Submitted by st mary on 16 November, 2010 - 13:12.
In addition to our church "Parish News" with around 250 subscribers, our villages (in a rural part of Shropshire) have a separate News Letter started by the Parish Council and now run independently with secular editorial content. The village newsletters always include times and locations of services and will if space permits advertise special events such as Christmas Services, fetes, etc. This is helpful to our mission as a free copy goes to every house (approx 600) in the civil parish.
If your local council have any regular publications you could get on good terms with them and piggyback off their circulation.
You could also try distributing a free copy of your newsletter to every house particularly in the run up to Christmas as a way of reaching out.
Good luck
UNITY is 36- 40 A4 pages a month combining a book review from the local Christian bookstore, parish/church news, humour and non-church items. The travellers in the congregation write things too. With tips from Parish Pump's news it is a mixed mag with something for everyone. It is distributed through 2 local libraries as well so it appeals to folk in other churches and those who don't come to church.
Submitted by Patrick Forbes on 3 January, 2011 - 12:09.
For over nine years we have produced Village Voice a four page printed village newspaper which is not a parish magazine in the traditional sense. Its size on folded A3 paper seems to work well. It gives us plenty of space for photos, the Parish Pump cartoon. Church news and service times take their place in the community mix. There is no vicar's letter as such though if a priest or anyone else has something to say, then we are happy to carry it. As the editor and a retired priest, I try to hold to the aim of serving the community without strings. Church events are reported like any other events. I seem to have spent some thirty years producing community type publications with this sort of philosophy and they seem to have been of some use in sticking people and places together. Mercifully with the present Village Voice we don't have to carry advertisements, more work - invoicing, sales etc, and the paper is delivered free to every home each month. To see what it looks like go to www.hinxworth.info
Yes, our magazine serves the community. It is A3 folded and photocopied 36- 40 pages. It serves five small parishes. It is in sections with running heads. "Church News" contain listing of services for the month, letter from the Vicar, a register of marriages, baptisms and deaths, information about charities supported by the United Benefice, and one or two articles from the Parish Pump. "Forthcoming Events" brings together display notices for one-off (usually fund raising events ) in all five parishes; "Public Information" is a varied mix of information not relating to our villages e.g. advertisements for events in nearby villages or towns, information from the local Council or police. The five Village News sections contain whatever anyone sends me! They can include items specific to that church, reports from clubs/societies, obituaries, thank yous from individuals who have been supported through illness by neighbours, nature notes, diary of dates for forthcoming committee meetings. "Goods and Services" contain paid ads from local busnesses. Because it is in sections and comes in mutiples of 4 pages, I use a lot of Parish Pump material to fill in the end of sections or provide extra pages. I draw on material that is ethical or moral rather than religious, also the Kids items, puzzles, cartoons, poems and smile lines. Thank you Parish Pump; I'd be lost without you. At a yearly sub of £4 the mag goes to most households in the five parishes and also a number persons who have moved elswhere.
Yes - ours covers church news as well as news from the various clubs and organisations in the five villages we cover. The 64 A5 pages are printed, collated & stapled professionally and it is paid for mainly by advertising. although we do also charge 30p per copy
Like many others here, we have a combined church and village newsletter, four sides of A4 folded lengthwise (our delivery team find that long shape easy to post). We are able to deliver it free to all houses in the village because it is almost entirely accomplished by volunteers and costs of printing are shared between the church and parish councils. In the past they were two separate sheets, just folded together for convenient delivery. We have deliberately moved to a joint publication, in the hope that those with little prior interest in the church would see church and spiritual content whilst reading the secular content. That meant relinquishing a tradition that the front page 'belonged' to the church, which was a tough call, but we felt it was a part of a general shift towards bringing the church into the community.
Submitted by Ed in Dorset on 12 May, 2010 - 11:36.
We also have a combined church & village magazine - elastic in size depending on the number of ads for village events. Normally about 12 double sided A4 sheets; I've tried to introduce a little more "church" by stealth. I had one complaint - "The vicar's letter should be sufficient for most people"! I replied that if I had blank spaces, I would use the PP website for fillers. Interestingly some non-church families have liked the Saint days pages and the cartoons have drawn some complimentary remarks. It's a difficult balance, but I;m determined that people see us Christians as "normal".
Submitted by Ron Fletcher on 9 November, 2010 - 13:56.
The Upper Wharfedale Link is delivered free through every letter box in our benefice - four church buildings, three parishes, eight villages and six or seven other identifiable but tiny communities - 750 are printed, but at least 40 are posted to "friends" both nationally and as far afield as New Zealand and Canada. We ask for a "donation" each year; the issues 'sold' in our church buildings are priced at 30p; and the income from advertisers usually makes up the rest of our printing costs - if we need to, we ask for a contribution from each parish church, but this is a rare occurence. We usually have 20 A5 pages of editorial, with 12 "Yellow Pages" of adverts (printed once a year) and the Diocesan News Letter inserted each month. Pages 1,2,19 & 20 are the cover - p1 courtesy of Parish Pump; p2 is the Vicar's Letter; p.19 has visiting clergy and lay ministers, mid-week and monthly meetings plus contact details for clergy of all denominations and our youth workers; p.20 has the Sunday worship details for our four churches.
The rest of the editorial is divided into churches' news and rotas, parish by parish; Overview, which covers youth work, meetings of general interest, information from Police, Local Council, Library Services; Village news, Parish [secular/government] by Parish; with jokes, cartoons [Parish Pump, naturally], and items from 100 & 50 years ago. Faced, as we are, by the possiblity of the closure of our two remaining village schools, it has been so revealing to print the three year opposition of the vicar of one of our parishes when the school [church, of course] at the very top of Upper Wharfedale was threatened by the then West Riding 50 years ago - the saga of his battle was printed month by month in the magazine, much in the style of a Dickens novel. His language was so precise, barbed and colourful that the Bishop of Bradford once said to him "Vicar, I fear for your enemies!" In the end he failed, of course, but his letters have provided a pre-echo of the statements we are now hearing at so-called Consultation Evenings with North Yorkshire County Council. In 100 years and 50 years so much has changed, but so much is still the same. I have done much the same with the original founding and the current re-establishing of Scargill House.
Submitted by Mrs Norma Willmott on 9 November, 2010 - 20:00.
We recognise as Christians that our benefice magazine ("The Bridge" - serving 4 village parishes) should be a service to the local community and it is taken by 500 households, most of whom are not churchgoers. It comes out monthly and is printed A5 size (usually 28 or 32 pages) and which is easily pushed through letter-boxes! We try to give it a wide spread of material in addition to religious and spiritually uplifting topics: publishing items of local events, local history, science, travel, poetry and so on and paying special emphasis on our duty to others by including almost every month an article to raise people's awareness of world poverty. For example, this month we carry an article on the problems created by cheap Costa Rican pineapples and the problem for poor countries publicised by Christian Aid occasioned by tax evasion by multinational companies. (There's precious little of this in Parish Pump!) We also include an equal amount of "fun" stuff - Parish Pump's cartoons, Smile Lines and Sudokus form the basis of this. Altogether, we think we have a good and interesting enough mixture of topics to interest both churchgoers and non-churchgoers alike. Our readership has been steadily growing over the last few years. We are happy to share our articles with others.
Submitted by Sarah Robinson on 31 December, 2010 - 18:09.
I am editor of the church magazine which is distributed to our Benefice of 3 Anglican churches. It is also read by members of the community and people from other churches in and around our village (2 Methodist an a Zion Wesleyan Reform.) These churches have their own magazine/newsletter. Our Anglican magazine which is printed monthly, consists of 32 A-5 pages, with regular items from Parish Pump, dates & times of the three services, diary of church events (- emmaus group dates, children's church activities, pcc's, WI and Mothers Union dates etc) readings for the month, items from the registers, vicar's letter, future church events, mothers Union report,parish walking group details, benefice prayer chain, other activities within the villages. We do have a few adverts which help towards the cost of printing which is shared by the three churches. However, we charge 50p per month, and some are distributed around the villages free.
We have a Churches Together Group with representatives from each church. It has been suggested at a Churches Together meeting that we look at a community magazine which could be distributed in and around the villages. Possibly to look at combining and making a village/community magazine.
Our Anglican magazine is widely read, and is posted to other parts of the country.
Why spoil a good thing!
Thank you Parish Pump for providing such invaluable material!
Submitted by john maitland smith on 9 February, 2011 - 19:32.
Asby Parish, Cumbria. This is a small rural parish with approximately 200 homes in two small village communities and farms. The Parish magazine is published ten times a year (breaks for August and January).
The magazine, comprising of just eight pages (Larger at Christmas), is paid for by the PCC, and is edited, printed and distributed by volunteers. Some small income is received from adverts for local services and 'for sale' items. The magazine contains the normal Church of England news, plus news and details of the activities of our two Parish chapels, Methodist and Baptist.
Parish Council news as well as news from local groups and the parish school is included, plus details of each months events and happenings in the parish. Details and dates of waste paper collection, mobile library, garden waste skip arrival etc. are also included each month. When room is available articles on local history, conservation and other matters of interest locally are included as well as recipes and how the village darts, quiz and pool teams are getting on. The format seems to work quite well, feedback indicates the magazine is used by many to find out what is happening in the community as a whole.
Submitted by Mrs Norma Willmott on 3 February, 2011 - 18:16.
Few people seem to address the initial question - how to use the parish magazine for mission. I find that there are two opposing views on this:
(1) fill the magazine with church-related and religious material and hope that non-churchgoers will read it.
(2) regard the magazine as a Chritian service to the community and fill it with a wide variety of interesting material so there's something for everyone and hope that they read the religious material as well.
I believe the latter option is preferable - it has the added advantage of demonstrating that Christians aren't just an introverted complacent group (which is what a lot of people think!) but are out there in the world being a service to others. It also enables us to highlight issues of social justice, which concern non-Christians too.
Essentially, all we can do is to sow the seed and trust in God to enable it to grow.
Submitted by philip@jago.ecl... on 6 February, 2011 - 17:10.
We publish the Quantock Messenger every month except January and August; a third advertising, mainly local tradesmen and services. We print about 600 copies, delivered to the door of prescribers, with a few placed in the churches or sold through newsagents, at 50p per copy. We cover two parishes (part of the same Benefice), Over and Nether Stowey in Somerset.
We started life as a small parish magazine for the church (the two parishes were amalgamated long ago), and the PCC is still our paymaster, but the magazine has a large amount of community matters, now at over 40 pages. We do not see community as separate from mission, and they both live happily side by side.
Currently all on A5, but still very popular. (We earnestly believe!)
Submitted by Elizabeth Ann Hodge on 7 February, 2011 - 14:11.
The Myddle Messenger is billed as a church and community newsletter. We include church news - service times, message from the Rector, baptisms, marriages and deaths plus community news from the local school, preschool, youth club, village halls, WI and advertise any events for the various clubs and organisations.
We do not charge for the newsletter - it is 44 pages of A5 and the cost is covered by advertisement charges, donations and a grant from the Parish Council.
Submitted by Irene Crabbe on 1 June, 2011 - 20:13.
At St. Michael's Church in Dalton we have the traditional church magazine that is produced on a monthly basis and we also have a newsletter called the 'Link Letter.' The latter is distributed via e-mail once a quarter and is mainly sent to families who have a link with the church through baptisms, weddings or a funeral etc. The newsletter includes news about the church and forthcoming events, information from the parish registers, a page called 'Talking Points' which usually contains two or three items that will hopefully be of interest to a family, and a page especially for children along with some 'Smile Lines' or cartoons. There are approximately 230 recipients of the Link Letter.
We want to use ours for mission, but are not sure quite how to do this. What do other people do?
When we distribute our magazines, we often put in a separate sheet notifying the reader of a special outreach service.