The church bulletin is a staple, tried and true, trusted in and relied on by all. Bored by the announcements? Peruse your well-loved bulletin. Looking for something to fill your calendar with Thursday night? Yep, the bulletin can help you out. Need to know if giving is up or down? (Depending on your church), your bulletin might just have the answer.
Yet if this is true, why are so many bulletins cast off to the church floor or left on seats, resigned to a destiny consisting of recycling or being thrown out with the half-drunken Styrofoam coffee cups. We create the bulletin with the intent that each and every church member will hold on, write copious amounts of spiritually-inspired notes from the sermon, and hang on to them indefinitely, cataloged in a special file folder at home (okay, I digress, that’s probably just me).
What happens when printing costs rise, volunteer help is down, and people look less and less to paper and more to their iPhones?
The bulletin has seen its heyday; its prime just might be past. The time to change, or at least audit the bulletin’s effectiveness, just might be upon us. I know it’s hard. Most of us don’t like change too much. Or we like change in specific areas like what we’re having for dinner, not how we interact with our church each Sunday.
These thoughts were spawned by a recent conversation with my pastor at church. The times, they are a-changing. In my 12-year tenure at my home church, the bulletin style and format has not changed. Not even once. Same size, same font, same tear off response card, same layout for sermon notes.
While sameness isn’t in itself bad, and change in and of itself isn’t good just for the sake of change, we all should take time to refocus, reflect, and redesign what meets the needs of the Church.
So what are our options for change and growth in the area of the church bulletin? I spent some time researching and thinking about ways to grow, expand, and change in this area of church communication.... Keep reading
Also see
Ebook: Are printed bulletins still needed in church? - See summary of reasons why printed bulletins are still needed in the church
Five Things Church Members Want in a Church Bulletin
The Journey, the church with which I am sojourning here in western Kentucky, no longer uses church bulletins at its worship gatherings at both its campuses. It relies on the church website and social media to communicate information to congregants. We found only a few people were taking the church bulletins home with them. Most of the church bulletins were left on the chairs after the worship gatherings or thrown away in the trash receptacles.
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