A Church Voice

Issue #4: Too Busy To Think?

December 3, 2000 - First Sunday of Advent

http://www.laufers.com/churchvoice/
To subscribe, mailto:churchvoice-subscribe@topica.com

__.+._______________________________

From Barbara’s Keyboard

The December holiday season is here, with more than enough to keep us busy. Take a moment every day to be still and enjoy. Make it a moment of reconnection and restoration.

If you’re looking for seasonal content ideas, go right to Issue #3 in the archive. A Church Voice has a Web home, with the archive and other resources for you: http://www.laufers.com/churchvoice/. Thank you for emailing me with comments and suggestions; it’s great to hear from you. It helps make this publication especially useful.

We’ve had a huge surge in subscribers over the last few days and are at 316 amazing! I welcome the new subscribers; thank you so much for subscribing. As always, if you think a friend, colleague, church staff member, pastor, or any others would enjoy this newsletter, please feel free to pass it along to them and invite them to subscribe.

America Online subscribers, I’d like to hear from you. Would you be interested in a listing of each issue’s links in AOL-clickable format, after the Graphics/Clip art section? Or is the current format working fine for you? Please email me. Thanks!

Now that December is upon us, I thought I’d focus on what to do with your church newsletter and/or Web site when you’re too busy even to think!

blessings,
Barbara Laufersweiler
mailto:cveditor@laufers.com

__.+._______________________________

You are receiving this newsletter because you requested it. Thank you!

I will  n e v e r  share your name or your email address with anyone else. If you need to unsubscribe, you'll find that information at the end of the newsletter.

__.+._______________________________

C o n t e n t s

__.+._______________________________

Sometimes things get busy and there’s barely time to think, much less be creative with your church newsletter or Web site. Remember the phrases from the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven”? There is a time for everything and this time is for letting the project run with the structure you’ve set up, with the content you’ve developed or coming from others, whether it’s perfect or not.

When you can’t hardly turn around without bumping into more things to do, set aside your desire to improve your project, and focus on getting it done well enough, on time, and out the door. It will be sufficient for this busy time.

Enlist the help of others, whether it’s an editorial eye, some hands for collating, or someone to correctly format text for the Web site or newsletter. Say yes when someone offers to help, and give them something that it’s truly not essential your hands have touched. Find ways to lighten your load!

In a week or a month, whenever the pace slows a bit, you may find that depending more on others and lightening your demands on yourself is a better way to get this task done. When more hands are sharing the work that needs to be done, you might have room for creativity again.

__.+._______________________________

Put your most actively changing content right on the main page of your Web site. Your efforts will have the most impact on visitors at the home page. Parishioners might even bookmark the site and visit often!

A site that puts a lot of active information on its main page and does it extremely well is Ebenezer Evangelical Church, Bristol, England.

Another high-energy way to go is extreme brevity on the main page of your site, which requires very carefully chosen links. Check out St. Chad’s, Lichfield, England, for an incredibly concise and quite appealing main page.

__.+._______________________________

I was quite impressed with this portal site for church leaders when I took a look:

Church Leader Internet Portal, a USA TODAY Hot Site, is the most comprehensive Internet computer start-up page of daily features, weekly news, and more than 1400 links specifically of interest to pastors and volunteer church leaders.

__.+._______________________________

Make sure your calendar is accurate and complete. Check that the dates and times mentioned in articles and announcements are accurate and that they’re on the calendar. Evaluate whether the events listed on the calendar are church events or actually church office/staff-only events; are offsite events such as youth mission trips and all-parish retreats listed? Is the secretary’s birthday listed?

Decide what ought to be on the published calendar for the entire church community. It’s one way to help your church see at a glance everything that’s happening, and for newcomers to see what sorts of things take place.

__.+._______________________________

If you want dynamic content on your Web site that changes automatically, perhaps daily, you can find it on the Web.

ChristiansUnite.com offers code for a daily Bible verse, daily Bible promise, Psalm, or Proverb, quotes from famous preacher C.H. Spurgeon, or a listing of the latest additions to their directory of Christian sites.

Seek ("...first his kingdom and his righteousness...") has links to an image of the week, the Reverend Fun cartoons, and a daily verse site.

If you know of other sources that might appeal for church Web sites, please let me know!

__.+._______________________________

Dingbat fonts are a great source of graphics that look good in a wide range of sizes and are easily controlled, because they’re fonts. A couple of my favorite places to browse for all kinds of dingbats are Font Garden’s Dingbats and The Dingbat pages

__.+._______________________________

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility;

   That in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

[The Book of Common Prayer, 1979, ECUSA]

__.+._______________________________

If you find this information of value, please pass the newsletter on in its entirety.

Your comments and suggestions are welcome! If you’d like to submit a tip, question, or Web site, send me an email at

mailto:cvoice@laufers.com

For more resources, visit

http://www.laufers.com/churchvoice/

See you in two weeks!

__.+._______________________________

To subscribe, mailto:churchvoice-subscribe@topica.com
To unsubscribe, send an email from the address with which you subscribed to mailto:churchvoice-unsubscribe@topica.com

To submit a tip, question, or Web site, mailto:cvsubmit@laufers.com
For information about advertising, mailto:cvads@laufers.com

__.+._______________________________

Copyright © 2001 Barbara Laufersweiler.
All rights reserved.

__.+.__________________________.+.__