Struggling with what to write for the church newsletter? Jessica Anschutz of the Lewis Center shares ways to write meaningful and relevant material for your church newsletter by aligning articles with your church’s mission, connecting ministries, breaking silos, elaborating on worship themes, and rotating focus areas. These insights will help engage readers with purpose-driven, faith-building messages.
How can it be that week after week or month after month the newsletter deadline approaches, and you seek inspiration for what to write? It is frustrating when the newsletter deadlines are more frequent than the flow of ideas needed to fill their pages, whether they be hard copies or e-blasts. Whether your newsletter is weekly or monthly, or delivered in the mail or via email, you may experience writer’s block when it is time to write your piece for the newsletter. Ideally, your newsletter should share detailed information with your parishioners and guests in alignment with your congregation’s mission, vision, and core values. Here are some ideas along with questions for reflection to help you write relevant and meaningful articles or letters for your congregation’s newsletter.
Connect the dots.
While the connections between ministries and the mission, vision, and core values of the congregation may seem obvious to clergy and church leaders, those connections may be less apparent to other members and guests of the congregation. Use your newsletter to help people connect the dots and more deeply understand how the ministries of your congregation reflect the mission, vision, and core values of the church. Your newsletter can help tell the story of why your congregation does what it does in worship, ministry, and mission. How might your newsletter help people connect the dots between your church’s ministries and its mission, vision, and core values?
Move out of ministry silos.
No matter how big or small the congregation, ministries may develop and operate in silos such that only persons involved in a particular ministry know the details. Your newsletter provides you with an opportunity to break out of silos and highlight the ministries to increase everyone’s knowledge and expertise about the opportunities for people to grow in faith. These highlights may not only serve as an invocation for newcomers to join a ministry, but also an opportunity for partnerships to develop across ministries in your congregation or community. How might your newsletter invite people to engage in a new (to them) ministry opportunity?
Capitalize on teachable moments.
Perhaps you, too, have noticed when a regular churchgoer was surprised to learn about something you assumed everyone knew, like the significance of the seasons of the liturgical year, the purpose of a particular element of worship, the significance of the order of worship, or the volunteer opportunities with a ministry partner. Your newsletter is one of the tools you can use to educate people about all aspects of faith including worship, discipleship, mission, stewardship, spirituality, Christian formation, outreach, and more. Alternatively, your newsletter provides you with an opportunity to teach on the missional needs of your community or social justice issues that are opportunities for your congregation to faithfully respond. Consider focusing on a particular issue for a few weeks taking a different perspective each week: What does scripture say about this? What does church tradition say about this? What do I think about this? What has experience taught me about this? How can your newsletter provide lessons living a life of faith?
Introduce a liturgical season or worship series.
As the frequency of regular worship attendance decreases, newsletters provide a way to connect people who are absent from worship to the themes of a liturgical season or worship series. Highlighting the themes, lessons, takeaways from worship provides an opportunity for people to connect and engage with God’s word as it was preached, taught, and proclaimed in worship whether they were in the room, watching the livestream/recording, or absent. In the newsletter, you may more deeply explore the Good News, summarize, reinforce, or build upon the lessons and experiences shared in worship. How can your newsletter extend the worship experience beyond the weekly worship time to people’s daily lives?
Identify four main areas of focus and rotate quarterly.
Some congregations shift the focus of their newsletter on a quarterly basis so that the newsletter focuses on a particular theme or issue for three months before shifting to a new area of focus. These four areas of focus may include vision/mission, discipleship, stewardship, and community outreach, or four areas tied to your congregation’s mission or goals for the year. The same areas of focus may repeat from year to year or change from year to year. Identifying focus areas not only provides a starting point, but an opportunity for creativity and helping the congregation take the next faithful step in a particular aspect of ministry. What are four areas of focus in your ministry context?
Once you have experimented with one or more of these ideas, remember to proofread your work and invite a friend, administrative assistant, or colleague to review your work so that you put your best work forward. And remember, you are not writing an exegesis paper for a seminary professor, but something to help your congregation grow in faith and understanding, so write in a way that is accessible and relevant to your context. Happy writing!
Related Resources
- 50 Ways to Multiply Your Church’s Leadership Capacity, a free Lewis Center resource
- How to Make the Most of your Church Newsletter by Ann Michel
- How to Stay Focused on Your Mission by Barry Winders
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