In churches, weekend worship services are the prime time to communicate a message. From bulletins to videos to platform announcements, every component is a valuable opportunity to encourage people to take next steps. In our latest report, Say What?! Key Research on Church Communications, we uncover three insights that can help you better communicate through the weekend service.
1. Churches rely heavily on the weekend bulletin to make announcements.
The weekend bulletin is often the “catch all” for church communications. It doesn’t usually take much to get an announcement included. We found the average church bulletin to include seven announcements. Personally, we think that’s a lot. We doubt the average person would take the time to read that much…or be able to remember it all. If your church is offering seven or more bulletin announcements, consider focusing on fewer messages to make a greater impact.
2. Very few churches are using a digital bulletin.
Mobile apps and webpages provide an easy opportunity to share written announcements via smartphones. Such a method could allow attendees to quickly register for programs and add events to their calendars. Despite the availability of this technology, only 7% of churches actually utilize a digital bulletin. There are several benefits these churches experience including reduced paper cost and environmental-friendliness, a key issue for many young adults. The money saved by cutting a paper bulletin could be continually reinvested into digital communications. However, nearly all churches continue using paper.
3. Churches make several stage announcements every week.
More valuable to ministries than bulletin real estate is the coveted stage announcement. Whether through a live communicator or video, the average church makes over four platform announcements each week. We also believe that this is too many to be truly effective. We suggest that churches leverage the stage to encourage just one or two steps for people to take. Setting that criteria will force leaders to focus in on what they believe are truly the most valuable action steps for their churches. This also challenges churches to revisit their ministry calendar to avoid competing priorities.
Is it time for you to rethink the ways you promote in your weekend services? Our latest report is filled with action steps to help you improve in this area. You can also gauge your performance with this Communications Scorecard based on nearly 200 churches.
Best of all, this report comes at no cost to you! We simply want to resource your team to get unstuck.
