Your worship service is flowing beautifully. The music has prepared hearts. People are engaged. Then comes the moment that makes everyone cringe: announcement time. “So we have our ministry fair coming up, and it’s really exciting because we have so many opportunities, and I know Pastor Jim mentioned it last week but let me tell you about all the different tables we’ll have set up…” Sound familiar? David Manner thinks it’s time we fix this problem.
The Hidden Worship Killer
Manner makes a striking observation that most worship leaders miss: the ministry opportunities we announce outside our services matter just as much as what happens inside them. Yet we treat these announcements like afterthoughts, winging it without prayer or preparation. The result? What Manner calls “long-winded circular discourse of verbosity, clichés and topical detours.” In other words, we ramble. We repeat ourselves. We lose people’s attention at the exact moment we’re trying to mobilize them for ministry. This isn’t just poor communication. It’s poor stewardship of worship time.
The Woodworker’s Wisdom
Manner borrows from woodworking: “Measure twice, cut once.” Plan carefully before you act. Applied to announcements, this means knowing exactly what you’ll say before you say it. He contrasts prepared announcers with unprepared ones: “Successful worship service announcers have studied the flight plan and know how to land the plane before taking off.” The unprepared ones? They’re still figuring out their destination while already airborne.
What Twitter Teaches Churches
Here’s where Manner gets creative. He points to Twitter’s old 140-character limit as a model for church announcements. The constraint forces clarity. You must decide what’s essential and cut everything else. Quoting Leonard Sweet, Manner notes that distilling thoughts into two sentences takes more work than writing two pages. The best communication is “distilled, restrained, made to be sipped rather than quaffed.” This principle challenges worship leaders to do the hard work of preparation. Anyone can ramble for five minutes. It takes skill to communicate the same information in one minute.
The Preparation Problem
Manner hits worship leaders where it hurts: we spend significant time preparing and rehearsing our songs but throw together announcements on the spot. What if we applied the same preparation standards to both? This isn’t about perfection for its own sake. It’s about respect for the congregation’s time and attention. It’s about maximizing the impact of ministry opportunities. It’s about maintaining the worship flow you’ve worked so hard to create.
The Shaker Standard
Manner closes with wisdom from Shaker furniture makers: create every part with equal care, use the best materials, attend to every detail, and design everything to last. Applied to announcements, this means crafting each word carefully. It means treating a 30-second announcement with the same attention you’d give a 30-minute sermon. It means building announcements that stick with people and motivate action.
The Bottom Line
Your announcements can either contribute to worship or detract from it. The choice is in the preparation. Manner isn’t asking for perfect eloquence. He’s asking for intentionality. Write it down. Practice it. Time it. Pray over it. Treat your congregation’s time as the precious resource it is. The “measure twice, cut once” principle works in woodworking because precision matters. It works in worship because people matter.
Loading ...