wfn.org | Newsletter service helps local churches reach pews

["NewsDesk" <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Jan. 27, 2004 News media contact: Linda Green 7 (615)742-5470 7 Nashville,
Tenn. 7 E-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org 7 ALL{028}

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.

 
 

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United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org