Why Most Announcements Don’t Work

I believe that most announcements don’t work.

Before I share the reasons why, let me share with you what they normally sound like.

“Hey guys, this  weekend we’re having a training beginning Friday at 7pm. Hope to see you there!”

Would you agree that this is generally what many announcements sound like? Do you see anything wrong with this picture?

Here’s why it doesn’t work: it is a call to action, but not a call to a decision.

It’s a call to do something, but you’re not letting me actively respond and register that decision.

For example, pastors will sometimes make appeals by asking people to come forward in church. The people come forward, but then no decision is actually registered, and there is no way to then help the people follow through with their decision.

Here’s a better way: if you want someone to be involved, make it as easy as possible for someone to be involved, and give them an opportunity to register that decision.

If you make an announcement for someone to be involved in small groups, don’t ask them to contact so-and-so to get the info. Have a card ready. Make the announcement, but then say, “If you’d love some more info on being involved in one of our small groups or would like to register for one, select this option on the connect card (sub in here whatever you call a response card), and one of our leaders will contact you with the info.

Make it easy for people. The responsibility of administration and leaders is to create as seamless and easy an experience as possible. You go through the hard work so that attenders can easily make a decision.

If you make an announcement in a newsletter, create a link so that people can register to be involved. If people don’t register, you have no way of actually gauging interest and will have no way of knowing if you’ll have enough people.

At the end of every semester we hold a small event called Soup for Students. We feed the students during finals week. Using this process, we sent an announcement in our e-newsletter with a link so the church members could register to bring soup. We discovered after a few days that not many had actually registered, so we had to personally recruit more people to bring soup. If we hadn’t done asked people to register if they’re bringing soup, we wouldn’t have known that we would be needing more.

It’s a simple principle: never make an announcement or an appeal without giving people an opportunity to register that decision.

So what do you think? Scroll below to leave a comment or click here.

[image by Glenn Halog]