This page contains advice for parishes on parish magazines and other printed church communications.
Parish magazines
Parish Magazines are an invaluable opportunity for churches to forge connections with their local community while providing updates and news from the church.
Producing a parish magazine can be a challenging job. However, it is a great way of spreading the word of what’s happening within your local area to a large number of people. therefore it is important that your parish publication is packed full of topical news and events that are relevant to your audience.
Here are some things to think about when producing a parish magazine:
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Things to consider before producing a parish magazine
Audience - make sure the content of the magazine will appeal to those who will be reading it. Think about the tone of voice and ensure the laguage used is correct for your audienace. Avoid using acronyms in articles and church jargon that will alienate non church-goers.
Distribution - think about how your magaizne will reach its audience. Will it be picked up from church or delivered door to door by a collection of volunteers? It would be a good idea to have your magazine available online, on your church website, and you could use email to let people know when a new edition of your magazine has been published.
Reaserch - condcting a readers survey or encouraging feedback on your magazine is a good way to find out the views of your readers and find out how you can continually make improvements to suit your audience. Reviewing other parish publications is a beneficial learning exercise. From looking at what others are doing you could find some new ideas that you can apply to your own publication.
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Tips for planning your parish magazine
Content - Consider the content you wish to include in advance. Ensure that content is timely - relating to the seasons (of the year and the church calendar), newsworthly and interesting the the reader. Ensure that content successfully reflects your church’s mission.
Deadline and word count - If you are going to commision articles make sure you specify a word limit and a deadline.
Time - Always plan your parish magazine well in advance and allow plenty of time before the print deadline to proof read.
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Tips for designing your parish magazine
Accessability - make sure your magazine is accessible to an older audience and those with limited eye sight, ensure that the text is clear and easy to read.
Balance - use the right balance of editorial and advertising.
Consistancy - always be consistent with spacing, typesetting and font style.
Cover - a quality image on the front cover will be eyecatching and encourage readers to pick it up.
Pictures - use good quality pictures to break up large areas of text.
Word count per page - calculate how many words will fit a page of your parish magazine and stick to it. This will prevent the page looking cluttered. No more than 300 words per A5 page is best.
There are free design tools availble to churches to help with the design of printed materials find out more on our 'Design tools, images and digital resources' webpage.
The following websites have advice on editing parish magazines and ideas for content:
Magazine printing service from the Chelmsford Diocese Print Unit
The Diocesan Print Unit are specialist parish magazine printers who have many years of booklet printing expertise and print thousands of publications every month.
The Diocesan Print Unit can digitally print most formats of A5 & A4 parish/village magazine; weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually; either in mono, full colour or both.
Orders are usually ready to collect from the Diocesan Office within 4 working days of us receiving your print ready PDF file. Or delivery to your chosen address can be arranged, deadline permitting.
Email printunit@chelmsford.anglican.org for further information and a quote.
Posters
If you have an event at your church you want to advertise, whether it’s a service, youth club, course or social, it’s important that the promotional materials are eye catching and engaging. The blog below from the Church of England explains how you can use the free online graphic design tool, Canva.com to design publicity materials for your church.
More information on the free resources available to parishes help with design of church communications can be found on our 'Design tools, images and digital resources' webpage.
