By Dale Sellers

I recently spent some time developing a list of some of the best practices that have been highlighted throughout our posts. After creating the list, I thought it would be helpful to share some of them with a deep dive into each best practice.

Best practice: stop prioritizing announcements/messages that don’t move people through the mission.

Long announcement segments can undo the momentum of worship. Here are 10 practical ways to reduce “noise,” keep communication mission-aligned, and move people toward next steps.

Backstory

I was asked by a relatively large church to serve as a Secret Shopper for them during the Sunday morning service. The church was led by a great pastor and a staff who worked well together in a unified purpose to reach their community. They had a lot of momentum and had a strong reputation throughout the region. Other aspects of the church included a clear mission/vision, strong volunteer engagement, and solid buy-in from the congregation. However, the reason for my Secret Shopper engagement was that the Executive Pastor sensed they were beginning to plateau.

I showed up incognito on a summer Sunday morning. No one but the Lead Pastor and the Executive Pastor knew why I was there or what I had been asked to do. The place was packed and filled with anticipation. The service was quite lively, as is the norm for Pentecostal churches. The worship team, along with the supporting elements such as lighting, Pro Presenter, and audio, was excellent. I soon found myself completely engaged in worship that truly drew me into an authentic worship experience.

And then what happened next totally baffled me. After completing about 20 minutes of incredible worship, they immediately transitioned into 18 minutes of announcements. There were video announcements. Then several individuals came up and announced upcoming events dear to them.

Finally, the pastor stepped up to deliver his sermon. Yet, he first added 4 more minutes of announcements that he wanted to highlight, many of which had already been announced. Once he finished announcing the announcements, he proceeded to preach a great message that was really relevant and anointed.

After the service, to my surprise, the Lead Pastor asked me to join him and his wife for Sunday lunch. As expected, he asked for my opinion of the service once we had completed our lunch order. After taking a long sip of water, I replied that I thought “both” services were amazing.

The pastor looked puzzled at my reply since there was only one service. I went on to explain that I thought the worship experience at the beginning of the service was as good as any I had personally participated in. And his message was spot on, communicated in a relevant way that had something for everyone in the audience.

However, it was like attending two different services because of the length of the announcements. The atmosphere created by the worship team’s skill and sincerity was completely destroyed by the announcements. In fact, the pastor had to spend a few minutes at the start of the sermon recreating the atmosphere that had been established earlier.

Does this sound familiar to you??? There is nothing that I’ve witnessed in over 40 years of serving churches that completely confounds me more than the amount of time spent in a typical church service on announcements. It is so common in most churches that no one even notices the negative effect it can have on the impact of the service.

Stop The Noise

Communication without purpose is noise. I may have ruffled your feathers a little with that statement. Your pushback to this statement is most likely that your announcements do have purpose. I get it. Most pastors with whom I’ve discussed this usually respond by asking: “How else would we be able to share what’s happening throughout the ministry?”

My simple answer is that there are many ways to communicate upcoming events without creating a major disruption in the flow of your worship service. Here are a few suggestions if you’re looking for practical ways to reduce the impact of long announcement breaks in your service:

1 – Stop prioritizing announcements/messages that don’t move people through the mission/vision of your church.

In other words, filter every announcement through your mission and vision. Announcements that get communicated should provide ways to take the next step toward your mission/vision.

2 – Recognize that clarity protects unity, and mission/vision-aligned communication protects focus.

It’s so much more effective to communicate the mission/vision of the church in short snippets each week than to do a series or special service once a year. Mission/vision often leaks much like the air in a tire. Therefore, it needs to be constantly pumped up. Mission- and vision-aligned communication is a great way to help your congregation consistently see where you’re going.

3 – Place announcements that require a next step at the end of the service.

How often do we announce an event early in the service that requires someone to sign up? Then the service immediately moves on. However, people tend to forget about signing up when the service is dismissed because they have other priorities that distract them. It’s much easier to remember to sign up for something when it can be done on the spot, whether at the information booth or on their phone.

4 – Evaluate each aspect of your service through the lens of: Is it helping people to have an authentic encounter with the Lord?

It’s helpful to take some time consistently to honestly evaluate every aspect of your ministry for its effectiveness. To be frank, it usually takes “outside eyes” to really help us see areas where we have fallen into a rut.

I would encourage you to evaluate all elements of your weekly services through the lens of their effectiveness in helping people encounter Jesus. Removal of anything that distracts from this is a must.

5 – Service announcements should never allow space for personal agendas.

Far too often, an announcement is shared because of the position of the person who wants to promote their agenda. It seems people with influence can cross the line here if not confronted.

I’ve observed occasions when people announce during the service that a yard sale is coming up at their house next week. The service is not the place for personal promotion to a captive audience.

6 – Create a central system where announcements are reviewed and prioritized.

Communication runs so much better when everyone understands how things get communicated. A central calendar with clear objectives and deadlines is a great way to ensure everyone knows how communication will be handled.

This also helps to avoid constant tardiness from folks wanting to get their announcement made. There are always things that come up from time to time, which may be urgent. However, everything communicated should not always be considered urgent just because someone didn’t take the time to communicate in advance.

7 – Train your congregation on the various ways you are using technology to communicate effectively with them.

Email doesn’t work. We all know this to be true. But most churches still use email as their top way to communicate. Communicating through email can create a great deal of frustration due to the lack of engagement, even though we sent multiple emails about a subject.

Training your congregation that your primary source of communication will be texting, a page on your website designated for communication of events, social media such as Facebook or Instagram, or even the Church Center App helps them to not rely on service announcements as their only source of information.

These tools can also be a great space for “two-way” communication, where questions are asked and answered.

8 – Honestly review engagement during the announcement segment of your service.

It’s amazing how many people will immediately start looking at their phones during the announcement portion of a service. Unless the announcements are intended to cause people to get their phones out, the fact that they are looking at the phone is a clear indicator of their lack of engagement during the announcement part of the service.

9 – When making announcements, be consistent and concise.

Limit announcements to one or two key points that accompany your regular communication schedule. It’s also helpful to have a competent and concise presenter(s) of the announcements. (This is not the time for someone to fulfill their dream of being on stage in front of people.)

10 – Add a Communications Director to your staff with the authority to determine what gets communicated, when it’s communicated, and how it’s communicated.

The key to the Communications Director being effective lies in providing them with the authority commensurate with the title. It’s impossible to create an effective communication environment if everyone goes around the Director to get their way.

• Key Point: The pastor must also adhere to the established communication procedures. The buy-in, or lack thereof, of the pastor often determines the success of creating effective communications. Simply put, the congregation won’t take it seriously if they observe the pastor not taking it seriously.

Updating how you communicate with your church isn’t easy. And it certainly won’t happen overnight. However, you can immediately begin putting in place parameters to limit the impact of factors that stifle the impact of your services.

One of the best things you can do is bring in a Secret Shopper who can give you an honest overview of the service impact. If you need, I can provide a Secret Shopper Survey for them to use as a guide. I’ll be glad to send it to you if you just email me at [email protected] and request it.

Suggested 95Network resources to accompany this post

• Podcast 320 Transcript (includes a direct discussion about eliminating/rethinking announcements). https://95network.org/95podcast-320-summary-church-communications-strategy-prioritize-plan-produce-w-kimberly-tarlton-episode-320/
• Podcast 320 – Church Communications Strategy: Prioritize, Plan, and Produce (w/Kimberly Tarlton) https://95network.org/creating-effective-communication-within-your-ministry-w-kimberly-tarlton-episode-320/

What are you doing that is working well? What is not going so well? Let’s connect and have a conversation about it. At 95Network, we are here to support and serve you in any way we can. If you feel like you’re in a season where you’re stalled out and can’t see the way forward, then please reach out to me at [email protected]

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• Read Stalled: Hope and Help for Pastors Who Thought They’d Be There By Now

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