Ah, the world demands so much from churches, eh?
You’ve published a website and are feeling somewhat caught up with modern technology. But wait, a website is now so…well, not quite passé, but let’s just say…expected. As a church, what could you now be doing to reach out with the message of Christ?
Blogging
Blogging is one [...]
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Posted in faith, sheep on March 20, 2008 | No Comments »
So, I raise sheep.
I live on a small farm and raise a flock of wool sheep for absolutely no reason other than they’re cute. I pretend to be a spinner and make cool things with the wool, but in truth, I never find the time and my spinning wheel sits in the living room gathering [...]
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Posted in newsletter, writing on March 12, 2008 | No Comments »
Have I mentioned we don’t read much? One of the greatest mistakes in church communication, especially in newsletters, is length. Verbose preaching. Wordiness. If the article is too long, the average reader won’t give it a glance.
And so we continue on with Church Newsletter 202, with a focus on maintaining the reader’s attention.
Writing for a [...]
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Posted in design, newsletter on March 11, 2008 | No Comments »
“Typography exists to honor content,” writes Robert Bringhurst in the designer’s bible “The Elements of Typographic Style.”
Typography, typefaces, fonts…we hear these terms often in the design world. Technically they are not all the same. For our purposes, however, we won’t go into such mundane details. Just know that the visual appearance of your words is [...]
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Posted in design, newsletter on March 10, 2008 | No Comments »
Okay, we’ve got the imagery. We’ve got the font. Now let’s lay out the newsletter.
Studies show—yes, people have actually tracked readers’ eye movements—that layout of the newsletter greatly influences its legibility. Our eyes naturally read from left to right so think of our reading pattern as a large “Z” over the page. Often a designer [...]
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Posted in design, newsletter on March 8, 2008 | 1 Comment »
We’ve determined newsletters play an important role in church communications. We’ve also covered the basics of creating that important newsletter. Now, let’s get into the nitty gritty of attracting those readers.
Imagery
While there are many elements of good newsletter design, first and foremost is the fact that a newsletter must be more than words. As [...]
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Outside Sunday bulletins, the church newsletter is perhaps the most common form of communication to your congregation. As much as churches vary from one another, so do the newsletters they publish. From electronic versions to traditional hard copies, the one common thread is that most of them aren’t getting read.
Let’s be real here.
We’re [...]
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