Church Communication Link

So much good stuff. I can’t pick just one. Check it out for yourself…

http://www.churchcrunch.com/

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.

Read it here.

—–

by Michael Shead

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www.morguefile.com — (best for backgrounds, outdated people)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