Church Newsletters - Are They Still Worth It For Your Church? (2023)

The Case Against Printed Church Bulletins

The truth is that most churches today, especially if they have a decent number of young members, will not use print bulletins.

Of course, all members will have one on Sunday morning, except for a handful of people who awkwardly avoid everything and of course try to sneak into the sanctuary undetected. In general, most people will accept a newsletter, even if it's simply because the receptionist hands it to you and doesn't want to be rude.

From there, it's likely to be folded up and tucked into a back pocket, tucked into the bottom of a purse, or even left loose on a bench. If that happens, there's a good chance he'll get kicked out, perhaps after a shocking transformation first done by a kid and some crayons.

If, on the other hand, you pass through the service and somehow make it home to a reluctant new owner, the future of the print newsletter doesn't look much brighter. You'll probably end up wallpapering the fridge with thirty cousins. If not, it stays hidden in that bag or jeans pocket, that is, unless it's proactively disposed of upon arrival, of course.

My point is that print newsletters aren't just an old tradition right now; in most cases they are completely obsolete.

But before you start writing an email to your rectory explaining that you think they should reject yourschurch bulletinforever, listen to me. The important thing when it comes to printing newsletters is to remember to separate the two words.

The problem is not with the newsletters themselves. It has to do with printing.

The reason church bulletins have become outdated is not because of the information they contain. This is due to the way they are presented.

At this point, printing tons of bulletins every Sunday, most of which end up in the pews, littering the floors of parishioners' cars, or simply thrown in the trash, is a huge waste of time and resources.

Yes, in those days, bulletin printing was a great way to get all your pastoral announcements, information, and sermon notes into the hands of the entire congregation quickly and inexpensively without too much fuss. However, the fact is that they are simply not needed anymore.

The problem is that there are too many better options at this point to justify the labor, and much less expensive work involved in printing and distributing weekly newsletters.

If you're still not convinced that these print newsletters should go away, even after my fiery rant, that's fine. I have some hard facts to back this up. Let's take a look at the numbers together to break things up a bit, shall we?

Crunching the Numbers: A Case Study of a Print Newsletter (fictional)

I would like you to meet Dina. He is secretary of a church in a small town in rural New York with about 150 members, though only 100 of them show up every Sunday except Easter and Christmas.

Dina comes to the office every Thursday to create a bulletin for next week's service. When she does, she checks her email, calls the pastor, and usually makes one last push to see if there are any changes to the information that needs to be included.

Of course you have to, because if you print them, it's the end of the week. They are set in stone. Changes cannot be made. A little scary. But Dina is used to pressure, so she handles it like a champ.

Once you have prepared the report card, you will print it. To speed up the process, Dina's church decided to purchase pre-printed bulletin covers for her. This provides a new look every week without adding anything else to the secretary board.

Of course, "preprinted" only refers to the cover itself. Newsletter content should be printed weekly to keep everything up to date. Dina takes 50 pre-made slipcovers—she remembers that 100 worshipers includes families and children, so 50 should be plenty. She puts them in the church's small industrial copier and prints them out. A few minutes later, Dina is busy folding a hot stack of freshly printed newsletters and in half an hour they are ready for the receptionists.

The idea of ​​quickly printing dozens of newsletters may seem cheap enough, but let's take a moment to see how much it really costs Dinah's little church to produce this outdated information each week.

First, there are the preprinted newsletters themselves. Based on my research, a set of fifty of these boxes purchased in bulk should cost between $4 and $5. For simplicity, let's round up to the last item.

Also, you have the cost of the ink itself. Again, I had to do some research, but my rough estimate is that you spend about $2 on ink to print 50 newsletters a week.

This gives us $7 a week or $364 a year. ...to newsletters. ...for a small church in Upstate, NY.

But wait, there is more!

Suppose that, despite its small size, this church is able to pay Dina some money for her time. We'll say you're being paid $15 per hour. While the design and format of your newsletter content is essential, whether physical or digital, printing and folding is certainly the extra time that only print newsletters require.

This more than doubles the cost of newsletters, bringing the annual fee to just over $750 per year.

This may not sound like a huge amount, but remember, we're not talking about a pastor's salary or an electric bill for keeping the lights on. We are talking about the mass production of an obsolete item that few of the faithful really want at the moment.

To add a little salt to the wound, it's also worth noting that while receptionists don't usually get paid, they also have to work really hard to get the damn stuff out for half an hour. at one in the morning every Sunday morning.

In other words, printing the bulletins deprives this fictitious small-town church of hundreds of hours and three-quarters of a thousand dollars a year in costs, with little or nothing to show for it.

Not only that, but once printed, no changes can be made.

In fact, if the date on the bulletin changes before Sunday service, Dina, the pastor, and others have to actively run around telling everyone that the bulletin is literally misleading them with incorrect information.

Monthly newsletters: a possible solution?

Okay, let's think about this for a moment. While Dina's church may have been a fictional example, it demonstrates an important point: printed newsletters are not only annoying, but also expensive.

Every week, churches across the country and around the world spend a significant amount of time and money creating their newsletters.

So what can be done about it? While you probably have a pretty good idea of ​​one of the options based on the title of this article, I want to take a moment to point out another option that has been advertised as a solution, but definitely not a recommendation.

I'm talking about the idea of ​​monthly newsletters.

Some churches, looking to save time and money, have opted for bi-weekly or even monthly newsletters. And if that wasn't clear, yes, that literally means printing a newsletter once a month.

There is no doubt that it is a money saver. After all, a quarter of the newsletters is a quarter of that $750, right?

But, and you've seen it coming, right? There is a big problem with this approach.

We have already seen how difficult it was for our fictional friend Dina to print a newsletter with accurate and up-to-date information. Imagine if instead of an entire week's worth of announcements and activities, Dina had to include the entire month's data there.

This naturally introduces several different problems, which I have divided into three main points:

It is nearly impossible to accurately print monthly newsletters without changing the information multiple times during the period covered by the newsletter.

You cannot include details of weekly sermons or worship songs unless you plan several weeks in advance.

A month of information about classes, announcements, prayer requests, and even birthdays can take up a lot of space!

While the newsletters themselves are quite difficult to put out on a monthly basis, another thing to consider is the simple fact that, especially in the modern church climate, not everyone goes to church every Sunday. If you print your newsletters on, say, the first Sunday of every month, whoever misses that week will have to find a copy at the end of the month.

What about church newsletter templates?

church newsletter templatesthey are just a faster way to solve the bulliten. I can't say for sure that it does anything else. And while there are plenty of great options out there when it comes to speeding up the newsletter creation process, none of them solve the general problem of…the answer to whether they still fit in today's world.

leaving my case aside

In short, while an invaluable part of any Sunday service, print bulletins have simply become irrelevant in the modern church. Like change, most people don't want to deal with it anymore.

And before you get upset by such an insensitive and simplistic conclusion, let me remind you that most people don't even bring their Bibles to church anymore. If your parishioners don't even bring physical bibles, why the hell would they want a physical bulletin?

So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I hereby close the case.

But, of course, the argument for why print bulletins should be eliminated, while true, hardly solves the larger problem of how to get basic information to the congregation, which is in large part why newsletters are still printed regularly. .

Wait, what is this? After so much outreach, dare I say there really is a constant need for newsletters?

Yes, I did, and you better believe it's true.

The fact is that newsletters essentially serve a very different and important purpose. We all go to church on Sunday to hear sermons and teachings, not a long series of endless announcements about church policy changes, upcoming events, and who's birthday this week.

If all the information in the bulletin had to be physically spoken every Sunday, it would take half the service time. Many churches have endless announcements and timeshares, not to mention bulletin issues, so to speak.

However, as I mentioned earlier, when we reject the term "print newsletter", we are talking about two different things. I have argued against ending printing, but that in no way negates the absolutely crucial role that the newsletters themselves play in helping the church function on a weekly basis.

As you might guess, I have a solution to this problem and it's available in a sleek and modern digital format, like so many things these days. Of course, I'm talking about digital newsletters.

But before we get too deep into the concept of a digital newsletter—believe me, we'll be talking a lot about them soon—I want to take a moment to thoroughly break down the particular pieces of information in a newsletter, print or otherwise. What are they and why are they important?

This may seem tangential to the main point, but it's actually a crucial step in the transition to a digital newsletter. Because? Because at the end of the day, we take the functionality of a newsletter for granted.

Therefore, it is important that we briefly discuss what and why traditional newsletter content contains before moving your ministry newsletter into a digital format.

If you don't clearly understand what each bulletin item is for, important information may not be prioritized or even lost during the transition.

As for what it does, I have pointed out several times that the church bulletin helps communicate important information to the church.

While this information is important to your followers, it's generally not worth mentioning during the service itself. While every church prioritizes different things, these are the main items you'll typically find in the bulletin every Sunday morning.

Elements of the church bulletin.

It's easy to assume that you already know what goes into a good newsletter. After all, you see one every week, right? If you are a pastor or church staff member, you may even be deeply involved in deciding what to include in your church newsletter.

But that's all. Unless you're part of the team that collects these articles on a weekly basis, you probably don't have a complete understanding of everything that could go into a church bulletin.

In fact, even if you know your own newsletter inside out, that doesn't mean you know all kinds of things that churches around the world consider and include in their newsletters.

I wasn't sure until I did my research. It turns out that you can put several different things in there. This is worth keeping in mind when moving to a digital newsletter, because the space you work with changes a lot and you can redo what you've included in the online version compared to the limitations of the paper original.

These are some of the most common articles in church bulletins.

AWelcome speech. This is especially great for people who are visiting for the first time. Including a few words of welcome or encouragement can help the novice feel at home as she prepares for her first service. It can help connect with them and draw them into the experience.

Weekly Bible Verse, Quotes, Thetithe and offering. The one I always saw on the cover. It's a nice flourish that can liven up and add dynamism to a section of your newsletter that can be difficult to fill with original, interesting, or meaningful content on a regular basis.

your adress. This one is pretty obvious. The bulletins almost always have the address of the church itself. While the need for this is quickly becoming obsolete with things like Google Maps within everyone's reach, it's still a basic bulletin nonetheless.

his phone number. Again, just like the address, including the church number, it's a 20th century calling card that's still number one in most newsletters... even if you can do a quick Google search on any moment.

URL of your website. Far more important these days than a phone number or an address is a church website. This has again become a common feature of any modern church newsletter, and the ministry website URL is often displayed in an obvious place for all to notice.

Your social media accounts. In addition to the church URL, another well-known sight is the inclusion of various social media channels, handles, hashtags, etc., of the ministry. This is great because it not only gives the reader a place to find out more, but also invites them to join the online community.

band biography. I want to note right away that I'm not talking about a long list of photos and names here. That being said, many churches will include a staff member in their newsletter. This can be especially good for larger churches that often struggle to humanize their pastors. A quick photo and some personal information can help your congregation get closer to your church leaders.

time sensitive updates. This is one of the things that comes to mind the fastest. The bulletin is usually full of news, especially urgent. Whether it's a weekly, monthly, or seasonal newsletter, it often contains the latest and greatest information about church small group meetings, worship times, mission trips, local evangelism, and more.

Internal Church Updates. In addition to timely urgency, a newsletter can be an ideal place for an established, more connected church to post financial updates, details about various church ministries, and any other valuable confidential information you feel is worth sharing with the congregation. .

prayer requests. Again, this is common in churches with more "connected" congregations. Approved prayer requests (in other words, requests from those who don't mind letting the whole congregation know their needs) are often included in the bulletins, especially when the church is smaller.

Operation sequence. The order of service, another element of the newsletter, informs diners what to expect when serving...and also reminds forgetful diners of what's to come!

songs to worship. In addition to the order of service, many churches will have a list of songs that will be played during the service.

sermon notes&sermon illustrations. Most newsletters have space for notes. While many people take notes on their phones and tablets these days, sermon note placement is still a fixture and I've seen it used by a surprising number of people.

punched calling cards. These nifty additions to newsletters, also known as "response" cards, allow newsletter recipients to tear them up and use them to convey their own information, questions, etc. to church.

Donation Information. Finally, a newsletter can provide very important information on how people can tithe and contribute to your ministry. Whether it's on a mobile device, at a kiosk, on your website, or on those iconic velvet shopping bags or faux gold-rimmed plates handed out during service, you can always provide information on how to spend tithes and donations. directly in the Newsletter.

For those who count at home, there are 15 different articles that you can include in your newsletter. And that's not all. I just had to cut a list somewhere.

Now of course a lot of these things are discretionary and not necessarily included in every certificate. On the contrary, I don't specifically recommend that you try to include everything here because you will end up with a novel that will put off anyone who wants to read your newsletters on a regular basis.

All I'm trying to do here is break down what might go into an average newsletter, as that's the most important information you don't want to miss out on when considering saving on the cost of printing your weekly newsletter.

The variety of valuable information contained in newsletters is useful to so many people in so many different ways in the short and long term that it's hard to get rid of them to save a few bucks a week.

Remember that the goal is to get what is important to those who need to hear it in the most efficient and agile way possible.

So what do you do to preserve all this information while saving your church hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year?

introduceboletin digital...

digital church bulletins, revolution

So far we have basically made two general observations.

First of all, printing weekly newsletters is an outdated and expensive practice used only by a small minority of people who hardly ever throw them away once they receive them.

Second: Newsletters, as a concept, serve a very important and timely purpose of providing and communicating a wide range of critical and timely information to both your congregation and visitors.

Unfortunately, these two points are contradictory. The first point makes the newsletter seem redundant, while the second shows its clear importance.

And that is why we are here.

A transparent, simplified, cost-effective and informative solution to the whole problem can be summed up in two words: digital newsletters.

will be digital

The current era is defined by many different things. Social conscience, globalism, individuality, etc. Of all the far-reaching and far-reaching cultural and economic changes that have taken place in recent decades, one of the most defining elements of the 21st century has to be the technological revolution.

Technology has changed at a breakneck pace since the industrial revolution, and probably even more so in the 19th century and beyond. However, change really began to grow exponentially in the second half of the 20th century, and as the 21st century dawned, it accelerated at an incredible rate.

Think of it this way.

Most millennials were born into a world where cable TV was king, the news came on at six and the hunt came at eleven, phones had cords, and the Internet was the new buzzword. Just three decades ago, shows like Star Trek and movies like The Terminator showcased a variety of wildly exciting sci-fi inventions undreamed of before.

In a very short time, we have been introduced to Wi-Fi, smartphones, tablets, social networks, and an almost universal AI that can answer any question. Not only that, but we're heading towards things like driverless cars and advanced space travel as if they were just par for the course.

Okay, enough technology (sorry, this takes me to so many different levels!). My point is that, from a technological standpoint, the world is a much different place now than it was thirty or twenty years ago.

Whoever was leading the church at the time has an unfair advantage. In the old days, you could learn how things were done "in the past" and just apply that knowledge in the future.

If you were to go on stage and start preaching, people would physically come to hear you at least once a week.

If I had provided a Biblical reference, I would have heard dozens of open paper Bibles, followed by that clearly "Biblical" thin crumpled paper as everyone scrambled to find the passage before I started reading it aloud.

If a church event was planned, it was usually done over the phone and at church committee meetings. This would then be available through general church announcements: classic, word of mouth, and church bulletins to keep everyone informed about upcoming celebrations.

In short, the church functioned as it had for a generation or more before. The situation was stable. They were predictable.

Then came part of the technological revolution of the 21st century. As the internet and all its modern devices swept through society and culture, the effects spilled over into the church as well.

Many people no longer attend sermons regularly. They do a live stream from home, drive to their local satellite church to watch it on the screen, or just watch or listen to the recording online again at the end of the week.

When a pastor announces a biblical reference, it's natural to expect it to appear on the screen in big, fancy type. Even if it isn't, the actual printed paper crease has been replaced by a silent slide of fingers as everyone opens their Bible apps and starts navigating to the correct passage (after checking their social media accounts half the time, I might add).

If a church event is scheduled, most of the planning and preparation is done through email, text messages, and organizational apps. When it's time to promote the event and get the word out, be sure to include it in announcements and such, but most importantly add it to the church website and social media channels. This allows the church to provide real-time updates and a quick and easy place for anyone, anywhere to access important event information.

Again, in short, in the time it took a generation to reach adulthood, the entire way the church functioned shifted from old traditions and norms to a dramatic new high-tech model, clearly tailored to the needs of those living in the modern age.

And I want to make one thing clear before I continue: this is good.

I won't get into a complicated debate about whether technology has really helped or hurt the Church. That's not what we're here for.

My point is that if the church does not remain culturally relevant, it will suffer. A church stuck in the past will naturally have a hard time communicating with those living in the present.

This is not to say that past traditions and beliefs are not central to what the Christian faith is. This is obvious. However, the way the church operates must not be steeped in tradition at all costs, or it will quickly become a collection of extravagant but insignificant, empty and lonely physical structures.

The evolution of the small "c" church into a social organization that can thrive in a modern cultural climate is a key part of enabling the "c" church to have a major impact on the societies in which it exists.

I'm sorry. Am I exaggerating the theology? I know we have to go back to report cards. But the matter is so important that it is worth spending more time on it.

Hopefully at this point it's pretty clear where digital newsletters fit in. It's just not an alternative to a print newsletter. This is the natural progression of the Church as it adapts its temporal structure and its activities to reach out to the society in which it operates.

Two decades into the 21st century, people still need information. In fact, they want it more than ever.

And that's what the newsletter is for.

So completely removing the newsletter is not the solution here. Instead, it is necessary to move from print to digital format.

Why digital newsletters are amazing modern tools

I think a good case for digital newsletters might be what we've already covered. But most of it is circumstantial (like the fact that the world "bets on technology, so why shouldn't the newsletter do it too?") and also reactionary (for example, print newsletters don't work, so digital newsletters are an option). . good alternative).

But there are actually a few things that make digital newsletters a great option in their own right.

These are some of the best arguments in favor of digital newsletters alone. It pays to commit to them wholeheartedly as he prepares to convince the rest of his church leaders to stay away from those tattooed dinosaurs he prints every Sunday.

Provides easy access to information. First, we have the information itself. It has to be first because, tell me now, this is the main reason the newsletter exists.

In this case, the good thing that a digital newsletter has in its favor is the ease of access it provides when accessing this information.

Consider this. How many times have you accidentally discarded a newsletter only to crawl under the seats or crawl across the car looking for it when you suddenly realized you needed the important information it contained?

Digital newsletters can come in a variety of formats (more on that below), but whatever the form, a digital newsletter is easier to store and can even be searched in your email folder, website, Facebook , etc.

It is easy to make a design. Going digital allows your creative team to deliver a cohesive and creative newsletter. Consistency comes when you choose a platform and set up a template to create a weekly newsletter.

From there, all you need to do is trade information within the same layout and voila, you can go weekly.

This gives you more design freedom. Along with the constant delivery of up-to-date information, the newsletters' digital approach allows the ministry virtually unlimited control over the design elements themselves.

For example, minimalism and open white spaces are currently in fashion. If you want to work with more open space, you'll have to deal with the natural limitations of an 8.5 x 11-inch sheet of paper, especially with all the information you want to contain.

However, digitally you don't have any hard limits. Layouts, color schemes, fonts, and even length are extremely flexible.

It's also easy to add footage and even video, giving you the ability to update the look of your newsletter without worrying about printer accuracy or the cost of color ink.

It provides constantly updated information. This closure is not a universal rule, but for many forms of church newsletters, especially those hosted on an actual website, the digital concept allows the bulletin to be updated at any time.

Remember our earlier fictional example where Dina, the church secretary, had to consult with the pastor before finalizing the matter and printing the bulletins… on Thursday? Once printed, the newsletters remained more or less unchanged. If something had happened between then and Sunday morning, she would have had to announce it as a solution.

This is not the case with digital newsletters.

A digital newsletter, specially placed on the page of your website, gives you the opportunity to make changes even one minute before the service starts. Heck, you can even switch mid-service...that is, if you want to be "that guy" on the phone during church, of course.

Suitable for two different types of greens. While I've already explained that using digital newsletters saves you money in a financial sense, it can save you money in an environmental sense as well. Regardless of your particular position on protecting the environment, the Bible tells us that we are nonetheless to be good stewards of the earth. Psalm 24:1 informs us that "the earth and all that is in it belong to the Lord, the world and the inhabitants of it."

It's pretty clear that we need to be mindful of how we treat God's creation, no matter what the circumstances.

That said, another distinctive benefit of digital newsletters is that you deliberately avoid using resources, especially paper ones, when you don't need them.

Save time. Finally, creating a digital newsletter is faster than designing, printing, and folding a physical newsletter. It's so simple. Not only do you save money and are a good manager, but you just don't have to spend as much time on the problem.

Ok, I hope now you understand why digital newsletters are worth it. I know it was a long explanation, but I felt it was necessary.

Because? Because despite all the obvious advantages of digital newsletters and the disadvantages of their print brethren, this problem is simply not addressed enough. Many churches continue to work with print newsletters or simply give up and get rid of their newsletters altogether.

Well, I am taking a position here and now to say that there is a third solution and it is by far the best one. Digital newsletters have become the obvious answer to the newsletter dilemma.

The only question at this point is how to go from print to digital.

Long live the church bulletin!

Printed bulletins were the mainstay of the modern church experience. However, at the time, they were just running their course.

As technology continues to drive us forward, it is only natural for churches to adapt to change along with everything else.

This is especially true of the non-theological elements of our services, such as church bulletins.

Newsletters are focused on providing information, nothing more, nothing less. As such, any ministry that wants to stay up-to-date must switch its online information sources to a digital church newsletter. This is a natural progression that can have many benefits, from saving money and time to improving communication and reaching out to others.

If I may quote a line (slightly modified) from Andrew Conrad of Church Management,

The printed church bulletin is dead, long live the digital church bulletin!