to-print PDF files of all the images, 2 to a page, you can print the front without editing  and add any additional church-specific information on the back
  • An MS Word File with the wording if you want to use it in other communications in print or on the web
  • Editable MS Publisher files of each design
  • PNG images at  96 dpi of each file if you would want to post it on your website or in an email.
  • JPG hi-resolution images of each file if you want to use it in your bulletin or other print publication

Sam Purse bulletin inserts 2Sam Purse bulletin inserts 3All of these items are in the ZIP FILE at the end of the article. I

See the official list of items recommended by Samaritan's Purse, and all the related information about what to buy, not buy, packing information and shipping costs on their website: http://www.samaritanspurse.org website.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE

How to edit MS Publisher Templates provided by Effective Church Communications

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The video below shows you how to edit MS Publisher Templates. The set used as an example is a collection of Summer Postcards. The sets of communications created for Effective Church Communications typically have one example available for everyone. That is in a ready-to-print PDF format. For Effective Church Communication Members there is more--not only in the number of PDFs that you can download and print, but the downloadable ZIP file for members has the original MS Publisher file in it. This file allows you to edit the communications and modify them however you want for your church.

This ability greatly expands the usefulness of the ZIP files for Effective Church Communication Members because you can modify them for many uses and situations beyond the specific use or season they were created for. What makes this especially useful for you is that the basic layout work, the artwork, the typefaces--all that has been done and you simply need to change or add the details about events for your church. There are hundreds of templates available for ECC Members that can all be edited in ways similar to the ones shown on the video following.

For more information about Effective Church Communication Membership and to sign up, CLICK HERE.

Note: this is an older version of MS Publisher, so your exact location of commands might be a little different, but the basic instructions are the same.

How to edit Effective Church Communication Templates in MS Publisher


The video below is

What makes the Five Steps different than any other approach to church communications

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5 Steps of Effective Church Communications and Marketing
This book will give you a comprehensive plan to use your communications to take people from outside the church and grow them to mature disciples of Jesus Christ.

Author’s Preface—the North Star of this book

There are many fine websites and resources today for church communicators and churches benefit greatly from these varied resources. In this mix, it might be helpful to clarify the North Star of Effective Church Communications, the ministry behind his book, and the foundational goal of it which is:

How to create communications that will help your church fully fulfill the Great Commission.

This is the one goal around which everything we do revolves. The time-lapse image above of how all the stars revolve around the North Star instead of every star going in a different direction illustrates what we are trying to do. We want to help churches chose a North Star and intentionally revolve all their communications around it.

Our North Star was chosen in obedience to the Great Commission Jesus gave us in Matt: 28:18-20 when he said:

 “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

North Star, to fully fulfill the Great Commission
Just as all the stars revolve around the North Star, so too all our communications should revolve around fully fulfilling the Great Commission. The Five Steps of Effective Church Communications and Marketing will help you do that.

Fully fulfilling the Great Commission means that in addition to helping people come to know Jesus as Savior, your church helps believers become mature disciples of Jesus. Anything less is incomplete obedience. [Read more...]

Great example of ECC Member modifying a template–4th of July to Canada Day

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Canada Day Prayer and Bulletin insert
Click on this image to download a reproducible PDF.

Georgia Bamber, an ECC Member, sent me a GREAT example of modification of the bulletin insert and prayer for the 4th of July that used the acronym GRACE as a prayer for America. She took the same idea and applied it to Canada Day!

She was then kind enough to send me a PDF of her creation which I've attached as a PDF and which you can download by clicking on the image at the beginning of the article.

4th of July Bulletin Insert
Georgia took this publication and modified it to apply for Canada Day.  Click on this image to go to the original article.start of the article.

You have both my permission and my encouragement to do the same for your country. Make it your own—modify the text and the headers to apply to where you live.Use this to remind your people who God wants all nations to experience His grace and to remind your people to pray for it.

Here are the words on the flyer that you can use as a prayer guide, bulletin insert, or an encouragement to pray for your nation either at your national celebration like Canada Day or the 4th of July or anytime your people need a reminder of the need for God's grace in the affairs of our world.

[Read more...]

How to make Bible school more than a happy memory

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Make the joy of VBS last -- invite people back to church!Some of the happiest times of my life as a child were in summer Daily Vacation Bible School and that wonderful experience continues in many churches today. Kids have a wonderful week, but thoughtful communications can extend that week into a continuing relationship with the church.

There are several ways you can do this, but the over-riding idea is that you need to intentionally communicate connect with parents, let them know what else is going on for their children at the church, and invite them to take part in it.

Why this is so important

If you asked a person in the neighborhood of your church, who does not go to your church, "What does our church do on Sundays for children?" you would most likely be met with a blank stare. Most people who do not go to church have no idea what people do in church other than the media picture of people standing around singing with their hands in the air.

The parents of the neighborhood children you worked so hard to reach so their kids would come to VBS are no different. To many of them the church is providing a nice summer community service and they get a few hours of free (or almost free, as many VBS programs charge these days) child care for a week. That the church has anything else of value for their kids is probably something that never crossed their minds.

For the church staff putting on VBS that's difficult to imagine, but it's true and though you want people to so love VBS they will bring their kids back on Sunday to your children's program and begin a relationship with the church, this won't happen unless you are intentional about it. Here's how to do it: [Read more...]