You’ve Written It – But Will They Read It?Matushka Magdalena BerryParish bulletins, as with all newsletters, have many functions. They can be used to inform members about:
- Service schedules and special events
- Parish organizations (Sunday School, youth groups, etc.)
- Events at the Archdiocese and national level
- Special needs and projects
They can also be evangelical tools. Visitors (we hope) will be attracted to the picture of parish life that a bulletin offers. Another use for bulletins is education. Priests sometimes want to call attention to aspects of the Church (upcoming feasts, theological issues, Orthodox praxis, etc.), either in the form of a monthly “letter from the pastor” or a separate article. Considerable time and effort go into any kind of writing, and we want to make sure that what we write meets both our need to inform, and our readers’ needs.
Here are a few helpful tips.
1. Consider your audience.
This sounds pretty basic, but is where most informative writing fails. You may have an advanced degree and familiarity with patristics, but this may only be the case with a portion of your readers. You may enjoy reading, and wish you had more time to it, but you’re probably in the minority there, too. Overestimating what readers already know about your topic is a very common oversight.
So, be sure to
- Define your terms, especially those in other languages.
- Use plain English; avoid formal and academic language.
- Use examples often.
2. Break up a big topic into smaller sections.
Most of us are stretched for time, and read bulletins in a hurry. An article on the upcoming feast, regardless of how clearly it’s written, can look discouraging if your reader is confronting a solid wall of text, with long paragraphs. Simply dividing a piece into sections and giving them headings makes your work more accessible (and thus more likely to be read). (I’ve done that even with this short article)
3. Highlight the essentials
The mother with two toddlers is taking a breather and picks up the bulletin. She’ll skim it, and see first the pictures, then, the text that’s highlighted – in bold, or italicized, or in bulleted or numbered lists, like those above. There are a number of other ways you can make small pieces of information stand out (putting a box around them works well). The point is to draw attention to important points visually.
To show how these ideas can be put to use, we’ve re-written a paragraph from one of the reports presented at the last All American Council. Here’s the original:
The collective success of the Pastoral Ministries conferences point to the ongoing need to provide clergy with opportunities to come together. The previous three conferences all profited from being held at St. Tikhon’s Monastery during Pentecost Week. However, thought should be given to other possibilities. Perhaps regional pastoral conferences could be coordinated, which would encourage more clergy participation from areas father from St. Tikhon’s Monastery. A number of dioceses conduct their own pastoral conferences, and should be encouraged to expand further. Dioceses and regions have their own particular issues and coming together to reflect on them is valuable. However, when pastoral conferences are sponsored by the OCA, and not just be a diocese of the OCA, they have a special significance and value. Pastors profit much by interacting with clergy from other dioceses, and they are also exposed to a broader vision of pastoral, liturgical, and evangelical life. The past three pastoral conferences all occurred in the summer, during the year preceding the All-American Council. That has apparently worked well enough, and even if there will be no expanded, regional conferences, the Fourth “All-OCA” Pastoral Conference will hopefully take place during the summer of 2007.
In this version, the content’s basically the same (with some editing), but a casual reader would be more likely to get it.
The collective success of the Pastoral Ministries conferences point to the ongoing need to provide clergy with opportunities to come together. The previous three conferences all profited from being held at St. Tikhon’s Monastery during Pentecost Week. However, thought should be given to other possibilities:
- Coordinating regional conferences, which would encourage more clergy participation from areas father from St. Tikhon’s Monastery.
- Encouraging the expansion of diocesan pastoral conferences. Dioceses and regions have their own particular issues and coming together to reflect on them is valuable.
We will also continue OCA-sponsored pastoral conferences. These have a special significance and value. Pastors profit much by interacting with clergy from other dioceses, and they are also exposed to a broader vision of pastoral, liturgical, and evangelical life. The Fourth “All-OCA” Pastoral Conference will hopefully take place during the summer of 2007
Parish bulletins are wonderful communication tools, and employing a few writerly “tricks of the trade” can make them even more effective.
Matushka Magdalena Berry has been teaching technical writing and composition at Missouri State since 2001.
