During the past couple of years, many churches have starting supplementing their Sunday newssheet with an email, and some have stopped printing weekly news-letters altogether.
The Rev Barry Ayers, minister of Pohutukawa Coast Presbyterian in South Auckland, says email serves a slightly different purpose from the traditional Sunday newsletter, which his church has retained.
Electronic communication’s instant nature makes it a good vehicle for reminders or special requests during the week, or urgent news, Barry says.
Pohutukawa Coast began using an electronic newsletter about two years ago, he says, when he realised that many people used email and were happy to receive information this way.
“It created another way of communicating with people alongside everything else we do.”
Other benefits include the ability to send colour photos, to provide links to information on the Internet, and to keep in touch with people every week even if they don’t make it every Sunday.
“More and more people are becoming electronically based in their worlds, so we think this whole area can be carefully and creatively managed in the future.”
Wadestown Presbyterian in Wellington started putting out a weekly email news in 2006, says minister the Rev Sharon Ensor.
During a series on caring for the environment in 2008, the church experimented with stopping its weekly newssheet, recognising the wastage of paper. Instead, about 15 printed copies of the email news were left out for those without Internet access to pick up on a Sunday morning. These also have an abbreviated version of the order of service printed on the back.
The church has also started to circulate its longer bi-monthly newsletter by email, as well as making it available on its website, although a printed version continues to be produced for those who prefer it.
“After a recent ‘drive’ to get more people receiving it online, we have reduced the number of printed copies by about a third.”
Benefits have been the immediate nature of email and the saving in paper and printing costs, Sharon says, as well as the fact it “helps the planet”.
St Andrew’s on the Terrace in Wellington started using an electronic newsletter six years ago, says minister the Rev Dr Margaret Mayman.
People can sign up for the email from the church’s website. Margaret says many people who are associated with St Andrew’s don’t attend every week. “It keeps us in touch with them and draws them back in.”
The printed newsletter has changed from monthly to a quarterly magazine, with longer articles.
Margaret says the response from the congregation has been very positive, and the handful of people who don’t have email can pick up or be posted a hard copy.
The main benefit is the ability to share information at short notice, she says, as well as including links to the Internet for people who want to find out more.
“I usually try to send e-news fortnightly, unless there is a lot going on and then it might be monthly.”
St Columba @ Botany’s the Rev Andrew Norton writes a weekly email called 4U, which is more of a reflection than a newsletter.
Andrew began the weekly email eight years ago, about the time that the church was shifting location, because he felt he had become less accessible. “So I thought I would write something in a personal vein, to keep in touch”.
The newsletter is received by 700 people, about two thirds of whom are part of his congregation. Andrew says he gets about three emailed responses to the email every week, though it is mentioned much more often in conversation.
The content and the format hasn’t really changed since its inception, he says. 4U was a new idea, rather than a replacement for an existing paper-based publication, and St Columba still circulates a paper newsletter on Sundays.
One problem with 4U is maintaining the subscription base, Andrew says. “If I was starting again, I would go straight for a web-based or managed-email service.”
The church also sends out an email about its Myanmar project, called Mingalaba, which you can read more about elsewhere in this issue of Spanz.
Andrew says St Columba is embarking on a review of its communications, after a survey of the congregation indicated a need for improvement.
He says electronic communication can encounter exactly the same problems as printed material. “Just because something is in an email or newsletter, it doesn’t mean that people have read it.”
The quality of content is becoming far more important, he says, because of the volume of communication that people receive. Unless it’s compelling, they hit the delete key.
“The most effective form of communication is still person to person.”
How to get started
Microsoft Outlook can cause problems if you want to send to a large number of people. Often if you send to more than 20 email addresses, the email will go straight into your recipient’s spam folder or be automatically deleted by their service provider. Get around this by sending the emails in smaller batches or using a low-cost online service, which will also give you a choice of design templates for your email. We use www.campaignmonitor.com to send Bush Telegraph and all our other email newsletters.
By Amanda Wells