Weekly E-mail Correspondence
Send a weekly message to everyone in your church who has an e-mail address to reinforce Sunday's activities and to build a greater sense of being part of the congregational family.
BEST SUITED FOR: Any Size Congregation
WHAT'S INVOLVED?
 | Gather e-mail addresses from all in the church who are willing to share them. |
| Set up a group or list in your e-mail address book. |
| Write a short weekly message and mail early in the week. |
DO'S AND DON'TS
| DO......include only the addresses of persons who are willing to receive e-mail correspondence from the church. (To indescriminately add names to a mailing list is called spamming and is highly frowned upon!) |
| DO......remember to send a message every week at about the same time. This will heighten the sense of expectancy and not create questions about whether the person has been missed. |
| DO......select a catchy name for the mailing and always use that in the subject line. |
| DO......keep the message short and design it to reinforce the theme of the Sunday service. |
| DO......include a response message at the bottom as to how a person may be removed from the list, if they so desire. For example, "If you'd like to be removed from this list permanently or temporarily, send a note to Pastor@ourchurch.com." |
| DO......send the message as BCC (blind carbon copy). This way, each person's e-mail address will be hidden from others. Also, as your list grows, you avoid a long list of e-mail addresses at the beginning of the mailing. |
| DON'T......use this mailing for announcements, prayer requests, and other useful information. You may want to do a separate mailing (or maintain a separate list) for an e-mail prayer chain or newsletter. |
| DON'T......clutter up people's e-mail boxes with too many messages during the week or they will lose their impact. Also avoid sendingjokes, the latest forwarded stories, and so forth. If you do, people will not appreciate receiving the mailings from the church. |
RESOURCES NEEDED
| E-mail service. |
| List of e-mail addresses of church members who would like to receive messages from the church. |
COST
| Only the time involved (if you already have e-mail service). |
This idea was developed from a weekly mailing called "It's Monday.com" by Pastor Bill Walk of The Brethren Church, New Lebanon, Ohio (www.newlebanonohio.com/thebrethrenchurch). Click here to see an example.
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