There are many useful resources available online to help you in your work as a church communicator. Considering that I was recently thinking about what makes my ministry of Effective Church Communications useful for you—what to expect from me that is unique or different from what is available from other sources.
Though I’ll break it into practical parts for you shortly, overall, I realized a good label for me would be Your Chaplain of Church Communications. This covers what I do, as a chaplain is defined as one—
- Who provides spiritual care and resources
- Is a mentor and a reassuring and trustworthy presence
- Who assists with the spiritual, religious, and emotional needs
Caring for your spiritual needs and providing resources for you as a church communicator is foundational to what I do for two reasons:
- The spiritual importance of who you are as a church communicator.
- The unique ways I can help you be more effective based on the spiritual, Biblical foundation of the resources of Effective Church Communications.
Let’s look at these two areas in more detail now either by listening to the podcast or going to the blog that follows.
The spiritual importance of who you are as a church communicator
As a church communicator, you have one of the most critical jobs in the church both in terms of the potential impact of your position and the spiritual warfare involved in it.
Your position has incredible potential impact in that you are either the megaphone or the silencer of the messages of your church and ultimately of the gospel.
As a megaphone, if you do your job effectively, through every channel and in every way possible, if you communicate the programs, events, and vision of your church to your community, people will connect with the ministries of your church and ultimately they will come to know Jesus as Savior and grow as Christians. You will amplify the messages and ministries of your church to your community. They will literally hear about them and know how to respond.
Heaven will be different because of the work you do.
If instead, you are a silencer, if you don’t do your work effectively (and no one does that on purpose, they usually have not been properly trained) the messages and ministries of your church don’t reach the people who desperately need them. Especially today in our more secularized world, people don’t know what the church does, or what to expect. They certainly don’t know what makes Jesus the only way to God and once they decide He might be the way to escape eternal punishment they usually have no idea what they need to do to grow as Christians. They need more communication, not less.
If you silence the message and ministries of your church because you “don’t want to overwhelm people” or some other totally untrue excuse, people will not hear the message of salvation or how to grow as a believer.
We are involved in a war for the eternal souls of humanity.
The unique ways I can help you be more effective based on the spiritual, Biblical foundation of the resources of Effective Church Communication
The ministry content primarily comes from me, Yvon Prehn—not a company or a denomination, or a larger ministry. It is the result of a singular calling from the Lord. Though you can read detailed background about me (though not necessary) in the ABOUT section of the ECC website, here are some things that make this resource for church communicators different than others:
My focus on everything that I teach is to fully fulfill the Great Commission. That means the ultimate purpose, what I am always thinking about behind all I do, is that ultimately all your communications will either help people come to know Jesus as Savior or grow as a Christian disciple—in other words, fully fulfilling the Great Commission.
This is the North Star of Effective Church Communications. The book and video, The Five Steps of Effective Church Communications and Marketing explains how this works through a progressive system of communications where you take people from outside the church and develop them into mature disciples through the communication steps of Invite, Inform, Include, Instruct, and Inspire.
Biblical motivations and challenges for many of the things I share are foundational for most content. That is why I have Biblical devotions and challenges for church communicators, and why I also refer you to my Bible teaching website www.Bible805.com for additional spiritual training and growth. I strongly believe that not only “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks” but what’s in your heart will come out in your church communications. A strong walk with the Lord and a growing knowledge of His Word will enable you to create communications that accomplish His purposes.
It follows for me because of that Biblical foundation—are two additional differences from other communication resources. Please note that I don’t think this makes ECC better than any other. How any other group follows the Lord’s leading is their call what follows is simply how ECC is different.
I do not take any affiliate marketing or outside advertising. I have an article that goes into great detail on this, but it seems to me that so much, so very much, the majority in fact, of material produced in the online church communications realm today is at its core an advertisement for one product or another. And buying some other product or service or software will not solve core communication challenges.
There are some useful companies and products out there but far too often churches can do what these companies want to do for them if they simply take the time to train their own people.
I do advertise the materials from the overall Bibleverse (my collection of ministries designed to help you get God’s Word into all of life, see links below), but they are the ones I create that are designed to help YOU do the work of ministry and grow in your Christian walk.
I don’t do snarky or silly things. I may at times sound grumpy or more than grumpy, but dear people, we are dealing with the eternal destinies of human souls. This is incredibly serious business.
I can’t remember who said this, but I’ve never forgotten the challenge of an atheist who said, “If I truly believed what you say is true about the eternal consequences of your message, I would crawl over broken glass to make certain everyone heard it.”
I want to shake myself, to shake us all, and remind ourselves that what we are doing is worth all the hard work, long hours, and lack of appreciation if one more soul will spend eternity with Jesus.
It's serious work we do, and I will frequently remind you of it.
I focus on strategy and skills that are timeless. One of the great benefits of doing this work since before the computer was invented (and yes, I’ve really done it that long) is that a breadth of time allows one to see what is truly timeless in communications.
Tools change and are neutral in the great scheme of things. It doesn’t matter if we communicate with crayons or Canva. What matters is that we communicate in a caring way, clearly and completely. With Effective Church Communications I want to help you see that the strategies stay the same and the tools that change are simply new ways of doing old things.
Take, for example, the choice of the typeface we use. I’ve been teaching about the importance of using type as a communication tool and not just as a decoration, for decades. I wrote extensively about type in the first book I wrote on desktop publishing for churches and excerpts of early articles on type (that are still instructive) are available in an eBook on Typography in the current ECC Library. I recently have been teaching some new ways to use type with Canva and I show you that in online videos. These sets of instructions span decades with different tools, but they employ the same strategy to remind you that type, the typeface, the font itself, should always be invisible and the message primary. When people see your church outreach piece you don’t want them to say, “Oh, what an interesting typeface!” You want them to read your message and respond.
I constantly remind you that we are involved in spiritual warfare and the battle is worthy of your best efforts. I have videos and social media; blog posts and eBooks to encourage and quip you to keep fighting the good fight. Please sign up on various social media sites to get the latest materials.
In summary, because of the incredibly important work you do in affecting the eternal destinies of the men and women in your communities and churches, I recommit myself to the work of serving you as your Church Communications Chaplain to give you an ongoing series of spiritual and strategic resources that will enable you to create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission.
In closing:
May the wisdom of God inspire you, may the power of God fill you, may the Word of God direct you, may the joy of God encourage you, may the love of God surround you, and may the peace of God be with you in all your work now and forever, amen
Links to resources from Effective Church Communications
About the Bibleverse from Yvon Prehn
From t-shirts to in-depth training, we need every imaginable media and channel to help us follow Jesus.
This is nothing new. In Exodus, the process of turning slaves into a people of God not only involved thunderous messages from Sinai and a big book of minute rules and regulations, but the reminder from Moses to write God’s law on their doorposts and to wear it on their arms and foreheads (Deut. 6:8-9).
The biblical ideal of God’s Word in all of life is my inspiration for the Bibleverse—a group of ministries that includes Bible-teaching videos, podcasts, lessons, church communications resources, printables, mugs, and t-shirts.
All the materials that follow are from me, Yvon Prehn. To find out more of my background in Bible teaching and church communications, check out the links below.
Effective Church Communications
The Effective Church Communication ministry from Yvon Prehn provides inspiration, training, and resources to help your church create communications that fully fulfill the Great Commission. It focuses on Bible-based and timeless principles and strategies that work no matter what digital or print channel you use to create your communications. Following are links to the various resources from the ministry.
Effective Church Communications website: https://www.effectivechurchcom.com
Effective Church Communications YouTube videos: http://www.youtube.com/yvonprehn
Quality training videos, all for FREE that you can learn from and share.
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/effectivechurchcom/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EffectiveChurchCommunications
Podcast: https://anchor.fm/yvon-prehn
The Effective Church Communications Library
The Effective Church Communications Library is an online library of eBooks and training videos that will inspire you, train you, and perhaps even entertain you in the many aspects of church communications.
The topics that are included in the library are:
*Strategy & Biblical Foundation for Church Communications
*Seasonal Strategy overall and for specific holidays
*Leading & Managing a Church Communication Ministry
*Specific Communication Projects, Print & Digital
*Graphic Design, Writing, Typography
*Images, sources, how to use effectively
*Social Media, commentary concerning it
Link to the Effective Church Communications Library: https://www.payhip.com/ECCLibrary
Bible805.com
This site, podcast, and ministry that includes videos and an online Academy exists to help you KNOW, TRUST, and APPLY the Bible with an emphasis on a chronological, historical approach to the Bible. The Bible805 resources are my latest efforts in a lifetime of teaching and writing about my faith in Jesus. The name Bible 805 comes from my belief that the Bible, Jesus, and the Christian faith is as real as the place I live in (area code 805)—Ventura, California.
Here are the links associated with the Bible805 ministry:
Bible805 website: Yvon Prehn’s Bible teaching and link to all resources: https://www.bible805.com
Bible805 Podcast: from here you can find links to listen to the Bible 805 podcast on iTunes, Spotify, and many other podcast sources: https://anchor.fm/yvon-prehn8
Bible805 YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnQJIt33JE2PxYAAMXcpMeg
Bible805 Academy: https://www.payhip.com/Bible805Academy
805 Bible Facebook Page: https://facebook.com/Bible805
Bible805 Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/Bible805
ONLINE SHOPS for Bible-related products and gifts
These shops were inspired by Moses’ admonition “to write God’s law on their doorposts and to wear it on their arms and foreheads” (Deut. 6:8-9) and because I love to create things like this and give them as gifts in many settings, both in ministry and personally. I created these two online shops—The Bibleverse Shop for printables and social media images and The Bibleverse t-shirts and More Shop for t-shirts and mugs. Below are the links to them.
The Bibleverse Shop for printables and social media images: https://www.payhip.com/bibleverseshop
The Bibleverse t-shirts and more Shop: https://www.bonfire.com/store/bibleverse-t-shirts/
Please share your thoughts, comments, questions!