Yvon Prehn is the founder and director of Effective Church Communications and is the primary content creator and editor of training materials on church communications for this site. For over 20 years she traveled and taught church communication ministry, skills, and strategy at seminars, conferences, and national conventions all over North America.
She now works full-time in Ventura, CA writing, creating videos, blogs, social media, and books to educate, equip, and encourage church communicators to create communications that will enable their churches to fully fulfill the Great Commission.
Yvon worked in communication ministry as a writer and teacher in a variety of settings. She was a newspaper reporter and religion writer for the Colorado Springs SUN for nine years. When desktop publishing was first invented Yvon was a top-rated, national trainer in desktop publishing for Padgett/Thompson, the nation's largest one-day seminar company. She worked as a communications consultant and trainer for many Christian ministries in Colorado Springs and was senior editor at both Compassion International and Young life International.
Yvon is the author of many books, including the first book out on desktop publishing, The Desktop Publishing Remedy, published by David C. Cook in 1994. She has written for many of the major Christian magazines including Christianity Today, Discipleship Journal, Today's Christian Woman, Youthworker Journal, Ministries Today, Computing Today, Clergy Journal, Church Office Computing, Pulpit Helps, and Your Church. She has been the communication columnist for Christian Computing Magazine for 16 years. Her most recent books include Connection Cards, grow your church, pastor your people, little cards, big results, Devotions for Church Communicators, and Church Communications Planning, Measuring, Evaluating: done a new way--big is busted, try tiny! These books are available as ebook downloads on the Resource section of this website and in print and Kindle editions at www.amazon.com. In addition to these books, she has a number of shorter ebooks available on this site, as well as on http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/yvonprehn (where you can download books in any ebook format PDF to Kindle to Nook, whatever).
Yvon has a master's degree in Church History and has done added, extensive graduate work in theology and communications. She has taught high school English and was an adjunct professor in church history at Regis University.
In addition to her formal experience in these areas, Yvon gets the opportunity to practice church communications in very practical ways. She and her husband Paul (a bi-vocational pastor) have worked in many areas of ministry in the church, especially in single adult ministry, adult education, and small group ministry. In all these ministries Yvon has served as a Bible teacher as well as creating all the church communications and marketing materials, both in print and online for the various ministries and churches she and her husband have worked with. She and Paul live in Ventura, California.
Yvon's seminars, plus her written and web-based materials have helped thousands of people in ministry maximize their church communications and enabled them to use them to help fully fulfill the Great Commission.
To contact Yvon Prehn, email her at yvon@effectivechurchcom.com.
