When you walk in most church worship services, you are typically handed some printed material. It goes by different names, but the most common and the longest standing name is “bulletin.”
There was a time that you could expect consistency in bulletins among many churches. Such is not the case today. There are differences of opinion and a variety of ideas about what should be in the church bulletin.
Rather than speculate, we conducted an informal survey among church members. We asked one simple and open-ended question: “What do you want in a church bulletin?” The respondents could give as many answers as they liked. There was much agreement on the first four items. Beyond the top four was considerably fragmented opinions.
Here are the top five responses. I list them in order of frequency of response.
- Quality. This one issue was a near unanimous response. Church members see the bulletin as a reflection on their church. They are embarrassed when the bulletin has incorrect facts or grammatical errors. They don’t want something in their bulletin to become the next “bulletin blooper.” They want the bulletin to reflect quality, not a gathering place for a collection of ancient clip art.
- Sermon notes/outline. Church members want a place to take notes on the sermon, even if the same material is on the projection screen. They want notes they can take home and study. They especially appreciate any helps, such as an outline or references.
- Order of service. Frankly, I heard some complaining about this matter. Apparently a number of churches once put the order of their worship services in the bulletin; but they don’t now. Church members miss that in the bulletin and they want it back.
- Attendance/stewardship statistics. I thought numbers were being deemphasized in churches. Well, maybe they are, but church members want them back. They want to see the giving patterns and attendance patterns each week.
- Announcements. There is a big gap between numbers four and five. If not for its brevity, I could have made this blog about the top four things church members want in a church bulletin. While church members do want some announcements in the church bulletin, they do not want it cluttered with announcements. They prefer for announcements to be on a screen before the services or on the church’s website.
Are you surprised by these top five? What would you add to the list?
Posted on April 8, 2013
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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144 Comments
I was kind of surprised as well. We took the order of service out some time back.
One comment though really got me thinking. They said their bulletin is for their guests. Most first time guests come to church for the first time a little scared, intimidated, and have their guard up somewhat. Especially if they are a non Christian. Maybe instead of an order of service we could give them an what to expect area. “We will be here about an hour. We will start of with some annoucements followed by Singing (For a non Christian it’s just singing) or Worship, and then our pastor xyz will finish his series on xyz. We are glad you are here.”
I think that should be done live as well, not just in the bulletin by the way.
Good thoughts
Has anyone tried an online church bulletin like Bulletin+
http://www.bulletinpl.us
I’ve worked as a secretary at different churches for over 8 years now, and I’ve heard many comments about bulletins. All the churches I work at, the members like a quality bulletin on 8 1/2″ X 14″ paper (free from errors and a nice picture on the cover that relates to the service) , an order of worship, attendance & weekly giving information (this helps give them goals to set), and church happenings for the week along with other announcements – such as prayer requests, directory updates, addresses of where to send cards for members at physical therapy rehab, whose on the schedule for greeters, etc.. They really enjoy their bulletin and often take it home with them so they can have it as a reference for the weekly activities on it, or for the prayer list so they know who to call or visit. The members find the bulletin helpful. Sometimes the bulletins get hand delivered to shut ins, and it’s really appreciated when they can’t get out. What is also helpful is to have all the words of the songs listed on the overhead during the service. As far as the sermon, they do enjoy reading a copy of it or seeing it online.
I think theres good stuff here. Here are the two I’m definitely not ok with putting in our bulletin each week.
3. Order of Worship: I don’t like this for a couple of reasons. I grew up in a church and have been in a bunch of churches where they print the order of service in the bulletin and here is mostly what happens: The service begins with a welcome, during the welcome half the people aren’t listening because they are looking in the bulletin for what song is first and flipping through the hymnal to find it. Then you stand and sing the first song. As soon as that song is nearing the end, you have people disconnecting again to look in their bulletin for whats coming up next. Rinse and repeat and you have a service where people are disconnecting from whats going on every few minutes. Its terribly disruptive. And secondly, we print bulletins on Friday. This wouldn’t happen very frequently at all but if the Pastor calls me friday night and says; is there anyway we could do this song before the message? The answer will most times be yes. So then we have an element that won’t be in the bulletin, which affects the quality of it.
4. Numbers. This is just a terrible idea. Not only from the perspective of visitors who may think wow this church isn’t going anywhere. But on so many other levels. If people can track the giving, they’ll more than likely give as a reflection of that, good or bad. I want people in our church to be consistent in their giving regardless of where the budget is at. It also gives people the wrong impression of what we’re about. I’m not saying don’t make the information available to them. It just doesn’t belong in the bulletin.
We are redesigning our bulletin to be more focused on the unchurched. We figure people who are visiting don’t care much about super inside information. They what to see what we’re about, what it means to be a Christian, how to join the church, what is baptism (we’re baptist), etc. So that is what we are going to gear the bulletin toward. Sure there’ll be announcements but everything will have a definitely purpose.
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The sick and shut-in, and praise report is vaiuable information in the church bulletin. My concern is who is responsible in moving the sick and shut-in off the list when they are well, better or giving a praise report for answered prayers. The sick list should be meanful and not just keep names on the list forever.
I would add a heartfelt welcome (explaining who you are), a brief mission statement (what you believe & want to achieve), and easily accessible contact information for those in need of prayer or salvation.
Maybe a classified section would be helpful, or a section in the back explaining what the religious things are in the bulletin, something like you see at a Mexican or Chinese restaurant.
I am not surprised that people want an order of service. Especially new people who already feel lost with lots that is going on. I’ve heard so many church leaders say that having the order of service decreases spontaneity, but if you attend their services for a couple weeks you’ll see they have a pretty well determined pattern. It seems to me that ALL churches have an order of worship… its just that some print it and some don’t!
As for putting in the stats… worship and giving… when I don’t see them in a bulletin I assume its because they are bad and the church prefers to hide them rather than reveal them! Churches with good statistics print them! I think church members need to be aware of the stats of their church. How can we say “this is your church and we’re all in this together” when we appear to be hiding the facts?
1) When God says something to you it is valuable and worth writing down. A bulletin gives room for that. Do people mentally remember through the week what God said to them on Sunday?
2) Good, visible, spiritual material at home is important. One never knows who might see even a bulletin and what part of it may fill a need or tweak one’s thoughts.
We used to print the order of service and have not down it in a few years. I don’t miss it at all.
1) Our pastors and worship leaders always know the order of service, everything flows and they have a real gift with leading you through without needing “helps”.
2) I discovered that my worship is not distracted by holding the bulletin or opening the bulletin to see what the next step is. As long as the worship leaders are leading and organized, it does not really matter to me what is happening next and then you find worship is free flowing. I think once the service starts, it is time to put the bulletin down unless you are writing notes in the note section from the sermon.
3) It also does away with complaining if something doesn’t go exactly in line with what is printed.
I once had one of our youth tell me he appreciated not only the order of service, but the printed outline. His reason? “So we can tell about how much longer the service was going to be.”