Why we can't let go of the church bulletin
What works to understand systematic change in mainline Christianity
The minister was close to tears when she called me.
’Can you help make our church bulletin less of a burden?’
Every week, it took no fewer than five people’s involvement to produce:
The church admin to start the bulletin from a template.
The music director to put in the hymns.
The volunteer scheduler, to make sure the name of every person participating in the service was correct.
The member who managed announcements to make sure those were right.
The minster to edit the content and format the document.
Then it went back to the admin to be printed, folded, and distributed (and then collected and recycled on Mondays).
Each of these people used different platforms to access the document (Google docs, Pages, Microsoft Word, etc).
There were frequent changes during the week - each one requiring every person’s input.
It was technically hard - switching back and forth from different formats required a lot of copying and pasting. For the music, this was often literally cutting selections and taping them on a page.
They were trying to jam as much information as possible into four folded pages, so it was a game a formatting Jenga - delete one wrong character and the whole document collapsed into a jumbled mess.
Members of the congregation were extremely critical if there was even one typo or other error in the bulletin (and there always was), so the staff was always anticipating backlash.
All for booklets they produced every week - 99% of which were discarded after a couple of hours.
I thought this would be an easy consulting gig - processes, technology, and church re-imagination are my specialties!
I earnestly worked with them to streamline the production:
They all got on the same platform.
Each person made their own contribution without approval from others.
We improved the formatting so everything fit easier on the page.
We started using the auto-edit function to catch typos.
We cleared out lots of extraneous information and focused on the worship service itself - no more names of every minister, no more copious announcements (just the one or two most important.
The bulletin itself was reduced to two pages from four - way less copying and folding.
I patted myself on the back for solving their problem, and saving them hours of work and stress each week.
They hated it.
Everyone complained about the changes, and within weeks they went back to the same bulletin in the same format. The one that was causing them so much stress that they paid me to help them in the first place!
What was going on here?
It seemed clear to me that this was not about some folded pieces of paper with the order of service and announcements on it.
People are attached to the bulletin because it holds meaning beyond its function.
The church bulletin is 20th century technology that connects people with their faith and community. It has symbolic value far beyond its function.
No wonder we’re reluctant to give it up - or even change it.
And no wonder it feels like such a burden today. It’s locked into 20th century processes that are actually harder to produce (think physical magazines and newspapers).
But like so much about church, it can be very hard to see the difference between the function of something, and its meaning.
The bulletin has become part of the worship of God for so many - it literally guides them. At the same time, the technology we use for it has become outdated, and the reason we need it is not the same.
Inevitably, people say, ‘how will visitors know how the service goes?’, without considering:
a) there are not that many visitors!
and
b) the format of the bulletin is itself often pretty complicated and confusing for those not used to it.
The church bulletin has become a tangible sign of both how the church needs to change - and why it won’t.
Join me for an online workshop:
How to: imagine ministry beyond the 20th century model
$39 - paid Free Range Priest subscribers get 10% off.
This is part of a workshop series - register for 3 and get one free!
** It will ask for your name and email when you register. This is for my personal registration database. Your data will not be shared.