Church Marketing Sucks

Church video announcements have become the latest rage in the past few years. It’s something your church might consider doing, and video production doesn’t have to be as involved or as expensive as you think. The real trick to video is coming up with an approach that works for your context.

We wanted to look at a bunch of examples of church video announcements. The goal isn’t just inspiration (or to make you feel bad that your announcements aren’t as good), it’s to look at some specific lessons we can learn. So we focused on six different areas for video announcements:

1. On-Screen Talent

One of the challenges of doing video announcements is having the on-screen talent. Not everybody is good at video, and you might find yourself struggling to find volunteers.

But that doesn’t mean you can’t do video announcements at your church.

• Voice-over: La Mirada Christian Church in La Mirada, Calif. uses a voice-over with graphics instead of on-screen talent.
• Hire someone: You can always out-source the talent. There are a number of companies offering video announcement services, including Pro Video Announcements, My Church Announcement, and Pro-Nounce.
• Child labor: You can always make the kids do it like Rancho Community Church in Temecula, Calif..

2. Create Structure

One way to make your video announcements easier to create every week is to build some structure into your format. Shadyrest Bible Church in Chesterfield, N.J., went this route with their Top Five approach that highlights five different things each week.

Creating structure and adding limitations can be a good way to unleash your creativity, but be careful about boxing yourself in. For example, requiring five announcements each week might mean you’re forced to pad out your announcements for slow weeks.

3. Generic Announcements

Video can be an ideal way to give generic announcements about your church—options for kids, where new guests can get info, how to take next steps, etc. This is the regular stuff that doesn’t change each week, and some churches, such as City Church in Tallahassee, Fla., run a video like this as a pre-service intro (note that they used a voice-over with lots of great b-roll video, so their approach didn’t require on-screen talent).

Church on the Move in Tulsa, Okla., used a pre-service intro to set some expectations and share some announcements about their ministries (notice how they used a timer to let you know how soon the service would officially start).

4. On Brand

One of the benefits of video is it can be a simple way to reinforce your brand. What is your church all about? What makes it unique? Rather than repeating a jargon-filled vision statement, video announcements can be an opportunity to reinforce who you are as a church. It could be a simple statement that’s repeated as an intro, “Welcome to Shadyrest Bible Church, where our mission is to connect people to Jesus and love one another.”

Mobberly Baptist Church in Longview, Texas, manages to do it with simply with a graphic intro that repeats their values of worship, connect, and serve.

5. Have Fun

Whatever you do with your announcements, have fun. If you have fun making them, that energy will come through and you’ll likely have a fun product.

• Whether that means working with chickens like One Life Church in Evansville, Ind., or getting into a snowball fight like Journey Church in Joplin, Mo., have fun with it.
• When it comes to having fun while doing church video announcements, Covenant Love Church in Fayetteville, N.C., really knows how to let loose.
• It can also be fun to collect those video announcement bloopers.

https://www.facebook.com/covenantlovechurch/videos/vl.343587456099910/2024487224228907/

6. Testimonies

The age-old congregational testimony may seem like something from a bygone era, but it’s really at the heart of our faith: sharing the story of what God has done in our lives. Working testimonies into the announcements can be a perfect way to focus on inspiration over information.

• One Life Church in Evansville, Ind., worked a volunteer interview into their announcements to highlight an opportunity.
• North Haven Church in North St. Paul, Minn., used the testimony of volunteers to help explain a new Easter event and recruit volunteers.
• Other churches have favored testimonies over announcements and focused on telling those stories entirely. Celebration Baptist Church in Tallahassee, Fla., dives deep and tells the story of one ministry, while Life.Church has more of a news magazine style.

More:

We’re talking announcements over at our Courageous Storytellers membership site. We’ve got super-practical resources to help you figure out what to say and how to say it, including some specific help with video announcements.

Plus you get access to our ever-expanding library of resources. Join now!