The Announcement Dilemma: 8 Reasons Your Congregation Tunes You Out During Announcements

This weekend all across the country people are going to get up in front of their churches and talk about upcoming events and opportunities to connect with community. They want to move their people to action but in reality a large portion of the room will simply tune out for that part of the service and then tune back in when something more interesting comes along. You know it’s true … because you’ve done it!

We get belligerent and blame the people for not engaging in the mission. Sort of like a shepherd blaming the sheep for not going to the right pasture. We need to understand why people are stopping to listen to shifting our behavior to help them connect with what we’re talking about … here are 8 reasons people aren’t listening to your announcements:

  • What’s in it for them? // We want to get them to attend our event. We need volunteers for the upcoming thing. We have a need that we are hoping they will fill. We focus too much on what’s in it for us … but people are intrinsically motivated to pay attention to things that will positively impact them. Frame your announcements in a way that shows how what you are talking about is going to make a difference to them.
  • Too Much Insider Language. // Why do church leaders love cute names for programs and acronyms? These are surefire way to alienate your audience because they need a dictionary to understand what all the different “special names” are for the events and programs at your church. Work hard to ensure that you use plain language that everyone can understand.
  • You need to sell not market. // Marketing is about making sure that people understand about the features and benefits of your product or service. Sales is about working with people individually to overcome their objections and get them to sign on the dotted line. Church leaders think way too much about “marketing” to people when what you need to do is think about “selling”. Who is person that is going to talk to people directly about engaging with your church?
  • No Heart. // Do you feel like yawning while you’re doing the announcements? Imagine what your people are thinking! If you don’t connect your message with their heart every once and while they will stop listening. People want to know why you are passionate about what you are talking about. Move beyond dates, times and locations to the big “why” behind what you are talking about that moves you emotionally.
  • Too much noise. // You want your people to take away the teaching points from the message . . . to chew on what difference that will make in their lives for the coming week. Everything can just be noise. Every time you add another announcement you add exponentially reduces it’s effectiveness in breaking through. Two announcements are 30% as effective as one … three is 90% less effective as one. How are you ensuring that you are doing the minimal number of announcements possible to ensure maximum impact?
  • Bad News Bill // Is it always the same person from the finance team that gets up once a month to tell the church how much they are behind on offering? People will learn to tune out that messaging quickly. If you are always the barer of bad news … people will stop listening. Don’t “candy coat” everything … but avoid using the public stage as the place to disseminate bad news.
  • Wrong Audience. // If you are announcing the up coming hiker club trip to the wilderness on Tuesday afternoon . . . which maybe 2% of the audience could possibly attend . . . you are telling 98% of the audience to ignore you. By having announcements that only focus a small part of your community your are training your people to tune you out. If your announcement doesn’t impact 50% or more of the people in the room … why are you talking about it?
  • Too Much Treadmill. // When was the last time you celebrated something fun that happened at your church? If you are always taking time to market what’s coming up next you are missing an opportunity to engage (and reward) people who have been involved in something already at the church. Celebrate your people and what they are doing . . . they’ll listen more.

>> Read more from Rich.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rich Birch

Rich Birch

Thanks so much for dropping by unseminary … I hope that your able to find some resources that help you lead your church better in the coming days! I’ve been involved in church leadership for over 15 years. Early on I had the privilege of leading in one of the very first multisite churches in North Amerca. I led the charge in helping The Meeting House in Toronto to become the leading multi-site church in Canada with over 4,000 people in 6 locations. (Today they are 13 locations with somewhere over 5,000 people attending.) In addition, I served on the leadership team of Connexus Community Church in Ontario, a North Point Community Church Strategic Partner. I currently serves as Operations Pastor at Liquid Church in the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey. I have a dual vocational background that uniquely positions me for serving churches to multiply impact. While in the marketplace, I founded a dot-com with two partners in the late 90’s that worked to increase value for media firms and internet service providers. I’m married to Christine and we live in Scotch Plains, NJ with their two children and one dog.

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comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
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comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Amen!!
 
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7 Alternatives to Sunday Morning Announcements

Ministry leaders think if they just get their event or program “promoted from the stage” people will flood into it. Church communications people are peppered with requests all the time for people wanting to get “their deal” in the announcements. The urgency from those leaders leans towards desperate. However, the more you talk about on a Sunday morning the less effective the messaging for everything is. You need some solid ways to say “no” to other ministry leaders by providing alternative communication channels.

  • Direct Emails // Each of your ministry areas needs to cultivate an email list of people who are interested in their area. This is a critical skill for communication today. We recently sent three emails (over three weeks) to a targeted list to promote an event before we “went public” through Sunday morning … we have 200 people sign up through the pre-registration emails and only 50 through Sunday morning.
  • Cause Foyer Chaos // Church is fun … right? How could you bring a little piece of the event you are promoting to the foyer on the weekend? Taking the students on a Camping Trip? What if you figured out how to serve smores to guests? (And then hand them an info sheet on the event.) Is your small group ministry launching off for the fall? What if you brought a living room into the middle of the foyer?
  • Social Media // How can you engage your people to get “talking” about the ministry program through social media channels? The goal here isn’t just to “call to action” but to create content that spreads dialogue about the ministry initiative.  Ask some questions related to the topic on Facebook. Take some pictures of your team prepping and post them on Instagram. Think conversations not signups.
  • Information Cards // As people are leaving the service have your ushers hand out a small printed piece that has all the information you are attempting to communicate as well as a compelling ask to join. Make sure to train your ushers to be friendly and to ask your people if they would like the cards.
  • Call People // Have you seen this new technology called “the telephone”?  It’s amazing … it’s kinda like Twitter but with audio. You can speak into it and then people on the other end can respond right away. It’s quick, basically free and ubiquitous. Why not order some pizza and pull together a group of volunteers to call people from the church to ask them about your upcoming event?
  • Snail Mail // People just get bills and junk mail in their mailbox at home. What if your ministry area came up with a clever piece to send to people? It will stand out in the desert of people’s inbox.
  • Kill It // If the ministry specific area is unwilling to put in the work to promote the event … then you should probably kill it. If the leadership is looking for someone else to “market” the event but they don’t do some work to generate a crowd than that is an indicator of a program that needs to go away. Less is more.

Read more from Rich here.

Download PDF

Tags: , , ,

| What is MyVisionRoom? > | Back to Communication >

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rich Birch

Rich Birch

Thanks so much for dropping by unseminary … I hope that your able to find some resources that help you lead your church better in the coming days! I’ve been involved in church leadership for over 15 years. Early on I had the privilege of leading in one of the very first multisite churches in North Amerca. I led the charge in helping The Meeting House in Toronto to become the leading multi-site church in Canada with over 4,000 people in 6 locations. (Today they are 13 locations with somewhere over 5,000 people attending.) In addition, I served on the leadership team of Connexus Community Church in Ontario, a North Point Community Church Strategic Partner. I currently serves as Operations Pastor at Liquid Church in the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey. I have a dual vocational background that uniquely positions me for serving churches to multiply impact. While in the marketplace, I founded a dot-com with two partners in the late 90’s that worked to increase value for media firms and internet service providers. I’m married to Christine and we live in Scotch Plains, NJ with their two children and one dog.

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COMMENTS

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Shoga Bamidele — 07/07/16 11:12 am

Thank you for the useful information.

Recent Comments
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you Ed for sharing your insights into the Church Growth Movement. I have my reservations with Church Growth models because it has done more damage than good in the Body of Christ. Over the years, western churches are more focused on results, formulas and processes with little or no emphasis on membership and church discipline. Pastors and vocational leaders are burnt out because they're overworked. I do believe that the Church Growth model is a catalyst to two destructive groups: The New Apostolic Reformation and the Emerging Church. Both groups overlap and have a very loose definition. They're both focus on contemporary worship, expansion of church brand (franchising), and mobilizing volunteering members as 'leaders' to grow their ministry. Little focus on biblical study, apologetics and genuine missional work with no agenda besides preaching of the gospel.
 
— Dave
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Thank you for sharing such a good article. It is a great lesson I learned from this article. I am one of the leaders in Emmanuel united church of Ethiopia (A denomination with more-than 780 local churches through out the country). I am preparing a presentation on succession planning for local church leaders. It will help me for preparation If you send me more resources and recommend me books to read on the topic. I hope we may collaborate in advancing leadership capacity of our church. God Bless You and Your Ministry.
 
— Argaw Alemu
 
comment_post_ID); ?> Amen!!
 
— Scott Michael Whitley
 

Clarity Process

Three effective ways to start moving toward clarity right now.