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
Our church has been around for 90 years..a small mega church in North Jersey. I don’t believe that the order of service was ever in the bulletin. Hardly anybody asks why and it gives us the flexibility we need to conduct 4 services a Sunday.
Our pastors, music, and tech people work off of “cheat sheets”, but the congregation never sees the order.
I just had a conversation about the limited bulletins we have in my church. Apparently the leaders think it is a waste of money and ink.
Here is why I want one:
1. I can’t see the screen – sometimes the lyrics go too far down to see. Sometimes everyone in front of me is tall or children are standing on the pew to see the lyrics.
2. Sometimes the lyrics are not shown in time or at all – I don’t know the words and cannot take part.
3. I like to see the order of service. I like to prepare because sometimes it changes. When is the congregational prayer? What is the scripture we will be reading?
4. If I am visiting a church I like to have something to follow and something to take home with information that I have added.
5. When I taught ESL we could look at the lyrics ahead of time to be ready to worship. I also sometimes read the lyrics ahead of time so I know what I am proclaiming before God.
The idea that the order will change and therefore is not reflected in the bulletin makes it clear to me that I am expected to watch rather than participate. I don’t care if an item gets moved – I do care that the leaders want to control the experience by ensuring I have no advance notice to prepare myself for the various elements of worship and how I will participate.
5.
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What is your opinion on using more Images than Text?
Thom – do you have a breakdown of those outside of the top five? Curious as to how the ages relate to some of the feedback, also.
Thanks for your posts and your research. You provide valuable information to churches. In regard to this article, three surprises me the most. It seems to me that most members have been in church so long that they KNOW the order of service. It probably hasn’t changed in several decades. I think they just want a visual checklist to mark off so they can see that the worship time is getting closer to done. (I’m guilty of doing this at band concerts). We just recently REMOVED the order of service because we thought it was a waste of space. (We will see how this turns out.)
I am particularly interesting in knowing about and/or viewing good examples of item number 2 “Sermon notes/outline”. Is this something that is done in a lot of places of worship? I must confess that I have not seen examples of this personally but I do expect that it is done. Is it similar to handouts done in the teaching profession? I remember many examples of this from my college days but I do not recall any examples of bulletins as described here. Thanks!
Ours is a 5.5X8.5 half-sheet insert. It typically has a header image that features the title of the pastor’s current sermon series, 2-3 “fill-in-the-blank” sentences emphasizing his key points for that sermon, and a couple of life application points at the bottom. Our people seem to like them.
I asked my wife why order of service was important to people and first thing out of her mouth was, “So people know what time service will be over.” That was my first thought too. Same with a sermon outline, the more spiritual people will say they like one because they want to follow along with the preacher, but I think most people like outlines so they know when the sermon will be over.
I didn’t have time to read all of the replies, but as a graphic designer, there’s some things that I see that need to be or not be in a bulletin. As a church member my list is slightly different. I will say this much though, most people can’t see the forest for the trees, but there are others who can’t see the trees for the leaves.
It happens that way when one person has been “lord” or “queen” of the bulletin for far too long! They can’t see what is wrong with it. They can’t see what should and shouldn’t be there, from an aesthetic point of view, or from an evangelistic point of view. But besides the keeper of the bulletin, you have to go through the worship committee, the communications committee, the church board, and probably a lot more committees before it’s over. Not to mention the politics involved.
I’m thankful that we serve ONE God, because if it were up to a committee, we’d still be separating the water from the dry land. And I also think a picture is worth a thousand words. Mock together a few alternatives and present them to the first hurdle. Then, be patient, and take their critique. Even designers don’t have all the answers. Just be ready to back up all of your decisions with logical explanations that can be explained in layman’s terms.
Why wouldn’t people want announcements in the bulletin? Isn’t that what the bulletin is for? I do our church bulletin and we focus on putting mainly announcements in there so that visitors who might want to become a part of the church can take the bulletin home, and reference to it for the upcoming events. We like changing up our bulletin quite a bit so it’s fresh and new. Our members really seem to like that.