It happened again. I was speaking with a pastor of a small church at a training event and they admitted that they created the bulletin every week. I asked if anyone else could do it and the pastor said, “No one will step up. I’ve tried.”

That’s not acceptable. Ever. There’s no way a pastor has the time to grow a church when they’re stuck doing meaningless tasks like this. So, what did I tell the pastor to do?

Whenever I do a consultation and discover the pastor is doing the bulletin, I tell the pastor AND announce to the congregation that the pastor will no longer be producing a bulletin beginning immediately. Period. That instead, the order of service will be printed on a half sheet of paper with a generic order:

Call To Worship
Invocation
Hymn
Prayer
Scripture Reading
Hymn
Offering
Doxology (Song of Thanks)
Sermon
Hymn
Benediction

Then the half page will be laminated and the hymn titles/numbers, scripture reading, etc. will be announced at the appropriate time in the service. Announcements can be found online or will be announced following worship.

It’s amazing … whenever I’ve done this, 100% of the time someone has stepped up and said, “I’ll do the bulletin.”

Not most of the time … 100%. 

(But if your church is the exception and they don’t, then use the half sheet of paper, laminate it, and move on.)

You’re the church leader, not the church secretary.