Sunday church announcements exist because of the belief that “if people know what’s going on, they will participate.” There is not a more influential point of contact with your congregation each week than the Sunday worship service, so we automatically insert announcements into our services in hopes that information will translate into participation.
Does announcing something on Sunday morning translate into more participation?
We assume that it does, and, to some extent, that assumption is probably warranted. Any time you have a large room full of people and you tell them to take action, there will always be a group of people who follow through.
- But would these people have followed through had they received an email with the same information?
- Would these people have sought out the information on their own and signed up?
- Would these people have responded just as positively to the same announcement in their small group or a separate ministry gathering?
There is a tongue-in-cheek stat that gets tossed around regularly: 20% of the people do 80% of the work, and it’s safe to assume that this 20% will respond to whatever your church does. The challenge and desire is getting the other 80% to respond.
The manner in which they delivered their content was less like an announcement with information and more like an endorsement with an invitation.
Church announcements are an incredibly powerful tool for increasing participation in key programs… if you do them well; in this article, we will provide you with information, insights, and ideas to improve your church announcement moment and transform your announcements from a terrible way to die into an inspirational and effective call-to-action.
The Service Welcome Moment
When we talk about worship service announcements we usually include the welcome moment. Whether you do this at the beginning of the service or after the first set of music, this welcome moment is almost always tied to announcements in some way.
In the content below, everything is in the context of announcements, and the first ‘announcement’ is almost always going to be a two-parter:
- Welcome everyone and a special welcome to guests.
- Immediate call-to-action for first-time guests, such as downloading an app, filling out a communication card, or visiting a specific location in the lobby.
You can separate a service welcome from service announcements if you want, but it often has a better flow when they’re kept together, no matter when they take place.
One Call-to-Action for First-Time Guests
When someone visits a church for the first time they will unavoidably take in a lot of new information; if you want them to take a specific action there is a lot of noise you have to cut through.
Fortunately, one simple communication principle will help you cut through everything and get the action you want.
Give first-time guests a single call-to-action. Don’t Invite them to do three things. Don’t invite them to do two things. Invite them to one action.
Do you want them to fill out a communication card? Make that your one thing.
Do you want them to attend an after-service greeting? Make that your one thing.
Do you want them to visit the ‘table in the lobby’? Make that your one thing.
The moment you ask them to do a second thing, you’ve immediately given them more than they want to handle, and your response rate will naturally decrease.
Still, you may want them to do two things, so you’ll need to get creative. If you can conjure up a way to get them to perform two tasks in one action, that will work! For instance, “Please take a moment to fill out the communication card and bring it to the table in the lobby. We have a special gift we’d like to share with you.” Two tasks—fill out the card and visit the table in the lobby—in one action.
A/B testing your first-time guest response is a great way to discover what request will convert into the most action. Try a specific request for one year and document the numbers. Look at the number of attendees and then the number of guests who took action. The following year, change the request and track the same numbers. Compare the two sets together and determine which was more effective.
You may think, “Wow, that’s a long time to wait for any type of result.”
True. You could choose to do smaller tests, too. For instance, you could try one method three weeks in January and then a different method the next three weeks of February and compare those two. But it would be hard to compare January, February, and March to April, May, and June because life is just different during those two segments.
However you choose to split test, the value is trying something different and measuring the results.
You can improve your guest retention when being intentional with the welcome part of announcements and begin to predict growth based on the results
What Should Be Announced During Services?
There really isn’t a scenario where you wouldn’t want to give an intentional welcome at the beginning of announcements. That should probably be a given. Beyond that, endless methods are employed to determine what should be announced.
We’ve heard of churches having a whiteboard in the office, and whatever staff writes on that whiteboard throughout the week, that’s what will be announced on Sunday.
There are also stories of setting up an in-house ‘announcement email’ that staff can forward their requests to, and that’s what will be read on Sunday morning.
Is there anything inherently wrong with these methods? No. Are they wise? Maybe. Maybe not.
In the late 2000s, social media personalities and bloggers began sharing the advice of “only announce those things which are relevant to 80% or more of the congregation.” Perhaps church leaders have always followed this guidance, but for many Gen X and millennial leaders it was new information that gave a convenient starting point for knowing what should and shouldn’t be announced.
Leaders are no more sophisticated today than they were back then. However, more time has been spent crafting a vision for our churches, creating movement within congregations, and motivating people to engage beyond just attending Sunday morning. Announcements have only benefited from this intentionality.
Share Vision, not Announcements
Why do we share announcements on Sundays? Because we want people to participate. Why do we want people to participate? Because we believe participation can serve as a gateway to growing in Christ.
When you focus on sharing the information, you call people to an event or program.
But when you share what life is like when you step into insert program here, you call people to a vision of a Christ-following future.
Consider a parenting announcement for an all-day Saturday conference.
We’re excited to be hosting an all-day parenting conference next month. You can sign up individually or as a couple. It is a great opportunity to invest in your parenting skills, learn new techniques for getting your children to listen, and discover ways to use scripture to guide your parenting approach. Details are in your program.
This is how most announcements sound. You shared who it is for, what will be discussed, and where to find more details.
But what will life be like after you attend? How does a parent see themselves today and how will they see themselves after the event?
Here is an alternative to the ‘simple details’ approach shared above.
I recently saw a reel on social media that put into words the strange feeling I had when our first child was born. It said, ‘You go into a room as a family of two and come out of the room as a family of three.’ Something so big and so life-changing really is that simple. Becoming a parent is that simple, but being a parent seems to get more and more complex as the years go by, and I know for me and my wife, we’re constantly asking our friends with awesome adult children, “What did you do to get such great kids?” Next month is a big deal for us because we’re attending a dream event where we’ll get lots of insight from great parents and professionals on navigating the difficulties and challenges we’re facing today in our family. And you can attend the event with us! We’re hosting a parenting conference here at the church and this is an open event for single parents, guardians, and married parents… if you are responsible for raising a child and are looking for insight into being the best parent you can be, this event is one you won’t want to miss.
Yes, that’s longer, and truthfully, you could probably spend some time rehearsing it and getting the word count down. But look at the difference. Do you read the second one and wish this was a real event you could send some of your people to?
Your time is valuable and the time of your people is valuable. Every millisecond of our Sunday service matters, and if we’re injecting announcements into programming we owe it to ourselves and our people to make the announcements compelling and full of vision.
Say Yes To the Right Things
Deciding what should be announced becomes much easier when your default is saying ‘no’ to everything. And truthfully, the majority of what is happening at church doesn’t warrant a Sunday announcement.
But we’re trying to help families!
But we’re trying to help married couples!
But we’re trying to reach the next generation!
But we’re trying to let people know about our recovery ministries!
But we’re trying to reach men!
This is why service for the Kingdom of God and His church is so exciting! God has willingly and freely provided insight and guidance through His Word, and as believers, we feel a responsibility to steward His Word and use it to impact people’s lives!
If you always said yes to good things, you would have very little to say no to.
Trade saying yes to good things for saying yes to the right things.
What is right for your church will largely depend on your mission, vision, and values. The clearer you are on your strategy for discipleship and engagement, the clearer you’ll be on the right things to announce.
In the absence of strategy, or if you have the strategy, but want a little more guidance, here are a few principles you can use to be more discerning about Sunday announcements.
- The information is relevant to the entire church:
- Building campaigns or fundraising initiatives.
- Special service times such as Christmas or Easter.
- Significant structural changes like name changes, new campuses, or church planting.
- Special churchwide offering for Christmas, Easter, or other causes.
- Churchwide events like festivals, conferences, fall launches
- The information is a gateway into discipleship:
- If we can get men to attend a breakfast, we can invite them into small groups.
- If we can get guests to attend a newcomer’s class, they will be more likely to return on future Sundays.
- If we can get parents to attend a retreat, they will be more likely to explore next-gen ministries for their children.
- The information is core or deeply connected to the church’s vision or mission:
- We have an ongoing relationship with churches in Turkey.
- We invest in next-gen ministries because they are the leaders of the future church.
- We believe everyone should be invited to join a small group.
These suggestions are more of a model for developing your guidelines than providing specific guidance. The main thing to notice is a criterion emphasizing relevance to the entire church, a gateway into discipleship, and core to the mission/vision.
Say Yes Even When You Have to Say No
Leaders are faced with the responsibility of giving good people bad news. Having to say “no” to good things is one of those responsibilities. The church staff works hard, puts in top-shelf effort, and all they want is support. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to say “no” to announcing their programs and events while simultaneously figuring out a way to say “yes” to supporting their initiatives (assuming they’re in line with the church vision).
This is called wrapping your no in a bigger yes; it’s a skill every leader should develop.
If you’ve lived in an announcement culture where everyone gets an announcement whenever they ask, this will be a big shift for your staff. They’ve learned to depend on Sunday announcements to fill their events, and now that they can’t have an announcement or multiple announcements, they’re going to wonder how to ‘get the word out’ for their programs.
Here are some suggestions for handling the transition.
Include One Story In the Announcements
Instead of saying ‘yes’ to an announcement, say yes to a testimony or a story. Every ministry is filled with people who are visibly transforming into the character of Christ. While you can’t provide an outlet to say “Come to our children’s event” you can say, “We’d love to include a story about what God is doing in children’s ministry this weekend. Do you have any great stories we could share?”
On the platform, share the story, and at the end, you can add, “… Jenny, the woman from the story, and the rest of our children’s volunteers are hosting a movie night, and that’s just another example of the moments Jenny is mentioning when she gets to see God take her work and multiply it.”
The focus is on the person and modeling transformation through service.
Build An Alternative Communication Plan Together
The concern isn’t that the ministry won’t get an announcement. The concern is the event or program will be a failure because no one knows about it. Instead of just saying “no” and leaving them to figure it out, you can propose putting together an alternative plan. This works especially well if there is plenty of time to communicate.
Here is a bullet list you can use to help craft an alternative plan.
- Come up with a compelling reason for people to participate.
- Draft 2-3 emails to send to the specific ministry email list several weeks in advance.
- Identify an appropriate number of people to call and invite personally.
- Coach the ministry leaders
Who Should Do the Announcements?
Every congregation is filled with people who would not only be capable of performing Sunday announcements but also people who would thrive in the position. You have people sitting in your chairs every week who would bring the church welcome and announcement segment to life in ways you’ve never even considered.
Churches are filled with CEOs, keynote speakers, business presenters, coaches, and charismatic personalities who love Jesus, love their church, and can take the 2-3 minutes dedicated to delivering information and elevate that moment into a memorable experience.
Here is a list of people you could consider.
Associate Pastors
Some pastors on your staff may only speak 2-3 times a year, and giving them an opportunity to welcome people and perform the announcements regularly will go a long way in helping them work on their presentation skills and develop a familiarity with presenting in front of the congregation.
Ministry Directors
Often ministry directors are only brought up to speak to their specific announcement. Instead of limiting their exposure to only “kid’s ministry moments” or “women’s ministry moments,” make them a regular part of the service by having them give the announcements 15-20 times a year. They will bring a unique perspective and different energy to the moment, reflective of the ministry they work in and serve.
Even if they’re not ‘announcing’ anything for their particular ministry when they introduce themselves as “Ben Smith, Director of Men’s Ministry,” that will be exposure in and of itself.
Elders or Deacons
If you have leadership men and women who are gifted speakers, asking them to give announcements is a no-brainer. If that’s not the case, you shouldn’t feel pressure to ask elders or deacons to give announcements.
While many directors and pastors will have a natural ability to speak in front of audiences, this is not true for elders and deacons. And that’s okay. Not everyone needs to speak in front of the congregation. You may be drawn to invite an elder to perform announcements to “keep the elders in front of the church,” but if they’re not skilled at public speaking, you may be undermining their value, putting them in a position where they can’t succeed. There are plenty of other ways to keep elders in front of the church and announcements shouldn’t serve as a default.
But again, if someone is gifted, give it a shot!
Gifted Volunteers
If you have a large staff of skilled presenters, you may not need or want to dip into your congregation.
But don’t be so quick to rule out non-staff members. Here are several reasons why you might want to consider attendees or church members hosting announcements.
First, if your staff is made up of a similar demographic in terms of age, race, gender, and family life stage, it might not be a bad idea to find someone in your congregation who can represent other demographics in your church—not because you have to, but because you want to.
Second, if your staff is small there is a good chance it will be the same faces, same voices, and similar cadence every week. Finding a volunteer who can represent the church and do an effective job communicating the information will help keep the staff’s voices fresh over the long haul.
Finally, if someone is gifted and can do a great job, why would you not want them in a role where they can thrive? If you do have a reason for not trying them out in the role, that’s fine, but if you don’t have a reason, consider inviting them to give announcements several Sundays over six months, perhaps during the summer to see if it’s a good fit!
The Sunday Preacher Should Not Give Announcements
No matter what approach you take to staffing the announcement moment, the Sunday preacher should not be asked or tasked with giving the announcements. The benefits of having a separate announcement person from the speaker are far too numerous to be outweighed by potential drawbacks.
Focus On the Message
Any time the preacher can focus all energy on presenting the message, that’s a win for everyone. Preachers are completely capable of delivering announcements and preaching a sermon in the same service, but just because they can doesn’t mean they should. Finding someone to present the announcements is just one way to eliminate potential distractions from the message.
Keep the Speaker’s Voice Fresh
There’s something about hearing new, fresh voices that cause people to listen. This is often why less-than-average speakers can step into any environment and command the room. The freshness of their voice shocks the brain into listening because it’s new and different.
Having someone present the announcements keeps the preacher’s voice fresh on a segment-to-segment basis.
Of course, this isn’t going to make or break the message. But it is an advantage. The Gospel is so important, why would you not want every advantage you can get?
Preserve the Introduction
The sermon introduction is vital. Most people will not give you 25 minutes. But most people will give you two minutes.
If you expend your first two minutes of giving announcements you probably haven’t given people enough reason to continue listening. You know the substance has changed, but that doesn’t mean their brains will.
Having someone else give announcements preserves the preacher’s first words for the message.
When the Sunday Preacher Should Give Announcements
As wise as it is for someone other than the preacher to give the announcements, there will be some announcements that are so important that the Lead Pastor should deliver the information, even if they are preaching that Sunday.
What are these “important announcements”? They will differ from church to church but could include things like:
- Significant long-term church changes
- Difficult “family” business
- Major celebrations
- Financial need
- Mission-critical information
- Significant invitations
If your default is someone other than the morning speaker to deliver announcements, you will find it easier to decide when the Lead Pastor should deliver an announcement even if they are also preaching.
Three Insights for Growing Participation Through Announcements
Based on your location or your context there are probably dozens of ways you can improve your announcements. Instead of targeting individual nuances that may or may not exist in your church, we’re giving you three big-picture insights to help elevate the experience and effectiveness of announcements during your Sunday service.
These three insights are true no matter where you minister or how you use the announcement moment.
Define What Successful Announcements Look Like
What does a successful announcement moment look like? If we evaluate this week’s announcements, how will we know if it was successful? Or if it was a dud?
One of the reasons for not recruiting other people to deliver announcements is a lack of confidence that they can do well in the moment. However, when you define what successful announcements look like, those expectations make it easier to communicate what should happen during that moment.
Defining success causes three things to happen:
- It’s easier to know how to train or coach someone to succeed at announcements.
- Those giving announcements will know what’s expected of them.
- Evaluation becomes easy because everyone knows what to look for.
“It’s easier if I just do it myself” may get you through the service moment by moment but it isn’t going to recruit ministry partners. Letting go becomes easier when you, the leader, are confident the person you are delegating to understands the expectations.
Defining your expectations for announcements will make it easier for you to let go – not only will the church be better for it, but you will be better for it as well.
Don’t Try to Be Funny
Some people are funny. They have a gift for communicating that compels people to laugh and when that person is on your staff, it’s electric. Funny people make announcements fun!
But most people aren’t funny and that’s okay.
Unfortunately, during the ‘welcome’ or ‘announcement’ moment in service, nervous energy will compel people to try and be funny. This often comes when the person speaking is unprepared and attempts to deflect some of the awkwardness. It can often come when they aren’t getting the reaction they expected from the audience and try to force them to respond.
Make it clear to the people giving announcements they don’t need to be funny and shouldn’t try to be funny. Share with them why you chose them for the task, what it is about their personality that you believe will make them a success, and assure them that who they are is what you want for the moment.
The best way to avoid attempts at humor is to be prepared. Preparedness gives way to confidence and confidence gives way to clarity in communication.
Clarity is the kryptonite to awkwardness.
Announcements Should Be Rehearsed
The burden and expectation we place on announcements to mobilize people and fill programs is so great, that you would think church leaders would scrutinize every aspect of the moment. But they don’t.
We will send our announcement person to the stage with scribbles on a piece of paper expecting them to fill registration lists with a few details.
Instead of ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ announcements, decide earlier in the week exactly what needs to be shared. Send that information to that week’s announcement person and ask them to prepare a story that brings the information to life.
This transforms the announcement moment from just information into inspiration to act.
With preaching we should never practice on the people. The same goes for announcements. Whoever is responsible for the moment should be planned, rehearsed, and polished.
Pointing People to the Next Steps
For the purpose of this article, when we say “Next Steps,” we mean how people can learn more about any given announcement, not Next Steps as a class or lobby table.
“I will spend an hour taking an eight-word sentence and editing it down to five.” This is how comedian Jerry Seinfeld describes his editing process for a joke.
Seinfeld edits and edits and edits to use as few words as possible to deliver a punchline. The process of editing for announcements is not to deliver a punchline, but rather, an impact phrase.
One phrase that captures attention, releases tension, and motivates action.
Your announcements’ “next steps” need to be built on impact phrases—a call to action so simple a caveman could do it.
Impact phrases for announcements aren’t funny, thought-provoking, or intense. They are clear and simple.
- Go to church.org/easter.
- Scan the QR code on the screen.
- Visit the table in the lobby.
- Drop this card in the offering plate.
- Come to the front of the room after service.
You want people to respond to your announcements and short, simple CTAs are the impact statements you’re looking for.
Church Announcement Examples
Our team watched live streams from over 30 different churches, focusing specifically on Sunday morning welcome and announcement segments.
To be frank, most of what we saw felt unrehearsed, and the person speaking appeared to be winging it.
In most clips, there was little indication that the person speaking knew what they wanted to say ahead of time. This led to a lot of unnecessary words, a lot of prompting the audience for a reaction, and segments that were ineffective at moving people despite dedicating more than 5 minutes to sharing.
In short, most of what we saw was forgettable.
Below you’ll find the best examples of church announcements and if you watch them all you may notice they have a lot in common. Here are our observations of what made each example effective.
Staple Announcements
The churches highlighted below largely have the same announcements every week, and those announcements are consistently worded. While the person changes from week to week, the language they use to describe items and actions is the same. The person’s personality injects variety into the delivery, but the core language is consistent, and the message is clear.
Few Announcements
Most of the examples below only shared one announcement. They would welcome people, give special instructions to guests, and then share one thing the church should know. The manner in which they delivered their content was less like an announcement with information and more like an endorsement with an invitation.
Immediate Call-to-Action
Some announcements require immediate action following the service, such as walking into the lobby and visiting a table or counter. However, in our examples below, the churches give people permission (and adequate time) to use their cell phones immediately to visit a website or scan a QR code. This works because the churches are typically only announcing one or two things. This approach gets people to respond at the moment, not having to remember to respond later in the day.
Browncroft Church in Rochester, NY
Pre-service Announcements
✅ The speaker was introduced via the lower third slide.
✅ Uses prepared remarks and reads naturally from a teleprompter.
✅ An argument was made for why someone should attend the program being promoted.
✅ Felt natural throughout the entire presentation.
Mid Service Announcements
Eagle Brook Church
✅ Speaker introduces himself.
✅ Uses prepared remarks and reads naturally from a teleprompter.
✅ Rehearsed and clear communication, no distractions.
✅ Personal story relevant to the announcements.
✅ Clear call-to-action messages.
Liquid Church in Parsippany, NJ
✅ Speaker introduces himself.
✅ Each speaker was familiar with the material and knew what to say.
✅ The speaker shared the vision of the church in a practical and visible way.
✅ Relevant images displayed throughout the announcement/welcome moment.
One & All Church in San Dimas, California
Pre-Service Announcements
✅ Speakers’ names are shared on screen.
✅ No inside jokes or self-deprecating humor.
✅ Someone other than the Sunday preacher presents the announcements.
✅ Each speaker rehearsed and knew exactly what they were going to say.
✅ An argument was made for why someone should attend the program being promoted.
✅ Clear call-to-action.
✅ The newcomer call-to-action is consistent each week.
Mid-Service Announcements
✅ The speaker introduces herself.
✅ Someone other than the Sunday preacher presents the announcements.
✅ No inside jokes or self-deprecating humor.
✅ The speaker was familiar with the information and spoke clearly.
✅ Relevant images were displayed during the announcements.
✅ Shares something unique and special about the vision of the church.
Phoenix Bible Church in Phoenix, Arizona
✅ Speaker introduces himself.
✅ Someone other than Sunday’s preaching pastor delivers announcements.
✅ The speaker was familiar with the information and spoke clearly.
– It’s okay to use notes, but the speaker should still be familiar with the content they’re reading, and it should not feel like they’re reading it for the first time.
✅ Shares something unique about the heartbeat of the church.
✅ Ties the first announcement to the vision of the church.
✅ It was clear who the information was for.
✅ No inside jokes or self-deprecating humor.
✅ Explained each piece of information in a way people unfamiliar with the church could understand and feel included.
One interesting aspect of this clip is that the announcement speaker invites the Sunday preacher and Lead Pastor to make one more announcement. This is an intentional handoff, where the Lead Pastor is the mouthpiece for not just the service but also the unique moment of this particular service: baptisms.
Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY
Pre-service Announcements
✅ The speaker was introduced via the lower third slide
✅ Someone other than Sunday’s preaching pastor delivers announcements.
✅ Specific call-to-action for each element, clear and easy to follow.
✅ The speaker was familiar with and prepared to present the information.
✅ Shared something unique about the church and its partnership.
✅ Features different voices.
✅ No inside jokes or self-deprecating humor.
Pre-service Announcement Slideshow
Running a slideshow of your announcements before the service isn’t a new idea and based upon what we saw from watching live stream recordings, there’s probably a good chance you’re already running a slide show.
If you’d like to elevate what you’re already doing or if you’ve never done a pre-service slideshow and want to start strong, here are some suggestions to consider.
Utilize QR Codes
Before the pandemic, QR codes were a novelty that tech nerds used. Today, they’re everywhere and people either know how to use them or are sitting next to someone who knows how to use them. When appropriate, add QR codes to the pre-service slides so people can immediately respond if they see a slide they want to act on.
Care About Design
You don’t have to be a designer to have great slides for your pre-service slideshow but you should care about the way they look and how they communicate. Here are three suggestions for pre-service slideshow graphics if you don’t have quality design help in-house.
- Use a church graphic service like Ministry Pass to download graphics that are clean and clear.
- Use real photos from around your campus and from past events instead of trying to design graphics. Recruit several volunteers who are gifted photographers and assign them to events throughout the year. You’ll develop a large library of photos to pull from.
- Use simplified text on color graphics, even white text on a black background or black text on a white background. Or choose your church’s colors. By choosing a clean font and minimal font size, slide colors can keep things clean and compel people to read.
Change Graphics Every Several Weeks or Couple of Months
Over time, people will tune out the pre-service slideshow. Always using the same slides and only including information will encourage them to tune out more quickly.
Seasons change 4 times a year and using the seasons of the year is a great starting point for when to change graphics. Not only that, but you can use the seasons of the year to inspire the imagery you choose to use.
Changing the graphics for something that appears in the slideshow every week is a way to keep people paying attention, even to repetitive information.
Consider Including Videos In the Pre-service Slideshow
If your church regularly captures original video footage from events or produces content using videos, consider including it in your pre-service slideshow. You wouldn’t want the videos to be too long, as most pre-service slideshows only run for 10-15 minutes, but if you add a 30-second video here, a 20-second video there, and a 45-second video, you give people a reason to look at the screens. The videos don’t need to include audio, though they could if that’s what you want.
Give People A Reason to Look
The pre-service announcement slideshow is a convenient way to decorate the service, share upcoming news and information, and overlay a countdown so people know when to be seated. The moment’s impact probably won’t be too great unless you invest heavily in the content. If you’re expecting it to move the needle, be diligent about making it happen. If you don’t expect much from it at all, well, you don’t need to invest much.
Church Announcement Graphics
Speaking of pre-service graphics during your welcome and announcements, you’ll most likely want something on the screen.
Not everyone is an auditory learner. Even for people who prefer learning through audio, research indicates that those who consume information paired with visuals have a retention rate of 65% over a 72-hour period. This is compared to just 10% when they hear the information, no visuals included.
In addition to memory recall, you can count on people to better understand the information they are consuming when paired with compelling visuals. In fact, you can count on an increase of 78% when compared with non-visually represented information.
Most ministry leaders, to some extent, already instinctively know this to be true, investing resources into sermon series artwork, study guide covers, or church announcement graphics. Whether instinct or statistics lead us to believe visuals matter, many leaders don’t act like it is true.
If it’s true that strong visual designs will increase the effectiveness of our church announcements, then why do we:
- Wait till the last minute to put together church announcement graphics?
- Ask volunteers with no experience in graphic design to design our church announcement graphics?
- Not evaluate our graphics for church announcements for effectiveness?
- Not updating graphics over time to look and feel current?
This list isn’t meant to be an indictment but an invitation to align your intentions, beliefs, and actions.
The Sunday worship gathering is the most influential time slot for a church every week, and ministry leaders have a responsibility to steward that time well by being selective of announcements and strategic in how they are announced, including the visual aids that accompany the words.
If you believe something is worth mentioning to the entire congregation and the facts say that strong visual aids will improve the reception of that message, why would you not want to invest in stronger church announcement graphics?
Today, thoughtful and thought-provoking visual design is too readily available and affordable to simply phone in your designs. We believe that visuals will increase the effectiveness of communication – that’s why we invest heavily in our church graphic designs. Below you can see some of the announcement graphics we’ve created to help churches extract every ounce of effectiveness from the announcement moment.
Ministry Graphics
Small groups, women’s ministries, men’s ministries, and so many other church ministries will need graphics at some point in time, not just for announcements. When you create an announcement graphic, it can be used in so many other ways; with that said, here are some of the graphics we’ve created for individual ministries. Churches are using these for both announcements and ministry designs.
Small Groups
You can call them small groups, growth groups, life groups… whatever you call them, you’ll want to have a graphic for them. Here are several we’ve created.
Looking for more community group graphics? Explore everything we’ve created here.
Men’s & Women’s
Men’s Group: Join us every week for faith & fellowship
Women’s Group: Join us every week for faith & fellowship
Holiday Graphics
Different churches handle recognizing holidays differently. If your church sets aside time during announcements to bring attention to the holiday of the month, be it to share what’s happening at the church or recognize the people connected to the holiday, you will most likely want to project something on the screen during that moment.
Memorial Day
Don’t make the mistake of honoring men and women who have served on this day. That is what Veterans Day is for. Memorial Day is a day to remember the men and women who died in service to the United States of America.
Here are the most downloaded Memorial Day graphics from pastors using Ministry Pass.
Memorial Day: Remembering Their Sacrifice
Memorial Day: Remembering the Fallen
Memorial Day: Remember the Fallen
Memorial Day: Remembering Their Sacrifice
Looking for more Memorial Day graphics? Explore everything we’ve created here.
Independence Day
Recognizing the 4th of July is always tricky because the date moves every year. If it lands on the weekend, absolutely! Say something. If it lands on a Wednesday, that’s a little bit trickier. The Sunday before, people are thinking about getting through Monday and Tuesday, and the Sunday after, they’ve already moved on.
When you do decide to give Independence Day significant time, here are the most popular Independence Day graphics we’ve created for pastors to use.
Looking for more 4th of July or Independence Day graphics? Explore everything we’ve created here.
Next Gen Ministry Graphics
Graduation Sunday
There is no right way to recognize graduating seniors during your service. The two most typical methods include 1) recognizing seniors during the announcements and 2) dedicating a longer moment during the service, inviting seniors up to the platform for a more elaborate recognition.
No matter how you honor seniors, you’ll most likely want to set the moment with a senior graphic. Here is what pastors have been using for the time they do set aside.
Graduation Sunday: Congratulations Students
Looking for more Graduation graphics? Explore everything we’ve created here.
Camps & Trips
Kids camp, summer camp, winter camp, spring break trips, and VBS are all annual occurrences. Not only will you need an announcement graphic, but you’ll also need event graphics! What you create for one can serve as both.
Here are some examples of camp and trip graphics for next-gen ministries.
Generic Announcements
When you start your announcements, you can easily use a slide featuring your church logo. If you’d rather have a graphic that simply says “Announcements,” you can certainly do that. We recommend going with your logo, but consider these options if you need a specific graphic.
Announcements: What’s Happening
Announcements: What’s Going On?
Announcements: What’s Going On?
Announcements: What’s Going On?
Looking for more generic announcement graphics? Explore everything we’ve created here.
Here are some additional service announcement graphics you may want to consider.
Daylight Savings Time: Set Your Clocks Ahead
Church Communication Alternatives to Sunday Announcements
When you finally decide to change your Sunday announcements, there will naturally be resistance. However, your staff and volunteers won’t struggle with change, as everyone understands that change is necessary.
The struggle will be with the transition.
To help manage the transition, they will need a vision for the future. They need to know, “How does this affect me? What does this mean for me? How am I expected to operate?”
If you can provide insight into these questions, it will help ease the transition and make life better for everyone.
One way to ease the transition is to be ready with an answer to “How do I get the word out about my program?” This is where you’ll do well to have a list of promotional paths as an alternative to announcements.
Churchwide Email Newsletter
Email is the most underutilized communication tool for nearly every church. If you can develop a strong email strategy, email can single-handedly do the heavy lifting of every ministry, event, and opportunity.
Invest time and energy into creating an email newsletter that goes out to the entire church every week and look for ways to include the opportunities and invitations of other ministries in the newsletter.
Inside Ministry Announcements
Another way of helping ministry leaders fill their programs and events is to help them become strategic with their announcements like you are with churchwide announcements. If you can help them understand that talking about one thing over a longer period will produce better results than talking about everything all the time, that will go a long way in empowering them to do their own work.
Utilize Ministry Volunteers
The volunteers for each ministry can serve as the primary recruiting tool for the programs and events within that ministry. For instance, youth group small group leaders have much more influence on their students and their student’s parents than a Sunday announcement has. If you can coach your high school small group leaders to encourage parents to send their students to whatever the event is, that will produce the fruit the ministry leader is looking for, and they’ll double down on that strategy in the future.
Better Website Presence
Most churches have a section on their website where ministries can share upcoming events and programming. Encourage the ministry leaders to do a more thorough job crafting compelling language for their web presence.
Instead of saying “Don’t miss it, it’s going to be awesome,” encourage them to capture testimonials from past participants. Encourage them to get original photos to include on the website. Encourage them to come up with compelling language that turns the event from a date on the calendar to “appointment viewing.”
If ministry leaders do the work of convincing people to participate, they will not only reach the 20% who would have shown up anyway, but they’ll begin to tap into the 80% who would not have responded to an announcement in the first place.
The Sunday Service Matters… So Announcements Matter, Too
The Bible specifically tells us not to neglect meeting together. Meeting together is a commandment in scripture which means it is important to God. Therefore, every moment we are together should be important to us, as well.
Announcements don’t have to become a terrible way to die. In fact, if you give them the same attention and intentionality as the worship and the message, it can become a portion of your message that carries deep meaning and significance to those in your church.
“I remember the Sunday when Kathy shared her story about her marriage to her husband of 35 years and how they had been struggling. I thought, ‘That sounds like me and my marriage.’ Kathy shared about the marriage conference coming up, and when she shared what we could expect, I thought, ‘I know my husband would want that,’ and so we went. That was the morning our marriage changed.”
Gosh, how awesome it would be to hear stories like this throughout the year—stories of God using the announcements to invite people into a more preferred future—a future filled with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
People want that, and the announcement moment is your opportunity to invite people into the opportunities where that type of growth is truly possible.
The Sunday service matters and announcements matter, too.
