Newsletters are made up of several components but content is king. Church newsletter ideas need to be engaging, informative, and entertaining to make the newsletters worth reading for the church members.
However, for many church leaders achieving the level of engagement they wish for can be difficult due to poor content ideas. Regularly published newsletters are great. But what is even better is sending content that congregants enjoy reading. Now we know two things: 1) Newsletters are crucial for church communication and 2) They have to be as informative as they are engaging.
Can’t live with them, can’t live without them!
Since we can’t escape this means of communication with church members, it is better to make it count.
In this article, we look at various ideas that every church can incorporate in their newsletters to increase church engagement, open and click-through rates.
We have divided these ideas into 4 sections as follows:
1. Branding
You are probably wondering… I thought this was about church newsletter ideas? Why are we talking about branding?
Well, branding is part of content. Therefore it is our first church newsletter idea. As a matter of fact, branding your newsletters is very effective in getting known.
60% of millennials expect branding consistency across various channels. Be it offline or online, by email or in person. In addition, before someone remembers your brand, in this case, your church, they need to interact with the branding at least 5-7 times.
Treat your church as a brand of its own and communicate this branding in every church newsletter you send out. In addition, human beings are very visual. They remember what they see more than what they read.
How to implement branding in your church newsletters:
- Have your logo on a well-designed header: When your subscribers open the newsletter this is the first thing they will see. Design a good header with the logo, colors, and fonts that represent your church.
- Add subheadings: Always consider the fact that not all your subscribers want to read all the text. Some just want to quickly scan through. Therefore, having headings and subheadings helps them to scan through the newsletter quickly and jump to the content they need. Headings should be in a bigger font size while subheadings in a smaller one than that for hierarchy.
- Mobile responsive: There is a high chance that most of your readers will access the email newsletters on their phones or tablets. Consequently, stack your content responsively for mobile viewing.
- Add images: Break up your church newsletter ideas with images. These should be highly relevant to the newsletter content and should be used to drive the point home. Remember, a picture is worth 1,000 words.
- Organization: Branding is not just about your logo, fonts, or brand colors. It is also about how organized your content is. Poor content organization leads to an overworked reader. They do not know which content to read first or why everything looks jumbled up. Hence they abandon the newsletter altogether.
2. Content Ideas
Church newsletter ideas are aplenty. However, it is always good to get the basics of your church newsletters first. That means, getting the basic content ideas right too. Below are basic church newsletter ideas that can always work well:
Pastoral messages
The pastor is the most important church leader. Just like people prefer to hear from their presidents and CEOs at least once every week, the same goes for church members. Aside from the sermons, the pastor can prepare a short message to go out weekly in the newsletter.
It doesn’t have to be long, a few short paragraphs or sentences will do the trick. Remember, the goal is to keep the newsletter short and sweet!
Upcoming events
Do you have any special holidays coming up like Lent or Easter? Weddings? Crusades? This is a good church newsletter idea. However, do not overwhelm the reader. By all means, this is not the time to list every little event coming up. Just stick to the most important ones.
Announcements, important news, and updates
Churches never miss announcements and news updates. Did any pastor get transferred? Or are you planning to do a baby dedication service? These are updates that your congregation would love to know.
Weekly scriptures or devotions
In today’s world, one of the things that often gets forgotten about throughout the week is reading the bible. Many of your congregants probably only read the bible during the sermon while you preach. To cultivate a reading culture for the word of God, send weekly scriptures and devotions that last 1-5 days.
The bible app known as YouVersion has thousands of weekly devotions for Christians. You can send out a newsletter inviting the church congregants to not only do weekly scriptures but also join the rest of the church in select devotions from the app every week.
Memory verse
Alternatively, if you do not do devotions or weekly scriptures, you can start off with a memory verse every week. Equally important, during the Sunday service you can have the church recite together this memory verse as the icing moment for that scripture.
A good idea is to send this out as an image as shown in the example below:
Some churches also send the memory verse as an interesting video. The prowess of videos delivering messages has increased over the years. In light of that, it is definitely a good option to try out as part of your church newsletter ideas.
Links to relevant growth and encouragement articles
The beauty of the world right now is that you can find almost anything on the internet. If you stumble across a great article that your congregation can be blessed with, it can be good to share with them, don’t you think?
To do this, just create a short text or excerpt of the article and then link to it. Your newsletter subscribers will click the link to read it. It can be some article on your website or on any other site around the world.
3. Flavoured Church Newsletter ideas
Sending out basic church newsletter content is the conventional thing to do. However, who wants to be conventional?
In order to stand out, you have to find an edge that makes you unique from every other church. Being unique has to carry into your church newsletter ideas too.
We looked around and found the following ways to flavor and freshen your church newsletters in order to stand out:
Health and fitness nuggets
It’s a church. So why is it sending out health and fitness content? Because at the base of it all, churchgoers are human beings too. They get affected by poor health and fitness choices.
The church can use its newsletters to contribute to the health, fitness, and well-being of its congregation. Moreover, depression is a growing problem in society. How can the church play a part in helping the world curb this illness? By being a part of the fight against it.
If you are looking for a way to spice up your church newsletters, add some health, well-being, and fitness content. Your churchgoers will love the fact that you are looking at this angle of their lives and not just spiritual nourishment.
Social media scoops
Facebook is awash with funny Christian-worthy videos. So are Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. If you find some viral video that is either funny or educational, it would be great if your church audience can watch it too.
Furthermore, emailing tools like Get A Newsletter gives you the ability to embed a video, tweet, Instagram post, or link in your email body. Share the joke!
Worship setlist
This is one of the best church newsletter ideas you will find. Church members love music and worship is at the top of it. When preparing for the next sermon, craft a great worship list that church members can look forward to for the next Sunday. Include this in your newsletter as a link to either a short YouTube or Spotify playlist especially made for that week.
Podcasts
In the same way, when people are commuting or driving to and from work, they listen to lots of podcasts. In addition, they are always looking for new podcasts to listen to. Add a Christianity theme to their lists of podcasts by picking out good podcasts and adding those to your newsletter as suggestions.
It is fair to say that podcasts are comparatively less popular than music and might not get clicked on as much as the worship list, but they are a good option for subscribers to have.
Inspirational Quotes
Quotes can be a short nice read that your church members need to push them through that day or week. In addition, quotes by more prominent ministers of God can be even more appealing.
Add some http://spiritualinspirationministries.blogspot.com/2016/12/powerful-quotes-from-bishop-td-jakes.htmlof these to your church newsletter ideas in order to inspire your congregation without trying too hard.
Photos and church videos
Most churches today take several pictures and videos. Add interesting photos and videos to your church newsletters. Some churches even cut videos into little peaks that become punchlines shared in newsletters and on social media.
Contests
Additionally, you can carry out content contests in your church. Ask people to come up with their best newsletters and then pick out a winner from that and share their church newsletter ideas.
For example, if it is the Easter holiday, ask people to send in their content ideas for Easter holiday-themed newsletter content. Together with your church team, pick out the winner and showcase their content as part of the Easter holidays.
4. How Long Should a Church Newsletter be?
The best strategy with content is not to keep going on and on. You want your churchgoers to feel that it won’t take forever to read through the newsletter. Especially for email newsletters, we are avoiding sending overwhelming amounts of information and getting this reaction ….
In that case, consider the following:
- Keep your email newsletters between 500-1000 words. Beyond that and you are becoming too much. For real!
- Cut out extra words and use more expressive images.
- Minimize your paragraphs to around 1-4 lines of text.
- If it’s not too important, don’t write, send or even think of it.
All of these ideas are too much if implemented in one newsletter. Experiment with various combinations from the basic and flavored church newsletter ideas to find out your best-performing mix.
Hopefully, you can now send out more interesting and fresh newsletters.
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