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.
“meaningless task” — no wonder nobody steps up.