Another request. I’m looking for lovely samples of orders of service. Necessarily available in a downloadable format online, and preferably from a small church (of whatever stripe) or one that works with a tight budget. Feel free to chime in, even years from now.
There’s something dispiriting to visit a church and find something that was clearly made with love (I’m trying to be nice here) but is ugly, disorganized, jam-packed with add-ins or otherwise unpleasant to use.
I’d ask the same for newsletters, but those are harder to find in print. Alas.
Covenant Church in Houston, TX, an “ecumenical liberal baptist congregation.”
Not sure if it’s what you’re looking for, but worship orders are simple – easy to read/follow top to bottom – and downloadable. Here’s a link..
https://www.covenanthouston.org/worship-orders.html
I don’t have any great examples. My own church has an issue with clutter in the bulletin involving musical history notes. But I do want to speak up in favor of the bulletin.
With more and more stuff being projected onto screens, the bulletin has become a bit despised in some circles. But I still find them very valuable when I am in the pews. Why?
1) Sometimes if there is a screen, my view of the screen is blocked, or the slide is changed before I am ready and I stumble to follow along.
2) If the bulletin has a few important and timely announcements I can take the bulletin home and it serves as an additional reminder about the upcoming important thing.
3) Last month I was guest preaching at a lay led church which was only using a screen to lead the service. The service leader skipped over a slide in the set for Sunday, and as a result we also totally skipped over prayer concerns. This caused both confusion, and some hurt among people who had heavy concerns on their hearts. While this can still happen with a bulletin, I’ve noticed it is much less likely to happen when there is a bulletin (opposed to when people are only using a computer screen slide show, or only their liturgical memory).
4) If there are actions to take as part of the liturgy, the bulletin helps me anticipate the action I will need to take (standing, sitting, getting my donation ready for the offertory, being ready for a communal reading or prayer, etc.).
I appreciated the layout of the Covenant Church bulletin.
As an aside, I read all the way to the end, and felt such grief at the sight of the “no handguns in church” notice at the bottom of the bulletin. I know it is necessary, but I feel such grief about the whole phenomenon of weapons brazenly carried into the House of God.