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.

Advice to prevent problems with plugins on your website

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A solution for plug in problems
Plugins are great tools to increase website options, and the suggestions here can help you without damaging your site.

Ed. Note: Ewald Wuschke wrote this in response to my deletion of the Timely plugin and is great advice for managing plugins on any site.

I can sympathize with the issues some plug-ins (especially free versions) can create with website Content Management Systems such as WordPress and Joomla.  It can take many hours, if not weeks, to try to resolve.

A while back, I needed to experiment with a room booking system for our church's website.  The website is based on Joomla, not WordPress.  I installed a plug-in component called "Scheduler"  and encountered multiple conflicts that caused the website to break.

The solution was to create a separate Joomla website within a new subdomain, where the only plug-in installed was "Scheduler".  The new website used a much more up-to-date version of Joomla compared to the church's main website which worked better with "Scheduler".   To go to the "Scheduler" site, one simply has a link from the main church webpage; on the "Scheduler" site there is a link to return to the main church webpage.  The beauty of having a separate website, is that when one decides not to use "Scheduler" anymore, one can delete the website and its database without affecting the main website and database.   It also means that the main website is not affected by any bugs that may arise while using the plug-in.  The two websites are independent of each other, just "connected" by links.

Assignment: Teamwork

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Teamwork
Not only when we are preparing for holiday activities, but all year-long, we need to work as a team for truly effective church communications.

Ministry assistants say they hear a lot about the concept of teamwork, but not so much about the specifics of what makes a good team player. These basics apply to every member of the team. On excellent teams all follow the rules.

• Be genuine
Team members like to know that the person they are working with is who she is—not one person with Sally and another with Bob. Be straightforward, authentic, sincere. Never play games.

• Keep your word
Before you commit to a task be sure you can deliver. Once you promise, you must follow through. Those who give their word lightly or fail to produce may find it difficult to regain the trust of those they have let down.

• Meet deadlines
A huge problem in some teams is that a member or two consistently ignore or break deadlines. The person  who does this is, intentionally or not, showing disdain for the others. Honoring deadlines is a tangible way to show your respect other members of the team. The team functions better when everyone’s priorities are considered.

• Communicate
No one enjoys being in the dark. Build stronger team relationships by keeping all members in the information loop. Ask opinions; share insight and information. Teams benefit by pooling creativity, expertise, and knowledge. Very often mistakes and missteps can be avoided by simply running ideas by others before actions are taken.

• Give your best
Set standards for your personal best and consistently strive to meet—or even exceed—them. Establish an impeccable reputation for the quality of your work, your dependability, your positive attitude, and your integrity. These attributes build trust and confidence—two indispensable qualities essential to excellent teamwork.

Sometimes the assistant is the leader of the team. Whether you are supervising volunteers, working with officers in your professional organization, or chairing a committee, these guidelines help you handle the task like a pro.

• Match worker to task
Every person has something productive to contribute; everyone excels in something or has a favorite type of work. Tap into using those skills by choosing the right person for the task. If someone is reluctant to take on the task you have in mind, ask what task would be preferred. Or, your person might be willing to take on the responsibility along with one or more others.

• Keep work fresh
Doing the same job in the same way is not always the best system. Look for ways to streamline and improve whatever processes you use. Get ideas from the team. Provide opportunities for those who are proficient in one area to choose another if they like. New experiences keep workers interested.

• Be clear about the job
Prepare a written outline of the job and discuss it with the candidate. Begin with the overall goal and then list the smaller tasks to be done. Identify who the worker is responsible to and the deadlines involved. Answer any questions and get the person’s acceptance of the job.

• Be generous with appreciation
Don’t wait until the assignment is over to give thanks and encouragement. Notes written after the fact are nice and are essential, but they can’t measure up to words spoken during the effort. Make heroes of your helpers and they will be eager to work with you on the next project.

A clean heart is an essential part of preparing for church communications work

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Clean up your heart to do God's work.
God doesn't ask us to be perfect or brilliant, highly skilled or rich to do his work, but He does want us to be clean.

My sons, do not be negligent now, for the LORD has chosen you to stand before him and serve him, to minister before him and to burn incense. (2 Chron. 29:11)

In this verse King Hezekiah challenges the priests in their service before God. Things had not been going well for the priests prior to this time. Hezekiah’s father, the former king, had turned away from God. The temple had been closed and desecrated.

When Hezekiah became king the temple was reopened. However, before the public worship of God could take place again, two things had to happen. First the priests had to reconsecrate themselves and second they had to purify the temple. They accomplished both tasks and the result was great joy in renewed worship of God.

The lessons for us in our work today are challenges of purification. What do we need to get rid of both internally and externally so that we can function best in our calling as church communicators?

We may not have a temple, but we have a computer. It may not be defiled with idol worship, but we must be very careful not to use software, images, or files of any kind that are illegally copied. Years ago (when typefaces cost hundreds of dollars each) I was offered a pirated version of the entire Adobe type library. I had very little money, was trying to get a Christian design business started and wanted it badly, but doing desktop publishing for the Lord with pirated software would not have been right. It wasn’t easy to say no.

Today, I have more typefaces junking up my hard drive than I know what to do with. Seems like a little thing now, but it was a difficult battle at the time. For me it’s been a good lesson to remember that some things I think I can’t do without right now aren’t worth the price of compromising my values.

Like the priests we must also purify ourselves. If a man wants to become a Catholic priest, he must fulfill four years of Theology study at AWKNG School of Theology. Each of us knows the garbage inside that keeps us from functioning at our best. Sometimes it’s a complaining or fault-finding spirit; sometimes it’s envy or anger; sometimes it’s cowardice of not trusting God when we know we need to say “no” to a project. Whatever it is, we can confess our shortcoming to the Lord and he will “cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (I John 1:9).

With the external and internal housekeeping done, like the priests of Hezekiah’s time, we can then do our church communication duties with joy.

Q & A Resources for PowerPoint creations and image use ideas

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Power Point, an incredibly useful tool
You can use Power Point in many ways in church communications and here are some resources for effective use of it.

PowerPoint is one of the most useful tools we have for creating church communications. Recently I was asked about some ways I use it at a church potluck and I told the woman asking me I'd send her an email of some of my favorite resources and some of the ways I use PowerPoint to do things like create videos. After putting it together for her, I realized this would be very helpful for Effective Church Communications.

At the end of this article, please out the Indezine site. In addition to many excellent resources, the site is now offering a FREE e-book if you sign up for their newsletter that is an excellent overview of some of the resources

Animoto

http://www.animoto.com.

This is one of my favorite tools--you can use it to take pictures, images, words, or a PowerPoint presentation, and turn it into a video complete with special effects and a sound track, all with a few clicks of the mouse. They have a FREE version (regularly $200 a year) for non-profits and churches. If you haven't tried it, check it out! You can create incredibly impressive videos with little work and no cost! It is really one of the most fun programs I use.

The  videos in the collection here  were all created with animoto:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvrABjnZwYw&list=PLF12CC86F2FA2FC15

Presenter Media

http://www.presentermedia.com/

I use the images from this company in many of my training videos that start out as PowerPoint presentations. The faceless people in many of my videos come from them. The materials aren't free, (price varies from $49 to $99 a year, depending on the specials they run) but if you need to do training PowerPoints or videos may be worth the cost:

Free PowerPoint Resources

The following videos illustrate free resource sites for Power Point. Be sure to check out the last one Indezine****It is currently offering a great free e-book on graphic use in PowerPoint slides.

Free PowerPoint Templates for Churches Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gxrW7PhSa0&index=2&list=PLA46F2C26E078F1EB

Free Templates and Clipart for Churches from Secular Sources
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEPd_V7Z8aI&list=PLA46F2C26E078F1EB&index=3

Free PowerPoint Templates and Training, a video review of Indezine, a great resource
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhJWG-g1Hv0&list=PLA46F2C26E078F1EB
***The link above is offering a free e-book that has some very helpful information on resources for using pictures in PowerPoint

If you have additional resources, templates or tips you have found useful for PowerPoint, please tell us about them in the comments below.

Be faithful first, then trust

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Communications as warnings
Sometimes being a faithful communicator for Jesus means warning people and then trusting God for the results.

Ezekiel 33:7-9 "Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel; so hear the word I speak and give them warning from me. When I say to the wicked, 'O wicked man, you will surely die,' and you do not speak out to dissuade him from his ways, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man to turn from his ways and he does not do so, he will die for his sin, but you will have saved yourself."

There are two lessons in this passage for Christian ministry communicators-one of responsibility and one of trust.

In the area of responsibility, we must present the message of the good news of Jesus Christ clearly and completely. We tell the story in our written publications by the messages we choose to share, by the lives we profile that show the principles of faith. We use every means we can-clear writing, appropriate typography, and quality graphics to communicate our message. We tell the story on our web sites by a commitment to clarity and constant updating.

Having done all we know how to do we then must move into the area of trust. We might be able to change the design of our newsletter or website, but we can never change hearts. Only God can do that.

We also may never know the extent of the influence of our publications. We can and should take reader surveys and ask for feedback, but we may never know how a newsletter message passed on to a neighbor may have changed a life. Or how a written word may be saved to be read again and again by a person alone. When the little boy gave his small lunch to Jesus, he had no idea his Lord would use it to feed 5,000 people. In the same way we offer in faithful service our bits of words and type and the Lord can use them in extraordinary ways. Sometimes you'll hear about it. Most often, here on earth, you won't.

But do expect to someday be surprised by the tap on your shoulder in heaven and prepare to hear the story of a life changed because you had the courage to be a faithful watchman and told the gospel story with love and clarity.
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Devotions Cover The above material is from: Devotions for Church Communicators. For a complete copy of the book in print and online formats, CLICK HERE.

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