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.

Free Image and media resources for church communicators

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Clip art is a key element to your seasonal masterpieces--here are lots of free resources
Images are a key element to your seasonal masterpieces--here are lots of free resources

In the coming months you'll be creating lots of communications for ministry and outreach over the holidays. As you do this, the following list of resources will help you with new images, photos, and an incredible way to create videos. All of the resources below have free sections, however, be careful because many of them also offer images for sale to finance their sites.

I didn't include standard, Christian sites because most of you already know about these and many of the images we use today are not your standard old-fashioned clip art images, but thematic photos.  I did include some basic clip art resources, but also a number of very contemporary photo sites.

I also included some smaller, new sites—if you like the material on these, be sure to download it ASAP—some of these sites don't last long, but have great images available while they do. Also, download the images before the site owners realize how much work it is to keep up the site and start charging for it, as I've seen happen on some sites.

TIPS on image collecting and organizing images and media

  • It's never too early to start collecting and organizing images for the upcoming holidays (and after Christmas it seems like Easter comes quite quickly). Here are a few tips to help you keep from getting overwhelmed.
  • Create folders on your computer for the different holidays and the images you'll save.
  • After some preliminary searching, decide on a theme, a look, perhaps even a color scheme for your upcoming holiday.
  • Use down-time to look for images ahead of time so you'll have them when you get ready to put your communication projects together. Doing this ahead of time makes actual production go much more smoothly.
  • If you have a laptop at home (this is what I do), browse through these resources while watching TV. There are thousands of images available today and it can take many hours to go through them to find just the right ones at the right price (free) for ministry projects. When I do this, I don't feel so guilty for watching TV.

Photos & other media

In many communications and on websites today the trend is towards using photos and not clip art (though there are times in church communications when clip art is still incredibly useful). Many church communicators think they need to buy photos, but the sites below have some excellent ones and all the photos are free and copyright free to use.

http://pixabay.com/  This site has an incredible collection of high quality photos that are all free to use under Creative Commons license. This site also includes simple vector graphics and illustrations. It has a useful search box that you can also sort your searches for photos, vector, or illustrations only.

http://www.imcreator.com/free/ Fairly new site, contemporary, high quality images. Many require attribution, but are free. Also has icons, website templates.

http://picjumbo.com/ very nice, contemporary photos, many of them free. Has a good listing of categories for searching. Not a huge site, but useful for up-to-date subject matter.

http://publicdomainarchive.com/  Interesting collection of images—some taken by the site owners others from public domain resources. Some are free, some for a membership fee. Worth checking back often as they post new images each week. They don't have a good search function.

http://nos.twnsnd.co/ New Old Stock—advertises itself as lots of uploaded old images or images in the public domain. Made me feel really old to see the space and astronaut images included.  No search function; and not particularly holiday related, but some great images and fun to scroll through.

http://magdeleine.co/browse/ "handpicked, free photos for your inspiration" very nice, contemporary photos, free to use attribution required. One nice feature they have is a search tool that you can search based on colors.

CLIPART and Image Resources

http://www.clker.com/ simple clip art images for the holidays, with an emphasis on very simple images, but often that is exactly what you need.  You have to scroll past some ads, but thousands of images here. One other useful feature is when you click on an image, they include a number of similar ones, e.g. search for "Santa" and on the download page are dozens of other Santa images in many different styles.

The program also has a built-in simple editing program, SVGEdit.  For example if you download a line drawing of Santa, you can open up the program and with one click change the color of the image to a red, instead of black line drawing.

http://thepatternlibrary.com/ Fascinating collection of patterns—not a lot of them, but definitely worth looking at and downloading—you can do so much with them later.

Videos

www.animoto.com  I LOVE this program! It allows you to create incredible videos (think alternative announcements, etc.) by simply adding images and captions, hitting a button and then the program turns them into great videos with amazing graphics and transitions. When you first look at the program you may wonder why it is listed as "free" but scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see a section for "non-profits" where you church can get a free membership.

I know there are many other sites, PLEASE send me the ones you like and I'll do another collection of them, email to: yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.

 

 

 

Will Your Visitors Become Members?

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Make it easy for people to become part of your church.
Make it easy for people to become part of your church.

An indisputable fact: Across the United States, and perhaps in other countries as well, church attendance and membership have been steadily declining over the past several years.

Researchers and scholars offer scores of societal changes as the reason: busy lifestyles,  disintegration of family, more mobile populations, growing demands on time, religion being viewed as irrelevant—and on and on. There are, no doubt, elements of truth in all these findings. But my experience leads me to believe there is another factor, one much closer to home. Just how welcoming are our churches? Do we put our best foot forward? Can we see ourselves as a visitor might? Do we display hospitality? Are we willing to embrace others and encourage them to become a part of our fellowship?

Moving to a new community and looking for a church home gave me a fresh opportunity to be a visitor. Some observations on things churches can do to attract visitors and encourage them to come back—

• advertise in the local paper; make sure times and directions are clear

• provide visitor parking convenient to the main entrance

• have adequate and attractive signage for parking, entrances, the nursery, restrooms

• train greeters in the art of offering a friendly and meaningful greeting

• provide an attractive and informative bulletin

• provide a greeter who walks visitors to the sanctuary doors and directs them to seating

• equip pews with visitor cards—and sharpened pencils

• give a general “welcome visitors” from the pulpit

• provide an opportunity for visitors to meet the pastor after the service

• offer a “Meet First Church” brochure to visitors; at least have them in pews

• provide a little memento of their visit: a pen, notepad, booklet

• absolutely send visitors a letter!

Unless yours is a very small congregation, your church may have more visitors than you realize. Sometimes visitors slip in and out with no recognition at all—no handshake, no smile, no greeting. Some have been invited by members.; others have sought you out on their own. All are seeking. We don’t know all their reasons for coming, but we can safely assume they want to feel valued, accepted, welcome. These arepeople—not numbers. Treat them as you would like to be treated. Take an interest in them. Show by your words and actions that you care about them.

Each visitor comes away with an impression. This is not a matter of being judgmental. Visitors are often deciding if this is the church for them. Is this where they will fit in, where they will find a place of service, where they will grow in their faith and have opportunity to make a difference.

There are fair, better, and best ways of extending a welcome. Would you rather be asked, “Are you visiting?” or greeted with a friendly “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Ann Smith.” Whether the person is a visitor or not, this greeting gets people acquainted.

One thing not to do: In an attempt to extend a welcome, some churches ask visitors to stand and introduce themselves. A good intention, perhaps, but it makes many visitors uncomfortable.

Even in the friendliest church, the cue for hospitality must come from leadership. Someone, the pastor or an assigned person, must lead members to be aware of new faces and to personally greet those with whom they are not acquainted. Greeter training is essential, but few things are more noticeable to a visitor than a pastor who sets a positive example. Staff and members who stay involved with one another or with family and friends—at the expense of welcoming newcomers—miss a great opportunity. It may seem quaint, but visitors (not to mention members) appreciate a personable pastor.

Those who sing in a choir or as a praise group play an important role in creating a friendly environment. It is such an attractive thing when folks singing praises to God allow their faces to show joy. And such a distraction when they don’t. Week after week some singers look positively unconvinced of the message they sing. What a missed opportunity to be a positive witness.

As important as a friendly welcome on the day of the visit is a personal written welcome arriving within the week. In this time of digital communication, a real letter makes a statement. Using a template is fine, but personalize it with the visitor’s name and adjust as necessary. Enclose a brochure about the church ministries and any other printed material that may be of interest—a small flyer about VBS, a special study, or whatever. One church sends along a neat little memo book/calendar. Very nice.

The pastor’s added handwritten note (“So good meeting you” or similar) is gold!

Next Lord’s Day try to put yourself in the mindset of a visitor and see your church through his/her eyes. You may find some things you can do differently to encourage visitors to become members—and to encourage your members to invite others. Details do matter.

 

Want to attract young families to your church? These communication tips may help

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Lots of tech tools and challenges are needed to reach younger audiences.
Lots of tech tools and challenges are needed to reach younger audiences.

Many churches in America have aging congregations and a constant prayer in all of them is that they attract young families to the church.

A primary response to this need is for churches to upgrade their children's programs and make certain their nurseries are spotless, attractive, and well-staffed. Though facilities responses are essential, other communication responses are also important if your church wants to have a family come back more than once.

You've got to speak the same language as younger people

Imagine if you were invited to a party by a close friend. The friend tells you that the people are great and you'll have a fantastic time. You approach the party with excitement—but when you open the door, you discover that the party guests are all speaking the language of their native country and English isn't allowed. They are all English speakers, but they prefer to not speak it at their parties. They smile and are very nice. They offer you food; they have a game room for your kids; but when you try to talk to them, they shake their head and say your language isn't allowed. You will probably leave as quickly as you can and decide you never want to associate with that group again.

The language of many young people today is technology and if you don't speak that language, they will feel about as welcome as the guest in the story above.

Technology communication tips

Attitude is one of the most important things in learning to speak the language of technology.  You may not know how to do the things that are suggested below, but admitting that your church is working on these areas and perhaps even asking for help to implement them, will go a long way to making technology speakers feel at home.

None of the comments that follow should be taken as a recommendation that you do away with any of your current means of church communications. You still need printed Bibles, email, phone calls, postcards, and whatever else the people in your church use for communications. The challenge today is that we can't do away with past means of communication, but we continuously need to add new ones and here are some to consider:

Allow the use of cell phones and tablets in church and adult education classes

This seems so basic, but I still see church bulletins that tell people not to use their phone even to read their Bibles in church. One church went so far as to give a mini-lecture in print on how irreverent it was to read the Bible on your phone and how distracting it was to those around you.

I don't imagine many who were used to reading the Bible on their phones came back a second time to that church.

In contrast, at another church when it's morning time to read the Scripture for the morning, the Pastor invites people to follow along, "either on the screen in front, your printed Bible, or whatever electronic device you enjoy using."

It isn't surprising that this church, with a large aging congregation, has recently been running announcements in the bulletin asking for volunteers in the ever-growing children's programs.

Be sure your website is responsive and constantly updated

A responsive website is one that can be easily accessed on a smart phone.  A responsive website resizes so that text can easily be read on the smaller screen. A website that isn't responsive can be accessed with a smart phone, but it's hard to read and extremely difficult to find anything on it. For people who use their smart phones to look up every part of their lives, if your church makes that impossible, they won't bother to go to a desktop computer or call the church office.

Making a church website responsive can be as simple as changing the underlying template for the site, if your site is built using WordPress.

For a more complete explanation of what responsive sites look like and how they work, CLICK HERE https://www.effectivechurchcom.com/2012/09/a-primer-on-responsive-websites-what-they-are-and-why-they-are-important/—this article is a couple of years old, but is a good illustration of them.

Text important messages

Email is no longer the latest and most efficient way to contact people. Many people today don't ever look at a desktop computer unless their job requires them to. They access all the media and information they need through their smart phone and seldom look at email. It can be depressing to realize after all the work you do on creating email newsletters that many people won't look at them.

Texting is the next challenge to learn if you want to communicate with the people who don't access email. Here is an article that tells you how to send group texts on your smart phone: http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/mobile-phone/3472964/how-send-group-texts-from-android-iphone/

Have the option to give electronically

Many people pay all their bills electronically today and some have few or no paper checks. If you want them to give to your church, you need a system where they can do this. Not only will this make it easier for people who prefer to pay this way, but many churches have discovered that electronic giving makes contributions much more consistent. I was going to link you to a Christian Computing article about this, but they switched to a Wix site and don't have a search box, so the best advice on this would be to ask churches in your area what software  they are using and if they like it.

Have your pastor's sermons and those of other teachers available online, preferably on iTunes

Sunday is no longer a sacred day and many people have changing work schedules. Because of that, they may not be able to attend church regularly. If people miss, they may want to hear the sermon and if the only way you have them available, if you do, is on CD or tapes, many younger people simply won't bother. Many of the church website templates have automatic ways to put audio files on your site. Getting your material on iTunes is more complex (I still haven't done it, hope to do an article about it soon), but important to do it if you want to make your message available.

Make social media more than a logo on your bulletin or a link on your website

If you or someone on staff isn't regularly interacting with your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Google+ accounts, don't just put these on your bulletin or as a link on your website because that's the "in" thing to do. These tools are called "social media" for a reason. If you aren't involved with them, don't bother. Better though is to get a volunteer who loves interacting on these sites and will do it for the church.

A final note—the technology advice above is for more than younger families

Confession time here—though I do think everything I said above applies to attracting young families to your church, the article above could also have been labeled, "Some tech communication  lapses in churches today that really bug Yvon."

I am far from being described as a member of the young family target audience, but my love of and involvement with technology make all the issues above important to me. I was motivated to write it after viewing one too many church bulletins and church websites that didn't have these things and personally being bothered by them.

The point here is not about my cranky preferences—it is about being all things to all people that we might win some, no matter what technology they use or what age they are.

 

 

 

 

Firefighter or Assistant—Be Happy in Your Work

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Fire Fighter or Secretary
Do you feel like a Fire-Fighter or Secretary in your job at church? This article will help you be happy no matter what!

The conversation was a lively one as some fifty ministry assistants discussed both the frustrations and joys of their particular calling. One expressed the feelings of many when she said with a wry smile, “What we need to know is how to be happy in our work even when we feel more like firefighters than secretaries.”

• Most of us have heard at one time or another that there are two ways to be happy: getting what you want, and wanting what you’ve got. This certainly applies in the church office. There, as elsewhere, choosing the second way is more realistic.

• Mary may want an organized boss, the most updated equipment, a full-time assistant, and a substantial raise. She may have tried to bring about all four, even making progress in some instances. Now, she can choose to be unhappy because she doesn’t have all she wants or she can choose to be happy by wanting what she has.

• Let’s be clear. Wanting what you have doesn’t mean settling for whatever someone else decides your life will be. It doesn’t mean toughing out disrespect or abuse and labeling it as okay. It doesn’t mean ignoring ways to bring about change or improvement anywhere and everywhere you can.

• Wanting what you have does mean accepting things and people as they are, not allowing them to cause you unhappiness because they are not how you want them to be. It means being resolved to find satisfaction in every moment, whether that moment brings something to enjoy and remember or something to change and forget. It means not letting a less-than-perfect world spoil your sense of contentment and well-being.

• Ministry assistants get a lot of what they want from their job—theirs is meaningful service. Still, many identify firefighting exercises affecting their ability to enjoy their work to the fullest. If they got what they want—

  • staff members would be better time managers
  • adequate funds would be available for necessities
  • the assistant’s input would be valued
  • communication with staff and members would be better

• Your own list may be different. The point is, we all have work situations we would like improved. We can focus on negatives, complain about them, and let them cause us unhappiness. Or, we can see them as only part of the picture, a part we may or may not be able to change.

• In the final analysis, it is not what goes on around you that determines how much you enjoy your work. It is how you respond to the circumstances. You can be happy in your work, not because it always gives you all you want but because you want what it gives—challenges, ways to make a difference in people’s lives, a path of service in God’s work, opportunities to grow, a means to make a living, whatever is important to you.

• Choose to be happy. Even if you have to grab that fire hose now and then!

Give visitors at events an information/invitation card so they will return

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Generic Come back to church card
People won't automatically come back to your church if you don't invite them!

Life is busy, people are stressed, and no matter how much we might want to attend an event, if we don't have the details of time, location, directions, about it, it's not likely we'll show up.

Keep your crazy schedule in mind to motivate you to create information, invitation cards to give to people who come to special events at your church. No matter how much they an event you put on, they won't automatically know that you have Sunday School for kids, what time your Sunday service starts, or that you want them to return.

If your outreach was for unchurched people, they might not even know that your church does a regular service on Sundays. True story here: a few years ago I talked to a woman who always attended the outreach events at a local church. When I asked her if she also attended on Sunday, she was very surprised. "You mean they do things on Sunday too?" she said. She did not grow up in a church and she honestly thought that the church just put on nice community events for the holidays.

Don't expect people to return—invite them back!

That's where a card like this is helpful. It gives basic information and warmly invites people to return.

Though it's great if you can create follow-up cards for the specific events you host (and there are lots of examples of them on this website), realistically you don't always have time to do them up for each event. This is where a generic one can be useful.

At our church, we are hosting the simulcast of the Harvest Crusade, next weekend. My husband and I are on the prayer team and whenChurch come back card Church come back card, front we met last Sunday for training, our pastor said they only had booklets to give out afterwards.

I went home thinking about how helpful an information/invitation card would be. We are new at the church (and love it) and I didn't want to be pushy—but I thought if I drafted one up, even if it didn't work for the church to use it, it would be a great training tool to share with all of you.

Everyone can look at the card for ideas—it has all the basic information on one side and a note from the Pastor on the second side. Give one to everyone you can at events and your members can also use them anytime as an invitation for the church. It's one more way to encourage people along the path of coming to know Jesus as Savior.

Below is a ZIP File that has the MS Publisher file you can use as a template to create your own.

CLICK HERE to download the ZIP file. Save it and then click to open and use.