3 Places Where the Church Has Too Many Typos Church Marketing Sucks

3 Places Where the Church Has Too Many Typos

June 10, 2015 by Celine Murray

Even if we don’t have degrees in English, most of us notice typos, particularly embarrassing ones in the church newsletter. And if you’re a communications manager, those proofreading mistakes fall on you. But typos don’t have to be there; you can catch them if you take another glance. Here are the most common places typos lurk:

Bulletins: The funniest typos often end up in the announcement descriptions.

Website: People look here to learn about any upcoming events or look for service times. Don’t confuse people with typos that accidentally switch “9 p.m.” to “6 p.m.”

Worship slides: No one is going to throw a fit if you don’t use a semi-colon. But letting lines spill into each other and ignoring every comma rule you can think of? Not cool. Even someone high on the Holy Spirit can notice a lack of capitalization.

How to Fix

You may be too busy to catch typos, and that’s okay. The church is a diverse body of people, and many of them will be happy to help their church look better. Ask for some help. You can even organize a group of volunteers to help you proofread every week. (Besides, we can guarantee you that at least one person in your congregation is weeping every time “there” and “their” is messed up. That person will probably be thrilled that you’re trying to fix the issue.)

Why it Matters

So, who besides the crotchety people in your congregation really care about this anyway? Visitors may be one of them. If your church can’t get rid of typos on its website, then what does that say for how the church manages its youth group or its finances? If you’re sloppy on these little things, people will think you’re sloppy elsewhere too.