I view announcements in church services as a necessary (?) evil – they virtually always are a distraction and cause people to check out. They come across as “commercials” – primarily because that’s the way that most of them are designed. The one redeeming characteristic is that they often point people to opportunities to worship and grow in God, or serve His people, outside the realm of the Sunday morning service.
OK, rant over – on to the positive. To make things as good as they can be, I would encourage those doing announcements to practice in advance to keep things as concise and tied to mission as possible. Have the service host (person doing announcements) actually do them as part of the service run-through, including the transitions in and out of the moment. I’d also encourage the language used to be relational in character – and understandable to the average person. Kem Meyer nailed it:
“Make it a normal practice to regularly evaluate your language in the context of guests. Set aside the insider speak and avoid using words that people have to look up. Recognizing that regular people are consumed with the pressures of life (i.e., pressure to keep up, loneliness, sadness, fear, skepticism, pride, guilt and anger), their filter is set to cope or comprehend based on their ‘everyday.’ So you should just use ‘everyday’ talk, too.”
Hmmm - well, let's see...
I'm a Christian, a husband, a dad, a son, a pastor, a consultant, a musician, a writer, and bits and pieces of a bunch of other things. My work life has followed three main phases - business to teaching to church. I was the Weekend Services Pastor for nine years at Northview Church, an awesome church in the Indianapolis suburbs. I used to work for Willow Creek, another awesome church in the Chicago area. Plus I've written for various magazines and websites, and other freelancy sorts of things... My life mission is to help the church be as excellent as it can be.
Oh yeah - the name's Greg. Greg Wallace. But not the race car driver or the major league pitcher or the British celebrity chef. Just the creative worship guy. Hi.
It's my hope that these ideas, musings, rants, raves, etc... will inspire you. They're just my opinions - but again, I hope that they'll help to inspire you. Because the church really, really needs inspired creative types. If you're a creative type (and most people are, deep-down), ask God for help. Then take any ideas that are useful to you - borrow them, nab them, use them, adapt them - and make them into something greater...
You can head over to my Instagram site for an abundance of shorter posts: creativeworshipideas. If you're looking for consulting - especially on weekend services, team leadership or multi-site strategies - I'd love to help. Just message me here, and I'll be in touch - Greg
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