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The best-read document in your church is the bulletin. It's picked up and read at least seven times in a church service, research indicates. But is it a good read? In looks, content, and accuracy, is it an apt representative of your church and its ministries?

Bulletins used to look pretty much the same from church to church, but not any longer. People are coming into the church from a culture saturated with image, print, color, and sound. How can the lowly church bulletin match the standards set by advertisers, corporations, publishers, and television?

Some professional advice on design, production, and quality control may help improve your bulletin and make it worthy of passing around. Here are some tips we picked up from designers and communicators as well as drafters of exceptional bulletins.

Cover Notice
The first thing people notice about a bulletin is its cover. The cover mirrors the church, says Anthony Goodhoofd, a graphic designer in Toronto and a member of Community Christian Reformed Church in Richmond Hill, Ontario. "The reader will know by looking at the bulletin where the church is at in its ministry," he says. At Goodhoofd's church, the liturgy of morning worship starts on the front cover of the bulletin because worship is the highest priority.

Some churches put drawings of their building on the cover. That sends the message that the building is most important to the congregation, says Frank Speyers, professor of visual communications at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Likewise, putting the logo of the church's denomination on the cover indicates its importance.

Many churches put Scripture texts on the cover. Speyers questions the wisdom of that if the verses aren't self-explanatory. "Some of your readers may be visitors who don't know the Bible well, in which case, that verse may be completely out of context," he says.

He suggests that churches be more sensitive to the cultural context of readers. "As a church, we have to be very conscious of what Madison Avenue is doing to our parishioners," he says. "Go to a magazine stand and peruse the covers. Which ones are attention-catching, appealing? People will judge the bulletin by its cover."

LaGrave Christian Reformed Church, in Grand Rapids, uses full color on its cover but in a very understated way. Against a cream-colored background, the cover offers basic information about the church—its name, logo, founding date, address, contact numbers, and a simple scriptural blessing. Rich Bouma, chairperson of the church's worship committee, says LaGrave church used to include a drawing of the church's stately old building on the cover but made the change to create a more contemporary image.

A cover can also announce the theme of the service, a series that's being preached, or a special event in the church calendar, suggests Eric Reed, worship leader at Glenfield Baptist Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. The cover might also show something relating to the life of the church or its members. "I have no problem with the bulletin cover being a display ad for something coming up in the life of the church," Reed says. "It's the first and best opportunity to say to people the one thing you want them to remember."

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