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I read this article and was reminded of how we are to be in the world, but not of it while being salt and light. Salt must come into contact with something else other than salt before it can season or preserve. Light shining in a lit room does little. Light shining in darkness brings hope, directs and changes the situation.
Read about how Rice Temple Baptist Church and how they built a relationship with a Hooters restaurant and loved the workers as Christ loved.
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Advertising on Facebook is convenient, easy to setup and can be pretty effective! We can select a specific audience by age, location, interests, etc. and then bid on how much we are willing to pay per click that we get. A nice thing is that we can limit our expenses per day so we don’t go over budget.
For our leadership conference we wanted to get the news out to the online crowd. Using Facebooks advertising we made one (see at right). We’ve currently draw about 13% of those who come to our leadership site through this ad.
To track traffic to our websites we make use of Google’s Analytics and run reports for leadership through the free tools Google provides. Pretty handy.
Thoughts by Michael Shead
I came across this blog while looking for other ideas today. In it Vandelay Designs comments on the improvments that churches have made on the web.
Vandelay writes… “As far as web design is concerned, churches have come a long way in recent years. It wasn’t too many years ago that most church websites were several years behind the times. Apparently a growing number of churches today are recognizing the importance of their web presence.”
Check out the list of 50 church sites they liked here.
They’ve also got other great resources and ideas on their site.
We had a good meeting today with the roundtable hanging out at Panera Bread and sharing ideas.
Here’s a list of some stock image resources that you might find helpful that were brought up in the meeting:
www.sxc.hu (good variety & free. Read the paperwork though.)
www.morguefile.com — (best for backgrounds, outdated people)
wwww.everystockphoto.com (searches flickr but watch out for images that aren’t free)
Re-discovered by Michael Shead
I was meeting with one of the pastors today and he asked me if I’ve thought about changing up the bulletin. We’ve been using our latest design and size for about a year now. Previously we were purchasing shells from Outreach, then printing and folding in-house. However, with some new equipment, we’ve switched to 12-page 8.5″x5.5″ booklets with a color front and back. Using our Lanier printers and bookmaker the cost for the 2,500 bulletins we make ends up being about $0.15 each. Here’s a PDF version for you to check it out.
So what are you doing? I’m curious about what other churches are doing for bulletins. I’ve seen a church that had a “Bullet” that was about 3.5″x8.5″ and had basic points of what’s happening and then referred people to more info elsewhere (a info booth or Web site).
I consider the weekly bulletin as one of the prime ways we communicate with people although we’re trying to drive more people to the Web site. It just seems that it’s an inexpensive way to get info into their hands and people know where to find bulletins…plus, they usually read or at least peruse them while they’re waiting for service to start or when they take them home.
So, any ideas?
Thoughts by Michael Shead
I just got an updated pricelist from Holland Litho. We’re looking at some new folded double business cards.
Messages–we preach them every week. We hear them on our cell phones. We try to get our message across to our staff members day after day. We even spend lots of money on nice printing, put hours into coming up with just the right examples or download some snazzy video that hopefully, will catch their attention. Sometimes, it works, other times it’s like they didn’t hear a word we said.
When it comes to messages there are some great communication theories with clever analogies of message senders and message receivers and the distortion that can happen in between. It’s interesting stuff. Really…but theories can be quite dry when you’re pretty sure it’s just that they’ve got something clogging their ears. Here are four tips to help you get your message across to whatever audience you are working with…
1. Have a message worth sharing–Ok, I know I’m talking to church folk here so this should be an easy one. Yes, your message is worth sharing, but take this a step further. Having a message worth sharing means you should look at what you are trying to get across and boil it down to the heart of the message. Think how your message would read if it was a front page story. The headline and the first paragraph would have the most important information, then the rest of the story builds on that. Giving all the facts is not nearly as effective as giving the most important ones and then reinforcing them with the details.
2. Give them a “next step”–I’ve heard pastors give great sermons, but fail to provide a next step for people to take. That doesn’t just mean an altar call, though that’s important to provide. It also means thinking about what questions people might have. For example: If you’re teaching your staff about the importance of integrity. Don’t just say, “You’ve got to have it.” Answer the question, “How do I get integrity?” by giving some examples of how you or someone else built a lifestyle of integrity. That’s giving them a “next step.”
3. Tell them again–It’s the principal we learned for writing school papers. Tell them what you’re going to tell them. Then, tell them. Then, tell them what you told them. Reiterating the value and the heart of what’s important. This helps them retain what is so important about what you are telling them.
4. Genuinely care–We are in the church, so you’d think we’d have this down. Didn’t Paul say that if we don’t have love we’re like a noisy gong? Well, the principle applies to communications too. You can have the most fabulous message, presented in the most dynamic way, but if you don’t genuinely care about the people you are communicating with, then that’s what you’ll communicate the most. A great message from someone who doesn’t care is like giving someone a drink of their favorite hot tea without a cup. They might get the message, but they weren’t able to receive it as nearly as well as they would have if you’d included it in a cup of genuine love.
When working with a client or department on any communication piece, it is important to start off with as much of the key information as possible. In our last round table meeting at Kentwood Community Church, one of the things we discussed was how we collect information for projects in a way to really get the most information from the start.
While some clients think they know exactly what they want in a project, the reality is that drilling down to what they want to accomplish is more efficient than just unquestionably making what they ask for. As Becky Martin pointed out, it’s our jobs as communications pros to ask the right questions so we can produce the best communication tools for them to use.
One of the key things that came up in the discussion is the idea of getting to the heart of what the client(s) really want the project to accomplish by asking the right questions.
I like how Becky described a question she often poses to her clients: If you were on an elevator and someone asked you to describe your church or what’s special about your church, what would you tell them when you’ve only got 8 floors worth of time to tell them? Questions like this can be helpful to get at the heart of what they want to get across. If it’s youth that you’re working with try a question like, What is it about this event that will make a teenager want to leave their video game to come?
Another good thing to ask if there are any MUST HAVE aspects of the project so you don’t come up with something wonderful, that misses the point they forgot to mention! Continue reading ‘Asking the right questions’
Have a project that you need something in foam?
Linda Lanning (Sunshine Community Church in Grand Rapids) ordered 13 letters of the alphabet from Arvron. They were 4′ tall, 2.5″ thick and $21 each. “They had lots of sizes of Styrofoam also, if you need a backdrop or other items that are large but you need light weight and portable etc.”
Arvron
4720 Clay Ave. SW
Grand Rapids, MI, United States
Tel: (616) 530-1888
Fax: (616) 530-9232
www.arvron.com
Josh (Central Weslyan in Holland) has had simple and complicated foam pieces produced by Falcon.
Falcon Foam
8240 Byron Center Road SW
Byron Center, MI 49315
Tel: (800) 917-9138
Fax: (800) 626-9942
www.falconfoam.com
Original post by Becky Martin
Original post by Becky Martin
Holland Litho
10972 Chicago Drive
Zeeland, MI 49464
Tel: (800) 652-6567
Fax: (616) 392-7444
I know that Josh (Central Weslyan in Holland) frequently uses Holland Litho’s weekly “Combo Run.” I have yet to choose them (because I can get better prices from www.overnightprints.com on 6×4 postcards, using the coupon “postcardsale”).
However, I thought I’d post the Holland Litho Combo Run Sheet. UPDATED!
My contact there is Mike Baarman.
I have used Holland Litho for several other specialty projects and been very pleased!