THE SHORT ANSWER
Pick one day and send every week, a day or two before Sunday. Lead with the one thing people need to act on, list everything else in a line or two, give every item a button, and keep it short enough to read on a phone in a minute. The nine steps below walk through it.
“I know what Wednesday afternoon feels like when the newsletter has to go out, three ministries sent their announcements late, and the editor just stripped the formatting out of a paragraph you already fixed twice.”
The steps
- Decide what it is for
- Pick a day, and keep it
- Choose the one thing
- List the rest, briefly
- Add one thing worth reading
- Write the subject line last
- Give every item a button
- Check it on a phone, then send a test
- Look at what got clicked
1. Decide what it is for
Most church newsletters are trying to do three jobs at once: tell people what is happening, help them take a next step, and remind them they belong to something. All three matter, but one will matter most for your church this season.
Write that one down. When you have too much for one email, it is how you decide what goes.
2. Pick a day, and keep it
Send on the same day every week, so people learn to look for it. A day or two before Sunday works for most churches: the events in it are still ahead, and Sunday is already on people’s minds.
Then set a deadline the day before for ministries to send you what they want in it. A late announcement waits for next week. That one rule saves more Wednesday afternoons than any tool.
3. Choose the one thing
Every issue gets one featured item, with a photo and a button. Pick the thing with a deadline, the thing that affects the most people, or the thing that is new.
If everything is featured, nothing is. The rest of the email exists to support this one item or to wait its turn.
4. List the rest, briefly
Everything else gets a title, a line, a date, and a link. Three or four of these is plenty.
If an item has nothing for anyone to do, it may not belong in the email at all. Move it to a slide on Sunday or to next week.
5. Add one thing worth reading
This is the part people forward. A short note from a pastor, 100 to 150 words, written like a letter rather than a sermon excerpt. A photo from last Sunday. A story about a baptism or a family the church helped.
Logistics get people to the event. This is what gets them to open next week’s email.
“I also know what it feels like to open it Monday and realize almost nobody read it. That bothered me more than the formatting did.”
6. Write the subject line last
Name the actual things inside: This week: fall study sign-ups, Work Day, Worship Night. That tells people why to open it.
Grace Church Weekly Newsletter #42 tells them nothing they did not already know.
7. Give every item a button
One action per item: register, RSVP, listen, give. Link straight to the sign-up, not to your homepage, and not to “see the bulletin.”
Every click someone has to hunt for is a person who does not sign up.
8. Check it on a phone, then send a test
Most people will read it on a phone, between other things. Look at it at that size. Then send a test to yourself and one other person, and click every link and check every date.
9. Look at what got clicked
After a few weeks, look at which links people actually click. Move the things nobody clicks lower, or cut them. Give more room to the things people use.
That is how the newsletter gets better without anyone holding a meeting about it.
A simple structure that works
If you want a starting point, this order works for most weekly church emails:
- A short note from a pastor or staff member.
- The one thing, with a photo and a button.
- Everything else, three or four items, a line each.
- Last Sunday’s sermon, for anyone who missed it.
- Ways to give and how to reach the church.
See it put together in five full church newsletter examples.
Common mistakes
- Featuring everything. Five photos and five buttons means nothing stands out.
- Pasting in the bulletin. A bulletin is for the room on Sunday. The email is for the week ahead.
- Walls of text. If an item needs three paragraphs, it needs its own email or a link to a page.
- Linking to the homepage. Link to the exact sign-up, not to a site where people have to find it.
- Moving the day around. A newsletter that arrives on different days stops being something people look for.
- Sending from “info@”. People open and reply to email from a person.
Running out of things to say?
Most weeks you will not, but when you do, there are 30 church newsletter ideas here, from volunteer spotlights to Sunday’s set list. For single-purpose emails, there are copy-and-paste templates for visitors, announcements, events, and giving.
Doing it in Butter
Butter is a newsletter tool built around these steps. Each part of the structure above is a ready-made section you drag in. Events come in from Planning Center Registrations or Calendar with the date, place, and sign-up button filled in. You can send yourself a test, schedule it for the same time every week, and see which links people clicked.
