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.

A Season of Inviting, start the fall off right

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As I was doing research for creating invitations to get people to come back to church, I found this absolutely FANTASTIC video and group in England that has taken the idea of just one Sunday to invite people to a season of inviting. The video is a joy to watch and the idea of expanding from one time to a whole season of inviting.

Giving your congregation six times throughout the fall and advent season to invite people to church greatly increases the possibility they will attend. I just found this and am still thinking and praying about how I will use this for Effective Church Communications--but for now take a few minutes to watch the video.

Two videos on Back to Church Sunday

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/we-all-know-we-should-invite-our-friends-to-church-heres-how/

Come back to church, two videos

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2012/08/come-back-to-church-two-videos/

This link goes to one of my very favorite videos here on inviting a stranger to church, plus an older video, but still EXTREMELY important – it is about Invitation Cards and how essential they are for year-round inviting.

We all know we should invite our friends to church—here’s how

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Every Christian knows they should be sharing their faith. Or at least inviting our friends to church. For many a consistent murmur of guilt is ever-present in the back of your mind, sometimes loudly, sometimes softly.

We can’t escape it. We know the Great Commission wasn’t just written to pastors and missionaries, though we wish it were.

What to do?

A wonderful solution to this spiritual challenge is Back to Church Sunday (in the U.S. September 20, 2015). Though this particular Sunday is a day that has been made a national time to invite people to church with support by various denominations and Outreach.com, http://backtochurch.com/, the ideas and challenges presented aren’t confined to this one day on the calendar.

The summary idea is that this Sunday or any other you choose to emphasize inviting provides provides a focus and tools to motivate people to be obedient to Jesus and to share his love.

Following are a couple of very short motivational videos on Back to Church Sunday and Biblical Encouragements to inspire you to get involved. Following them are links to many more resources on this site that provide the tools to equip your church to participate.

Invitation Cards for Back to Church Sunday

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2014/09/invitation-cards-for-back-to-church-sunday/

The link above goes to the invitation cards pictured in the video.

Come back to church, two videos

https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2012/08/come-back-to-church-two-videos/

PLEASE check this out, it has one of my very favorite videos here on inviting a stranger to church, plus an older video, but still an EXTREMELY important one about Invitation Cards and how essential they are for year-round inviting.

Use school supply sales to communicate your love for children for backpacks and Christmas Shoe boxes

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Shop the summer sales to get great supplies for Backpack ministries
Shop the summer sales to get great supplies for Backpack ministries and to save for Christmas Shoe Boxes--here are links to free Bulletin Inserts to encourage your church to be involved.

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ Matt. 25:40

Loving and caring for those less fortunate is a way of showing love to Jesus and at this time of year, you can do that by shopping for school supplies at the greatly discounted prices on the pre-school sales and using them for Backpack Ministries and saving them ahead for Christmas Shoe boxes.

To encourage and inspire the people in your church to take part, Effective Church Communications has links at the end of this article to entries that have church bulletin inserts in a variety of illustration formats that you can use to remind and encourage your congregation to get involved.

Some of the bulletin inserts are  PDFs that you can personalize on the back. There are more designs available in editable MS Publisher format that you can download and modify.

In addition to printed bulletin inserts you can take the same material and use it on your website, postcards, and as email reminders.

The first two links are for Backpack Ministry Inserts, the third one encourages people to shop for your Christmas Shoe boxes when the fall sales are on, and finally a personal article on why this ministry is so important to me.

No matter what else you read, or what you do, take some time and a few extra dollars to love kids in Jesus name by buying supplies they might not have if you didn't care and share.

Click on any title to go to the articles:

Back-to-School Backpack Ministry--an opportunity to bring joy to needy kids

A new set of designs with templates for Effective Church Communications

My personal reasons why backpack ministry is so important to me

Bulletin Inserts: Shop for Your Christmas Child Boxes in August--Samaritan's Purse shopping Tips!

Want to get to know the audience for your church? Just ask.

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Ask questions to learn how to reach people for Jesus
If you want to know the audience the Lord gave you to reach for Him, ask questions!

In one of the presentations on marketing at MarCom 2015, the presenter talked about the importance of understanding your audience better so you can serve them better.

He went on to quote the following statistics:

87% of Millennials say they believe in Jesus

47% say they go to church

The question we need to answer is: Why such a big difference? Why do so many say they believe in Jesus, but don't go to church?

The answer isn't rocket science. The advice they gave answer was to get out in your community and ask.

It really is that simple. You can't look it up somewhere; you can't do a study. If you want to know the answer to why people don't go to church in your community, just ask them.

But don't ask the person directly because you don't want the person to be defensive. Instead, ask them "Why don't people today like to go to church?"

You'll find that when you ask about people in general, the person you are asking will almost always give you their personal answer.The "people" they talk about are themselves and their friends. This is invaluable marketing research for reaching your community.

Effective Church Communication application ideas

A great way to put this into practice is for a group of you from church to go out to a mall or other gathering place in your community, tell people you are taking a 3 question religious opinion survey and ask if they could give you 60 seconds of their time (it really doesn't take long). Here are the questions:

1. Do you believe in Jesus? (no lengthy answer needed, just yes or no)

2. Do most of people you know go to church? (yes or no)

3. Why do you think people go or don't like to go to church? (Here let them talk as much as they want and take notes, but don't push for lengthy answers.)

Afterwards, thank them for their time and if at all possible, have a business card that says something like this to give to each person:

Thanks so much for taking time
to answer our questions!

We really do value your opinion.

If you'd like to find out more about Jesus
please come to our church (add or info)
or visit our website (add info) or
 contact me (if you are comfortable sharing a personal email).

After each person has asked 3-5 or up to 10 people, meet back at church or someone's home and share the results. Ask these questions of your group:

What did you learn about the people in our community you didn't know before?

What was the biggest surprise?

How can we use what we learned to reach these people for Jesus?

Then pick ONE thing you can do and do it in the coming month. Don't make it complex, it can be as simple as changing how you view the people around you.

Close your time by praying for the individuals you spoke to and continue to remember them in prayer.

Last bits of advice

You can do this as a small group, a staff or parts of staff, or a few interested people in the church. Don't make a big deal committee project out of it or something that needs 5 levels of approval before you find out more about the people in your community who need Jesus.

This is not a "witnessing" project—you are simply trying to learn more about the people the Lord has given you to reach in your community. If you have the opportunity and want to share more, that's fine, but you don't have to.

Don't be afraid. Be an objective interviewer and you'll learn a lot. Pray for the Lord's insight and wisdom to use what you've learned to reach your community for Him.

Finally, REPEAT the process.You want to keep in touch with the people you are trying to reach. Don't try to figure them out—get to know them.

 

How to become a missionary and other church communication conference notes

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One of the challenging statements from the Shaddleback Church Communication Summit 2015
One of the challenging statements from the Saddleback Church Communication Summit 2015

A couple of weeks ago I attended the Saddleback Church Communication Summit 2015 (also called "marcom2015" for church marketing and communications).

I wasn't sure what to expect. I hoped it wasn't led by a bunch of young, snarky tech types who had huge church budgets and were enamored with how cutting edge they could be in their social media wizardry.

Also, I had just injured my hip and would be hobbling around with a cane and felt hugely self-conscious because of that. I came close to cancelling at the last-minute.

But I went because I wanted to see what they had to say that might be useful for all of you--the members and readers of Effective Church Communications and I wasn't disappointed.

How I'm going to share what I learned at the conference

I'm going through my notes slowly, thinking and making notes about them. Some of the material will end up as articles on this website, but a number of things I learned are shorter and more of a conversational nature and I'll be putting those on the Effective Church Communications Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/EffectiveChurchCommunications

Please go to the page and "Like" it and you'll receive automatic updates when I post something new there.

About the illustration on this page

The conference started with one of the pastors from Saddleback Church and his challenge to base our church communications on a healthy, balanced vision for discipleship in the church. And the quote in the illustration was a challenge to all of us to prepare our people to be the kind of Christians that can walk outside the church and share Jesus.

When he said that I was reminded of the verse in Hosea 4:6 ". . . my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge." In this passage and similar ones, the importance of teaching people God's will and ways and the consequences if we aren't faithful in our calling is emphasized. That is the job of church communicators—from pastor who communicates the Word of God clearly to the volunteer who creates clear descriptions and directions to discipleship small groups—our primary message is to help people first find Jesus and then grow to mature disciples of Jesus.

To help you remember the importance of equipping missionaries (all your church) in your communications, I made a PDF of the image above. CLICK here to download and print it out. It's 4-per-page and an odd size, but with a little trimming it would make a good handout or bulletin insert.

One of the most important things I learned from the conference

One more reason I hope you go to the ECC Facebook page and one of the most important things I learned at the conference is the importance of sharing with each other. We need each other's ideas, insights, comments, and questions. Church Communicators so often work alone--we especially need people to exchange ideas with, to ask questions, to make comments. Social media like Facebook is the perfect place to do it.

I haven't been the most involved person on Facebook—but after the conference and seeing how many of the church communicators I met use it in positive ways, I have a new vision for its value in creating a community. I will be posting on it lots more, so please go to the page, comment, post your ideas and questions and together we'll all grow in our effectiveness as church communicators.