Newsletter service helps local churches reach pews

Jan. 27, 2004

By Linda Green*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - A year after its launch, a free service called News In Pews is helping more than 1,400 churches provide news to their local congregations.

Centre United Methodist Church in Forest Hill, Md., a 280-member congregation, started a newsletter last August using the News In Pews template offered by United Methodist News Service.

"It looked like something that we could use," says the Rev. David Roberts, pastor. "I figured that there was no reason to start from scratch with a newsletter, and I like the fact that it contained a page of national news."

News In Pews provides 1,450 churches with opportunities to create their own, high-quality newsletters. Each weekly and monthly issue contains churchwide news and information and spotlights how giving to United Methodist projects helps spread the Gospel.

The free, e-mail subscription service is available in an eight-page version and a four-page version. All that is needed for the service is a computer that runs Microsoft Word (version 95 or higher), a printer, photo files on that computer (optional), and news and information from the local church congregation.

UMNS developed News In Pews as a way to help local churches, particularly those with small staffs, produce a newsletter easily. The weekly edition was launched in December 2002, followed by the monthly edition a month later.

"Churches do not have to design a newsletter, only insert their own content in the existing layout," says Laura Latham, News In Pews administrator for UMNS. The news service is a unit of United Methodist Communications.

The news offered centers on opportunities for service, human-interest items about real people doing real things, and breaking news within the denomination. The template is accompanied by suggestions for content and layout, with space designated for a pastor's column, a main story about an event in the church, a youth page, announcements and other features.

"I have had the pleasure of speaking to local church volunteers, local pastors and church secretaries from all over the country," Latham says. "This has given me the opportunity to connect with people on the local church level and learn more of their needs to help make the templates better for them."

Getting started with a template was a bit daunting for Roberts because he'd never worked with one before. He found the suggestions provided with the template helpful and calls the newsletter "a great thing for churches to use regardless of if they are large or small."

While most subscribers are United Methodist churches, organizations such as church-related nursing homes and local United Methodist Women's groups use News in Pews as well. Other subscribers include members of the Church of Canada and congregations in Europe interested in the United Methodist news.

"I know of one subscriber who sends the newsletter out to a printer and another who e-mails the newsletter out to the entire congregation," Latham says. Others convert the completed newsletter and post it on the church's Web site.

News In Pews "is important because I would not have been able to put out a newsletter like this myself," Roberts says. "I have done newsletters for churches and all we had was local church news. We never had anything beyond that. It is nice to be able to have it already done for us."

He chose the monthly edition of News In Pews for a newsletter "to give everyone all the announcements a month at a time and an activities calendar on the back page." He e-mails the newsletter to the members, and many members put the calendar on their refrigerators, he says.

Plans are under way to launch new layouts for 2004, as well as make the template easier to use.

More information about News In Pews is available at http://umns.umc.org/newsinpews.

*Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tenn.  News media can contact her at (615) 742-5470 or newsdesk@umcom.org.