You may have noticed today - if you did not - let me share with you that we are going to reduce if not eliminate making announcements on Sunday morning during worship. The feeling is that our time together is for worship and that announcements break the spirit of worship.
Announcements will be included in your bulletin. They will run on the screen before and after worship. They are online on the web page - http://www.mtoak.org/Documents/Announcements.pdf. If we make any it will be at the start of the service so be here on time or miss them verbally and catch them in the other ways we share them.
Your thoughts?
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I feel that we need to have announcements. When we have a function and it isn't announced, the turnout is very small. A lot of work goes into all of our functions and when we have a small attendance it is like a slap in the face of everyone who worked so hard. Keep the announcements.
In response to anonymous 6:45, there are other ways to communicate events other than taking worship time. I can see as Pastor Ray said, giving them at the start of the service, but many people do not arrive on time and would miss them. To give them later breaks the mood of worship in my humble opinion.
I would say give short references to the information found in the bulletin but do not take worship time to do it.
I feel we need to keep the announcements.Not everyone reads all of the media we have out there to get this info out. It doesn't take too much time to do mention what's going on. We stopped announcements before & it had a negative effect on participation. Not a good idea.
It is pretty sad to think that with all the "media" as anonymous 4:11 says we have we need to take precious worship time to run down the upcoming events.
Maybe those in charge of events should take a more proactive stance and have persons at the doors before and after worship with fliers and verbal invitations. Just a thought.
To me, part of worship is being a part of the Body of Christ. The less I know what they are doing, the less I feel a part of the Body. Keep the announcements. IMHO.
Announcement to me are very important. I get all the Media and since I only have a work e-mail address, it is usually in the middle of my busy day so I quickly read it and then dont got back to it again. When I first started attending Mt. Oak we used to hear announcements, say a prayer over the service that was being and we would greet our neighbors. Or join hands and pray even across the isle and I enjoyed that. It make everyone feel warm and welcome. As a greeter one Sunday a month, most folks coming thru the doors are rushing to get in and seated. Perhaps we should have after Service Folks with flyers listing upcoming events and contact information of who is in charge if you want to get involved.
I agree that attendance on events appears to be down and I feel that some times we have so much going on that some things slip thru the cracks. I was wondering just this week if we have enough turkeys for the Outreach? Last year we where asked weeks in advance and since everyone is on a tight budget we need to plan if we are going to be asked to help with extra expense. So again communication seems to be lacking. I think that once we are in worship, it is not the time for announcements but before or after the service has ended would be good. I think if the Worship Leaders are busy preparing for the service that possibly a member of the church could do those announcements. Just a thought.
Pam Lowry
I am for announcements, but understand that they may need to be limited. Worship is very important on Sunday, I agree, but as a church body, what we do beyond the Sunday service is very important also. Including upcoming events or accomplishments in the Sunday service, such as acknowledging the workers from the Turkey dinner, can be very encouraging.
Dana Newby
I liked what was done yesterday morning during 1030 service. Jason did a very brief highlight of the Turkey Outreach. I would concede to adding maybe 2 other events that need to be highlighted. Two sentences is enough. 2 Paragraphs is not especially after we have already sung and prayed already.
I agree with getting people to give out flyers or encouraging them to actually read the bulletin and visit the website. It takes time for people to get in the groove of new habits. Let's not "keep it the same" for the reason of attendance. If people really want to come, they'll start doing the things they need to in order to be there.
Personally, the whole "late" thing doesn't seem to be a good excuse. It never is anywhere else in life. At work people arrive late and they could get fired. In high school, tardiness equaled a loss of participation points for the day. Personal example now: In college two Mondays ago I got chewed out by a guest professor for being 5 minutes late to class. He said I had no respect for time, my professor, him, and my classmates. How does that differ from church when people are there at a certain time to have the Holy Spirit show up at a certain time?
Church is only one day a week. What is it that makes us feel so casual about coming to the House of the Lord? Maybe we can start encouraging each other to get to church "before the bell" so to speak. We should set the bar high not lower it because we feel like people are incapable of reaching it.
We can do it :-).
-Josef
Seems to me like some believe announcements are important. Others think announcements shouldn't interrupt worship. A compromise might be to have short announcements at the start of the service, referring people to the bulletin, the web page and other places for more details.
I think people should stop feeling like they need to be spoon fed. The announcements are all over the place for the person wanting to know. Why should the pastor or worship leader end up being a recruitment agent. The ministries should do a better job of advertising their events and one on one recruitment is always better than a verbal announcement. M2C!
If you don't tell the people what's going on in the church, they won't know. All the blogs and websites in the world will not be as effectively as direct communication. The difference lies in proactive communication during Sunday services and the passive mode of posting it to the Blog and/or website. Proactive always trumps passive.
Part of the reason that I attend Mt Oak instead of "getting my religion" from TV evangelism is the direct communication from the church community to me. Keep talking to me directly. I like it and it's the best (and probably only) way to get me involved in your ministries.
I like having the announcements at the start of church. To me it doesn't feel like church if there are no announcements. I read the bulletin every week, but I like having the annoucements spoken to me as well. Some people might not get a bulletin when they walk in then they miss out on what is going on that week. Keep them, just do them before worship starts.
Keep the announcements. This helps to remind you of what is coming up or that you need to pay for an upcoming activity, etc. I doesn't interrupt the service that much, and only takes 1-2 minutes of time to complete. Lack of announcements tells people that it isn't very important and not worth your time. I'd like to hear the reasoning behind the thought that it interrupts worship when announcements are given at the beginning of the service.
Announcements are useful. Some learn through hearing. Others through reading. Yet we have made verbal announcements and written ones and people still say - when is such in such happening?
I support announcements at the start of our worship service (we need to be on time for worship - can we be late for work?) Announcements in the middle of worship breaks the worship atmosphere for me. Having them at the end takes away from the thoughts I want to leave the church with - for me.
When I arrived the announcements were first sort-of-long. People were coming to worship at 10:45 to miss them I am told. We will try to begin worship at 10:30 - with a song, short announcements, and right into praise time. If appropriate to worship we may remind you of a worship service or something when we can at some appropriate time.
Trying to please as many as possible - but don't want to lose the focus of Sunday morning - to come together to worship God.
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