Crafting Sunday Announcements That Won’t Put Your Congregation To Sleep
February 23, 2009
In many churches, the Sunday order of service (liturgy) is focused and effective, with each element making sense and building on the others. Until it’s time to tack on the announcements. And then, it’s as if the ship has run aground and the train has slipped the tracks.
What churches can unintentionally communicate is that “We’ve had a clearly defined and highly participatory worship service, but now we’re going to step out of the liturgy for a second and take care of some business, and then step back into the liturgy for the benediction.” Unfortunately, since people come to worship rather than engage in business, announcement time becomes the time to think about what to have for lunch or to make a quick trip to the restroom.
But what if service planners approached the announcements with liturgical care? “Liturgy” literally means “the work of the people.” Rightly understood, the announcements are all about the work of the people. It’s not “Here’s some cool stuff to do,” it’s “here’s some stuff that will help you grow in Christ or provide opportunities for you to work for the kingdom.” The “why” behind the “do” needs to be very clear here, just as in other aspects of Sunday worship like singing praises, leaving an offering and listening to the sermon.
Here are a few announcement guidelines we’ve crafted at Sojourn:
1. We allow no more than three or four announcements each week — the most important things that the gathered community needs to hear that week. These are quick announcements that, in themselves, don’t take long to talk about.
2. The reader explains, very briefly, the “why behind the do” in the same manner in which elements like the Call to Worship and Lord’s Supper are explained. While we don’t want to make people feel guilty if they don’t go to every service project, concert or community event, we do want to continuously remind them that we aren’t just promoting “happenings” — that, for instance, we’re hosting music shows to celebrate the creativity that comes from the fact that we’re created in the image of God (so, we are creative because He is the Creator). Also, it’s a chance for us to love on the artists and the music lovers in our city.
3. We send the liturgist the announcements at the same time that they have the Scripture readings and other notes – no last minute, “Oh, can you say a little something about the potluck dinner Wednesday night?”. The potluck dinner is important – it’s family bonding time. It’s breaking bread and loving each other. So, we should show some forethought in how we announce it.
We script out the announcements, although our experienced readers have the freedom to adlib the particulars. Scripting the announcements enables us to think clearly about what we want to communicate.
There are no unimportant parts in a Christian worship service. If you remember this truth and plan announcements accordingly, you just may find that more of your members take an interest in your upcoming events, programs and ministry changes.
Related posts:
- The Work Of The People: Liturgy For Non-liturgical Churches
- Worship Leaders: Play Songs Your Congregation Doesn’t Like
- Church From The Other Side: When The Worship Leader is Led By The Congregation
- Sunday Setlists #105 – July 25, 2010
- Sunday Setlists #106 – August 1, 2010
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good stuff…everytime I go and visit another church and come away with a bad taste in my mouth, it’s almost always in part because of the announcements. We have a few basic rules as well:
1) Every announcement needs to be aimed at our target audience…we don’t do any small, exclusive announcements like “The fellowship team will be having a meeting this Thursday” or “JoeBob’s small group needs a babysitter on Tuesday nights.” All of the small stuff needs to be communicated in other ways. If an announcements doesn’t interest the majority of people (and we have a lot of guests every week), then we don’t do it.
2) Only high energy/entertaining people can share announcements…we only allow a few people to do the announcements at our church, because, just like everything else, it’s gotta fit your SHAPE for ministry. A great announcement can be worthless if the wrong person is sharing it.
3) No last minute announcements…fill out a communications request form ahead of time.
4) Use language that energizes and mobilizes people. How you say it is just as important as what you say. Don’t “recruit” Do “Invite”, Don’t talk about the task, Do talk about the lives that can be changed, Don’t beg people to get involved, Do show them an example of others who have already become involved.
5) Keep it short and to the point.
6) Use announcements strategically so that they add to the worship flow, not distract or take away from it.
I agree with both of you. We only use amazing people! We have done – off site location video shoots for the announcements.
Believe it or not our main announcement guy is Bill Hill!! ha ha We did a “Where In The World is Bill Hill” month long video shoot with our announcements.
Part of our weekly programming meeting is to discuss the 3 things that get advertised.
1) All announcements have to be open to the entire congregation or a very large ministry event.
2) No last minute announcements ever! We don’t announce anything like “so and so left their lights on”. We just get out jumper cables and help them when they come out.
3)All announcements have to be cleared with myself and the teaching pastor at programming.
We have a lot of fun with announcements!
I agree, Nathan and Lori. Great examples and thoughts.
Does anyone else have announcement guidelines they’d care to share?
Really good post about something often overlooked. http://tinyurl.com/amdh5p
I dig this. Great thoughts.
check out my new article on crafting church service announcements at theworshipcommunity.com: http://bit.ly/SGJXF
This is an excellent read.
Also, comments are right on – good additions Nathan and Lori.
Most of the time, we have the announcements on screens – powerpoint/keynote – before and after service and stay away from spoken announcements unless we have to. Again, these have to be done early so they can be graphically pleasing and the message is clear and concise.
But I’m sure most do this anyway…
Spoken announcements can distract. I really like the tip on explaining “why we do what we do.” Greats suggestion.
I am FOR announcements in a worship service! There, I said what very few WL’s would. Some people have suggested we not do them as it isn’t worship. I 100% disagree.
Announcements should be an opportunity for the congregation to carry out what they have heard in a message, the who, what, when, why, how and where of Isaiah’s “Here Am I, Send Me.” Stop thinking of them as announcements and begin thinking of them as “obedience opportunities.” One way to reinforce this is to place most announcements at the end of the service after the message so they better match the Isaiah 6 pattern of response. Hit them with the Word and then give a related obedience opportunity by matching announced opportunities to the sermon as real steps of obedience worshipers can take. For example, if the message was on stewardship, announce the launch of Crown Teams or systematic online giving as the first announcement afterwards. A message communal connection? Announce the launch of new small groups and challenge people to connect. A message on living outside of your comfort zones? A trip to Vietnam to expand your boundaries.
So stop making announcements in your worship services and begin making “obedience opportunities” and you’ll find out you adore announcements, too.
[From Why I Adore Announcements and How to Stop Them at http://www.worshiptrench.com
Thanks, Tyler and Kendall!
Jordan: “obediance opportunities.” I like it! Great thoughts.
Here’s a couple of announcement ideas, but this may not work for every church
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ONg5ZCxuMo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0Kq0I5WL84
Crafting Sunday Morning Announcements That Won’t Put Your Congregation to Sleep, great discussion @ http://bit.ly/8eX63 – share ur thoughts
RT @fmckinnon: Crafting Sunday Morning Announcements That Won’t Put Your Congregation to Sleep, http://bit.ly/8eX63 // a great post.
@brianotte brian, thanks for the RT on TheWorshipCommunity.Com post about announcements http://bit.ly/8eX63
Crafting church announcements: http://bit.ly/8eX63 Great thots on keeping it interesting & connecting. Great comments, too. Thanks, @kretzu
[...] check out my own column for TheWorshipCommunity.com, on how to write announcements for Christian worship servi… It’s always an honor for me to write a guest post for The Worship Community, a grass-roots [...]
@csoutherland check this out: http://is.gd/yYQ2