Church Announcements: The Ultimate Guide

Every church has announcements and they often come in many forms, whether they’d spoken during Sunday service or sent out on social media, via newsletter, or printed in the bulletin. Whatever the case may be, drawing attention to these announcements can prove to be a crucial issue. 

To be effective, announcements need to be clear, concise, and nicely crafted. Of course, figuring out how to best present and share announcements requires some experimentation. To get you going, here are some do’s and don’ts along with ideas for making your announcements more creatively.

Rethink Your Language in Church Announcements

At many churches today, announcements are viewed as a simple to-do list item that should get checked off on the way to covering more critical parts of the day’s service. As an extension of that, many churches fail to put enough thought into how they word and present their announcements.

Ultimately, you should look at your announcements through a visitor’s eyes, just as you do every other aspect of your church. What will they think when they read it? How do you want it to make them feel? What action would you like to result from it?

By thinking more deeply about how you word your announcements, you’ll automatically begin to make stronger connections with your congregation and the first-time visitors of your church. Remember: announcements should never feel like an “insiders-only” ordeal. They should speak to and engage first-time visitors just as deeply as they do long-time members.

Invite Them to Take Action

Now that you’re thinking about your announcements from a visitor’s perspective, remember the importance of including a call-to-action (CTA) within your messaging. Ultimately, every announcement you make has an ideal response, whether that’s getting people to invite friends and family or encouraging them to donate.

Of course, many CTAs are weak to the point of being almost entirely un-enticing. That’s why many churches are forgetting their old approaches and instead opting to write announcements in an invitation style. Here are some examples of CTAs written as invitations:

• Every month, up to 18 volunteers climb into our church’s Wheeling Hope bus and head to the local youth shelter to hand out the meals and care packages that they’ve assembled for them. This is your opportunity to serve our community’s needy youth. To claim your spot, contact…
• School is back in session, and that means our school supplies drive is in full swing. This is your chance to help local students by dropping off unused supplies at the church office. For more information on what you can bring, contact…
• Do you desire a deeper look at Scripture? We are forming a new Bible Study group starting next Wednesday. We welcome everyone 16+ to join us for this meaningful mid-week activity. Potluck dinners will always be served. Contact … to claim your spot.

See how these simple yet meaningful announcements help to capture interest while posing these requests as opportunities and invitations instead of needs? Try it for yourself.

Include Helpful Contact Information in Church Announcements

While the example announcements you see above don’t include contact information, your announcements always will. However, a simple phone number isn’t always enough. These days, including a short web link where members can learn more online or fill out a form instead of phoning in will prove to be extremely valuable.

With that said, you should still include direct contact information–preferably a phone number that they can call or text. Make sure that any contact information you include is up-to-date and takes them directly to the person most suited to handle their request.

Broadcast Your Announcements The Right Way

When it comes to talking about announcements in church, it’s the unfortunate truth that many church members learn to tune them out for one reason or another. Maybe they think they’re always hearing the same thing or perhaps they feel like you always use them as a way to drum up volunteers and they’re simply not in the position to offer their time.

A good way to get people actually listening to your announcements is to mix things up. Avoid sounding like a broken record by having new announcements every week. Also, while it’s okay to offer volunteer opportunities during the announcements, they should go beyond that.

As far as how the broadcast is actually given in church, get creative. Think about it as an actual broadcast, much like announcements that radio hosts make. They keep things interesting thanks to their personalities, rather than reading something cut and dry off a queue card. What’s more, radio hosts often work in pairs.

So, if you have two people at your church who have good chemistry together, consider having them work together. They can make announcements all the more engaging and entertaining to listen to.

Work In The Positivity and Praise

Perhaps one of the best ways to boost the engagement and response to your announcements is to work in the positivity and praise your congregation for their good work. Imagine you’re making an announcement about an upcoming cleanup project. Why not mention how many people attended last year and everything they accomplished?

A good example is to illustrate the difference your congregation can make. Do this by detailing how many total volunteer hours you’ve spent helping a local organization or putting things into numbers in other ways. For instance, “We cleaned up over 1,200 pounds of trash last year as part of our highway corridor sponsorship program!”).

At the end of the day, your focus should be on getting people excited about the difference they can make as part of your church. If you can do this in your church announcements, you can make sure that new visitors and long-time members alike look forward to coming back.