“Announcements”
In most evangelical church services there is a time for announcements.
This time, usually promoting events and programmes, can be in itself uneventful, though quite often, perhaps more often than not, it is the portion of the service that is the least prepared. This means that all kinds of things can go wrong. Announcements are made by various people, depending on the church and on the service.
It might be the pastor making the announcements. It might be a board member or an elder (elder meaning board member, not old person, though the two descriptors often apply to the same person). Occasionally the announcements time is given to a junior pastor, maybe the associate or youth pastor. Sometimes an up and comer, a young person in the congregation not yet at the point of taking on a larger role, is asked to make the announcements.
(In our current cultural context announcements are often accompanied by visuals on the screen. This brings another opportunity for interesting or troubling or curious consideration. The amount of on the nose, distressingly earnest and corporate stock images here can be astounding.)
It turns out that most people are not very good at making announcements. I think that people know this, so if there is an occasion on which they are asked, many are reluctant. When I was a pastor, I often messed up the announcement time and usually not on purpose. I often forgot to make a particular announcement, or I would get a detail wrong (sometimes bringing about a corrective holler from the congregation). In preparation for all of the parts of the service I might have planned well for most other parts, but too often not for the announcements.
There was also the dreaded last minute announcement request. It was not unusual for someone from the congregation to approach, just before or even during the service itself, and say, “Can you please announce this?” These could be innocuous. Perhaps an event postponed. However, the last minute announcements were often the worst, crazy or hateful shit that in no way did I want to associate myself or the church with (example, anything to do with Franklin Graham). Last minute announcements could also be something that was important to the person requesting, but not really appropriate for an announcement to the entire congregation, (example, “My son’s hockey team is doing a fundraiser selling coupon books. Please let people know that they can see me in the foyer to buy one. Thanks.”). Nope. Not going to announce that.
The announcement time itself could have different components:
Greeting
Opening Prayer or Call to Worship
Actual announcements of upcoming events, etc.
Leading of Congregational Greeting time (Liturgical – “Passing of the Peace”, Non-Liturgical, “Hey Barbara!, Good to see you!”)
Maybe a prayer before music, (this might be scripted (liturgical church) or non-scripted (evangelical church))
The danger of scripted announcement slot prayers was usually boredom.
The danger of non-scripted announcement slot prayers was that they could go off the rails.
A “Holy-Spirit charismatic” type of person might call down the POWER and accuse the congregation of being too passive. A “make their point discontented” person might list in prayer a number of things that they did not like about the church or wished were different.
My most hated announcement times were the ones that contained some terrible theological declaration, or the ones that turned into secondary sermons for the service.
In the category of terrible theological declaration:
I recall a time when a leader in the church was making the announcements and he proceeded to speak for 3 or 4 minutes on how we were “not like the world”. Of course, he was saying that we were better than the world because we were in church and we cared about what mattered, unlike the world. This kind of thing could happen with distressing frequency.
In the secondary sermon category:
I remember a church service in which the person doing the announcements (turns out it was the same person as mentioned above) launched into a sermon about how men’s breakfast events really mattered more than any other events at the church, and that everybody (women included) should support men’s ministry events. (Full Disclosure: as a pastor I never liked men’s ministry events.) Even though the person making this announcement attended few events outside of Sunday services, he was perturbed that an event that mattered to him, which had happened the day before, had been sparsely attended. He translated his disappointment into a spiritual gauge mini-sermon.
Secondary sermons could be attached to actual programmes being promoted, but they might simply veer into a lengthy reflection on “What I feel about God” or “What I believe” or the ever popular “What is wrong with the world”. If you have spent any time in evangelical circles you may have seen the announcement time used to condemn popular culture (ex. why Harry Potter is dangerous) or to promote some evangelical alternative to culture and media (ex. contemporary Christian music or some weird October 31st “instead of Halloween” event).
One particular church service often comes to mind for me. It happened more than a couple of decades ago. The person making the announcements was a steady and constant presence in the church. This person was great with planning, building, management, finance, and other important church tasks, but terrible with words, language processing and public speaking. Whenever he took on such a role, the words just seemed to collide together and the pieces would fly in all directions. Either that or the words would free associate, forming a string that became longer and longer, with no apparent end because a word can always bring another word to mind.
On this particular occasion the man was giving the greeting, the part of the announcements when new people are welcomed. Churches like to say that they are friendly. Sometimes this is true, but sometimes it is not. You can’t tell if a church is friendly just by hearing the person making the announcements say so. The man greeted people, stated that the church was welcoming and friendly, and then said, (and this is word for word, I have not forgotten it since):
“I hope that somebody somewhere says something to you sometime.”
GOLD!
Awesome! Amen! Now that’s something I can get behind.
I really do hope that somebody somewhere says something to you sometime.
It’s close to 30 years later now. I still know that man. He is lovely.
Quick note, speaking of verbal, auditory association.
I recalled again that greeting incident because just this week I watched the first episode of a new HBO show.
It is called “Somebody Somewhere” and without giving it away I will say that episode one contained much pain and hope together. It skillfully displayed both bleakness and hope . I think that there was a remarkable depiction, in that episode, of what hopeful Christlikeness, acceptance and love looks like. If you have watched, you’ll know the character I mean when I say that there is a Christ-figure in the episode who, though they themselves are smitten and afflicted and not esteemed, seems to be able to bring people back to life. Such resurrection is still astounding to behold.
You are so correct about announcements. Sometimes they are great, but so often they are boring and the information is already available for people elsewhere! Thanks for the tip on the show. I saw a commercial for it but haven't watched yet.