It is amazing to look at the total resources of time and money expended on church bulletins. Because bulletins seem to be such a trivial issue, we often fail to consider their impact or lack of impact. In reality, the impact is greater than we might imagine. Not only do we expend significant resources on bulletins, both guests and members tend to have pretty strong feelings about them.
Our team has been observing some major trends regarding bulletins. Here is what we found thus far.
- Most churches today still use church bulletins. They are important, if not necessary, according to most church leaders today. Churches under 100 in attendance are more likely not to use bulletins.
- Church bulletins go by many different names today. Smaller churches tend to still call them bulletins. For churches 200 attendance and higher, there is great variety in the names: worship folder, worship guide, information guide, and many more.
- There is an obvious level of frustration among some leaders and members about the contents of church bulletins. The most common frustration is about what content is included and excluded. The second most common frustration is content that is old and dated.
- There are three common usages of church bulletins. The three most common usages are: order of worship; church metrics or statistics; and sermon notes.
- Most churches use greeters to hand out bulletins. These persons are also called ushers in some churches. The distribution of the bulletin is considered an act of hospitality or greeting in many churches.
- Most guests expect to be handed something when they walk in the worship center. So church leaders should realize that the bulletin is an opportunity to connect with those guests.
- The digital revolution and the green movement have not significantly impacted the use of bulletins. Most churches still provide paper bulletins.
- Another frustration among some church members is a sloppy bulletin, particularly one that has grammatical errors. An entire genre of funny things written in church bulletins has been an offshoot of these error-prone publications.
Certainly in the context of important facets of corporate worship, church bulletins likely will not rise to the top. But because they are so pervasive, and because they do impact so many people, they should not be ignored either.
What has been your experience with church bulletins? What would you like to see changed? I look forward to hearing from you.
Posted on November 19, 2014
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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53 Comments
Our church has just celebrated our 3 yr anniversary. We started with nothing. We operate on the bare-minimum to run the church and bulletins have never come up as a need. Our weekly services go on just fine without them.
We are a church with attendance of around 200 every Sunday. I came on staff as the office manager back in June, and in that time we have whittled our eight page bulletin, which we call the FCC (First Church of Christ) Messenger, down to four pages. The first page is a welcome message, list of events coming up that week, a reminder to fill out the communication card which is inserted into the Messenger, and a few announcements. Page two is more announcements and contact info for the elders, deacons, and staff; page three has room to take notes on the sermon; and page four is usually points and questions to consider from that week’s message. The communication card is what we ask everyone to fill out to track attendance, and get contact info from first-time visitors. We have a pretty firm policy that if announcements are not turned in to me in the office by noon on Thursday, they will not be in that Sunday’s bulletin. We also send out an email version of the Messenger, usually on Thursday afternoons. This all seems to work pretty well for us at this point, but we are always looking for ways to improve what we do. Thanks for the info, Thom, I have a couple more ideas in my head now after reading your blog and all of the comments.
I find that too many churches simply use the bulletin for upcoming events or the order of service. It would be much more impactful and read more often if churches would tell a story or two of a past event in the church and how it impacted lives. This is also a great way to shape the dreaded announcement time.
As a church secretary, my biggest problem with both the bulletins and the newsletters is the people who don’t give me their items in time for printing. People complain when something is not in the newsletter or bulletin, yet I find myself having to constantly hound committee chairs and other people to get their announcements to me. It is very frustrating.
Thanks for that good perspective, Nancy.
The church I used to attend included the monthly calendar as a bulletin insert on the last Sunday of the month. Then it was uploaded to the church website.
The secretary did not chase down anybody, or any group, for confirmation.
If event data was not provided by the cut off day, the event was automatically cancelled, regardless of tradition, or anything else. Funerals were the only exception to that rule.
Nancy, our church secretary would absolutely agree with you. I’ve heard her complain numerous times about people, like the song leader, who takes too long getting her the songs and song #’s for the order of worship. It seems to be a constant problem with one of our song leaders.
As a printer of the bulletins every week, I spend hours trying to get everything in there. I have found that since I am now printing in color, more people seem to read them. We get special paper that has a tear off for visitors to tear off and fill out. This has been a great tool to connect with those visitors that we might miss out on before they leave the building. It has a place for name, address, phone # and ages of children, etc. This has been a great way to obtain that info. Yes, there are some that don’t fill them out, but for the most part, they do. We have an order of service and also have announcements on the back with scripture on the front. We also do an insert with a place for sermon notes. We have so many different things going on each week, especially this time of the year, I can’t see us not having one. I feel like no one would know about the different things going on in the church that week. We do newsletters as well, but it seems we always need reminded of things. 🙂 Our church runs approx 98-120 a week. Great read and great ideas! Thanks Brother Thom!
Great info, Liz. Thank you.
When I first came to the church I currently serve as worship leader (4 years ago), they were producing a “full page” bulletin every week (front and back of an 8.5×11″ sheet of plain paper, not the pre-printed kind), while projecting everything as well (announcements and all the worship elements). During a time of financial crisis, about 2 years ago, the leadership decided to do away with the bulletin (since everything was being projected) to save on printing costs. The first Sunday we went “no bulletin,” a woman told the pastor that it was “shameful” to not have a bulletin, walked out, and has never returned. We now print a half-page bulletin with announcements on one side and order of worship on the other, and have been doing so for about a year. That seems to satisfy those that require a bulletin. (Ours is a church of about 150 members, approximately 80 in regular attendance.)
Wow. Thanks, Jazmine.
By using a tear-off portion on our bulletin, we find out so much more from our people than was possible before. We hear items important to children (tests, loss of a pet), get Wednesday supper reservations, and gather volunteers needed. It gives every announcement a way to respond right away and frees the person from remembering to call the church office on Monday and the office staff from answering 10 calls when they can just see it on the tear off. Sometimes, it allows people to tell us difficult things that we may not have known otherwise. A couple had sporadically attended, never joined and then just the wife came. She marked her tear-off by checking the “single” box and then writing the word “divorce” with a sad face on the back under prayer requests. It was her way to telling us the news.
That’s good info. Thanks, Donna.
We also use our bulletin to get info from attenders, with a perforated tear-off that they return to us. In addition to basic info (names, how many in attendance), they can give us prayer requests, sign up to volunteer or get info on ministries or register to attend events. I’m kind of surprised this “trend” wasn’t mentioned.
It was the sixth most frequent item included in bulletins. Thanks, Paul.
Our church had used the standard bulletin for years. The 8.5×11, half fold and ordered from a company with all of the lovely pictures… We were spending over $400.00 a year on bulletins and most simply go in the trash.
I am not much of a fancy bulletin guy so I pushed for us to make our own and have a bulletin with all of the elements people were used to such as order of worship, announcements as well as sermon notes.
I then got on the computer and designed a simple bulletin but used legal size and made it a tri-fold to eliminate inserts as much as possible. I added a picture of our church logo that was designed on the computer using simple software and that is what we have to day.
Just a thought for those who would like to keep their bulletin but make a change.
Thanks, Rich.
We include the plan of salvation and how to unite with our church on the back page of every bulletin.
Excellent!
We have our own designed bulletin with the church pictured on the front. It saves us money also. It is important for our church because we don’t have a lot of people using the internet and they can have church related information at home making it easy to remember. I don’t pick up but about two or three left behind each week. I do like the inclusion of the plan of salvation and how to join the church. In all my years I should have thought about that. I guess that shows how inward we really tend to be. I am gong to have that added this week. Thanks
Yep. The readers of this blog are incredibly insightful.
Awesome post! When I came to my church we had 8-14 people & now we have around 35. They expect a bulletin with the order of service and sermon notes on it. We had to make praise binders for praise & worship music. I have found that a bulletin provides you an opportunity to provide a space for prayer request & a visitor section. Just not a lot of resources for extremely small churches. We still have a lot in our community that does not have email and it is very expensive for a church our size to send letters so the bulletin becomes an essential communication resource.
Sounds like your church uses bulletins in a great way. Thanks, Clay.
As someone who picks up the bulletins left in the pews after the service, I wonder why people are so messy. Just take them out with you and throw them away. I also hate the many pieces of paper inserted into the bulletin.
I like the spaces to take notes, but I never use them again. I think people who really like to take notes bring a journal or notebook.
Good observations. Thanks, Nancy.
Many church goers don’t fully understand the importance of a church bulletin. A church bulletin is a powerful witnessing tool that we have and don’t use. Instead of throwing away your church bulletin, give it to a co-worker, a neighbor, a relative or a friend who doesn’t attend your church. The bulletin will give them information on what’s happening at your church and maybe a Bible verse or something in the bulletin will spark an interest that the Holy Spirit can use to draw them to Christ. So, encourage the members in your church to not leave the bulletin in the pews, but to give it away.