You can't say it all at once...

This is a question that I hear constantly... How many announcements are appropriate from the platform?

Research shows that after two announcements, people generally stop listening.

But, even when we know the answer, churches still struggle when service time comes. We believe there are so many important things that "have to be said" during the service we can't control ourselves. I saw this visual and it made me think of what we do to ourselves too often... from the platform, from our web site, etc. when we try to say everything at once.

In one of my favorite books, Be our Guest, they talk about Mickey's Ten Commandments. One of those commandments is:

Tell one story at a time. Mixing multiple stories in a single setting is confusing. Create one setting for each big idea.

If you have to make more than two announcements, try to tie them together into one cohesive thought.

Comments

[Ed Gillette]

The visuals are just what I am looking for to help communicate this concept within our church.

How does your church provide alternative settings/avenues for ministry messages that won't be included in the platform announcements?

[Todd Staffford]

We found "Be Our Guest" a few years ago on a Pastoral Staff retreat to Orlando. It's got a lot of great stuff in there that'll apply to a church. I actually just ordered some extra copies off of Amazon.com for some of the students in our Master's Commission program.
The hard part is that Sunday morning announcements is the only time to get your message out to the whole crowd. Not everyone in our church has email or goes to our website. Not everyone reads the bulletin.
But I've seen a lot times where we'll announce something from the platform for weeks, the event comes and goes, and afterwards people are saying they never heard anything about it.

[Rindy]

Just read 'Be Our Guest'--great thoughts! Isn't it about true with most things--the simpler and more focused, the more results!

Love the pics, and figures it was NY cars! (yup, I can say that--a NY'er here!!)

[Chris Queen]

Thanks for giving me "ammo" in my constant struggle to streamline announcements...

[Michael Gray]

Great post Kem. I love the message and I love that you used those photos to drive the message home (great for us visual learners!).

And I am going to go out this week to buy "Be Our Guest". No one in the world creates environments and tells stories better than Disney. What a great model for churches.

[daniel d]

but that begs the question of how? "big church" has the largest platform so it's naturally the one that every ministry or every event wants to get a launch from. its a "captive audience" so to speak and i guess that is the danger in itself right? not creating other avenues where people will listen?