11 Examples Of Church Bulletins To Inspire Lead Pastors And Improve Retention
Church bulletins have become a staple part of churches, and, yet, they are sometimes one of the blandest parts of a church service. Not a lot of time and effort are put into making a bulletin, leading to some of them feeling uninspired and even useless. But that’s where great examples of church bulletins come into play.
One of the mistakes churches have made in the past that has irked me the most are bad church bulletins. As someone who helped lead a kids’ ministry that reached over 1000 kids weekly for half a decade, I highly value the idea of taking something and improving it with flair, excitement, and fun.
So many churches disregard bulletins and they end up being there for show at best. But it doesn’t have to be that way. These pamphlets of information can be unbelievably helpful in a variety of ways, and these fantastic examples of church bulletins can help inspire you to get creative with your own church bulletin.
What Is A Church Bulletin?
If you’ve attended a church in the last three decades, there is a strong chance you’ve seen a church bulletin before. In its most basic form, it is a sheet of paper(s) that is handed out to each member of your church the moment they walk in. It is generally there at every major church service or gathering.
The church bulletin generally contains some information for the churchgoer to learn about. It could provide details about the service today, the church itself, or even some upcoming announcements. While the bulletin is usually a few pages long, it can be as short or long as someone wants it to be—though you should keep it to a minimum as much as possible.
The church bulletin is a steady part of many churches in the world, acting as a tangible piece of paper that is part of the welcoming process. At the same time, in our modern digital age, it can even be available in both digital and physical formats, which is one of the many benefits of this flexible and highly underrated part of church.
What Are Church Bulletins For?
There are so many reasons why church bulletins are important for churches, least of which is welcoming the person into church. It can even act as a guide for the entire service and a companion to the welcome speech that happens near the beginning of the schedule.
In a way, a church bulletin should be the essential guide to everything going on with your service. It can introduce the church to someone who is new to the congregation with a welcome message, including a message from the pastors and church staff. The bulletin can even give an idea of the types of departments and ministries that the church has to offer.
Furthermore, it can enlighten the reader with the upcoming outreach events and other announcements, to build excitement and possibly even volunteers. Even still, there is so much more than the church bulletin can do, including offering a Bible verse of the week or even a call-to-action (CTA).
CTAs are some of the best ways to make the church bulletin fun and exciting. It can offer interactive elements, such as quizzes, crosswords, and fill-in-the-blank outlines of the church sermon. These can get the church attendee involved with the bulletin and a bit more engaged with everything going on that day, either during the Sunday Service or any event put on by your church event management team.
In addition, it can include connection cards and welcome forms for people to fill out who might be new to the church or want to find out how to get involved. These call-to-actions can keep people in your church and improve retention in a simple way. Get a church connection card template here.
It is a valuable part of the process of finding out more about first-time visitors, following up with them later on, and showing that you care and want to continue pouring into their spiritual walk. For all of these reasons and purposes, you shouldn’t disregard or waste the opportunities the church bulletin provides you.
11 Excellent Examples Of Church Bulletins
Below, you’ll find 11 of the best church bulletin examples I’ve found online. Many of these church bulletin ideas come from excellent churches that know how to build their brand well across the board. I tried to include a wide variety of free resources here, from smaller bulletins to ones that go above and beyond what’s required.
I’ll be sure to break down what I, specifically, love about each sample church bulletin and what you can take from it for your own church.
1. Two Rivers Church
The Two Rivers Church bulletin is absolutely one of my favorite church bulletin examples. It’s a few pages long but it does so much with each page. The mix of blue and white is a nice color scheme that matches the church brand, plus you get all of the necessary information across the board.
Events, next steps, connection cards, you name it, and it is there in a smart way. It does miss out on making it a bit more personable with a message from the pastor but this is the best example of how to do a sermon outline with its entire page dedicated to that.
2. Valley Park Church
Admittedly, this Valley Park Church bulletin isn’t the most attractive. But it honestly doesn’t have to be. It gets the job done with its effective look at the upcoming schedule, social media pages for the church, and events.
But the real star here is the wonderfully-written personal message from the pastor. This is how to do that key part, but you should probably use a better, more readable font if you implement something like this.
3. Salem Baptist Church
Simplicity is key here in this bulletin from Salem Baptist Church. It uses a plain black-and-white graphic design style that is solid. It gets the point across in a more refined and less wordy approach, which I like. It contains all of the necessary info, showing that you can make a basic bulletin easily.
4. Seeking the Truth Digital Bulletin Example
Ministry Designs offers various free church bulletin templates, but I want to single out #7: Seeking the Truth. It is the prime example of how to make a digital church bulletin. It is a single page, so it works in both digital and physical formats.
It is easy to read, scannable and has a nice eye-friendly design to it. It also smartly includes a QR code, which I recommend to all churches today, to offer an immediate link to the next steps, the church website, or a digital version of the bulletin.
Find other church bulletin templates here.
5. Angelus Temple Newsletter
This isn’t a church bulletin per se, but a newsletter from the church I formerly worked at, so I am a little biased! This is an example of a newsletter and bulletin in one. It has an unbelievable amount of information about what’s coming up, classes, how to serve, events, interviews, and more.
This is honestly too much information for a weekly church bulletin with all of the wordy parts but you could easily take out some parts and paragraphs and make an excellent three-page bulletin from this.
6. New Greater Baptist Church
This is a solid example from MyChurchAssistant. This church set their bulletin up in a way where they could easily reuse assets and sections, such as the “this week” and “this month” segments in future bulletins.
This type of personalized template makes it easier to recreate the bulletin every week, while still providing new information. Plus, I really like the prayer request and offering report sections, which create such wonderful transparency for the congregation and community.
7. Faith Chapel Seattle
There is a Faith Chapel Seattle example from TemplateLab that I appreciate. It is another bulletin idea for those who want something simple and easy on the eyes. The featured image gets your attention and could be used to show off your church or community.
But then I also like the thank you message and other small parts that add up to give such a friendly and kind vibe to the church.
8. Crossway Australia
This is an actual picture of a physical bulletin from Crossway Australia, which I appreciate. I would use a bit more color to make everything fun, but I like the setup they have going on here. They cover such a wide variety of content, from volunteer opportunities to the current schedule.
They also share a message from the senior pastor, which is nice. Overall, this is a fantastic way to cover everything in your church bulletin but I highly suggest being a bit more concise with your words in your approach.
9. Harvest Christian Fellowship
This bulletin from Harvest Christian Fellowship is one of my favorites on this list. It is only a few pages in length, and it provides a lot of space with not a ton of text (except for one way too wordy page) so that it makes it super easy to scan and read it.
Better yet, I adore the color scheme and church branding throughout. Plus, you get to learn about the pastors and see a picture of them, which is a must if you want to have a high-quality welcome pamphlet.
10. Brentwood Baptist
What we have here are six pages-worth of a great church bulletin from start to finish, from Brentwood Baptist. I like the cover they use, which gets your attention while also showing some church branding and teasing the message. Everything is laid out so nicely and neatly, but I feel the text is a bit small.
Other than that, this is mostly a prime example of how to do a professional church bulletin.
11. LifeKids Easter Bulletin
Finally, this one from LifeKids is another one of my favorites. Kids get left out of regular church activities and their experiences feel missing or “dumbed-down” sometimes. I am a strong believer that kids should have a service that is on par with the worship and message of the large church.
This is an example of how to do a kids church bulletin. They absolutely nailed it with so many interactive activities, fun exercises, and more. It even contains stuff like next steps and everything else you’d find in an adult church bulletin.
This can even be helpful for big churches, too. Take some of these ideas and implement them into your own with interactive elements for the adult churchgoers to enjoy. It is also an Easter bulletin, which helps to show that you can do even more extravagant and unique bulletins for special holidays.
What Should Be Included In A Church Bulletin?
As you can see above, there are many, many different types of church bulletins. There are ones that are short, others that have several pages, and still more that fill their welcome packets to the brim with content and information from church leaders. But what should you include in your church bulletin?
The overall answer is that it depends on your church’s situation. Not every church needs to include a form for feedback, for instance, even if it is a nice gesture that can help to improve your church. At the same time, you don’t necessarily need to have a crossword puzzle or little game activity to keep the congregation’s attention.
Some of these elements are optional but helpful. That said, here is a full list of the features I think should be in every single church bulletin worldwide.
If you don’t include these, you’re severely missing out on the potential of both what your church and its welcome packet can offer to your churchgoers and their experience:
- Basic church intro: You need to use this as a way to introduce your church. Bonus if you include a message written by one of the pastors.
- Pictures: You want to include pictures of the pastors, church, etc., to give an idea to newcomers.
- Branding: Your church branding and style should be present throughout the bulletin.
- Calls-to-action: Have some type of follow-up engagement for the reader. It could be a welcome form for newcomers to take to a welcome desk, sign-up sheet for ministries, growth classes, small groups, and so on.
- Contact information: Have info for both the church and any ministry leaders (youth, kids, etc) someone might need.
- Church map: If you have a decently large facility and/or multiple buildings, this is a must.
- Announcements
- Encouragement: This could be in the form of a weekly Bible verse to encourage everyone, a place to submit prayer requests (with anonymous options), or anything else you can come up with.
- Sermon outline or notes section: Have a dedicated outline with blanks to fill in or a simple notes page. Either one of these can help to keep the church member engaged in the weekly message.
- Updated church schedule: You should keep an up-to-date schedule for the upcoming week or two or even the full month in every bulletin for every single church service. This should include when services are happening, when events will take place, and any other dates people should keep in mind.
- Excellent grammar, spelling, and punctuation: You want to be as professional and high-quality as possible. Just like I have wonderful editors who helped take this article to its full potential, so should you have a team that does the same for all the content in your bulletin.
- Friendly, loving vibe: While you want to be professional, don’t go so far in this direction that you lose your friendliness and loving attitude.
Take Your Church Communication to the Next Level
The church bulletin may seem like one of the most minuscule parts of the weekly church service. At a glance, you could see it as a piece of paper. But like Jesus teaches us in Matthew 13:31-32, even the smallest pieces that have the size and worth of a tiny mustard seed can be planted and sowed into a large tree that becomes a nest for visitors.
That is exactly what the church bulletin can be for the modern church. Its outward appearance and simplicity may seem boring or unnecessary, but that’s only if you allow it to continue that way. It is time for you to take that church bulletin, improve it using the examples above, and radically evolve your church communication. Get more information about how to create a church bulletin here.
But it doesn’t stop with the church bulletin. There is still so much more we can all do to improve our local churches, so I suggest building out a full-on church communication strategy plan next. Also, don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter if you haven’t already.
