Developing Newsletters for Women’s Ministry
By Julia Bettencourt

Newsletters can be a great addition to your Women’s Ministry. They can be a big help in keeping in contact with your ladies. They are especially helpful if you don’t have regular monthly meetings and want to keep in touch with your ladies on a regular basis. Newsletters can be a source for keeping information before the ladies, but also they can be a great source for encouragement as well.

I’m not going to engage in the specifics of the English related tips for design and layout for a newsletter, but here I will be dwelling on the basics mostly and on what to include in your Women’s Ministry newsletter.

Consider It Part of Ministry.

Pray over your newsletter just like you would over any other part of your Women’s Ministry. Don’t look at it as just “words” but as “words” that will inspire and uplift the ladies you are working with. Pray it will be a real source of encouragement and help.

Gear It For Your Women’s Group.

Look at the interests of the women in your church and what type of things they would want to read and hear about. Are they mostly moms? Grandmas? Stay at home moms? Working women? Do they have hobbies or sports that they enjoy? Young in the Lord? Spiritually mature? Look across the board and try to focus on your group and their needs and interests.

Make It Professional.

Use correct English, good spelling, grammar, and good layout and design. Make sure you use clear and readable text and good spacing between articles. Avoid fancy fonts. They have their place usually only on wedding invitations. There are some practical things online that you may want to read up on for good layout and design.

Search “newsletter layout design” in your favorite search engine and you’ll be able to find lots of help in this area.

Have Good Content.

* There’s no point in producing a newsletter if there’s nothing of interest in it to read. Find useful content. People can read all the “fluff” and poems and stories that they want on the Internet. Find and write some really great articles and stories for your newsletter. You may have to dig for them and search them out, write them yourself, or rely on someone else to write them.
Although the Internet is a good source for content, don’t just copy every story and article you see. There’s a plethora of them out there. Pick only meaningful things that you think will be of interest and a blessing to your group of ladies.

Get your ladies to contribute as much as they can to the newsletter. Let it be their newsletter and they will be willing to share. Some things that the ladies themselves can contribute are articles on topics they are familiar with, testimonies, hobbies, recipes, poetry or creative writing.

There is a whole page of content suggestions for you:

1. Use Limited Graphics or Clip Art.
2. Just a few strategically placed clip arts will be sufficient. Don’t overdo with clip art and graphics. Make your content the main feature. Use clip art just to highlight as an accessory.

One great source for well-done clip art is Communication Resources. They have wonderful clip art for ministry related projects. It’s what I’ve used in the past. They sell their clip art to churches in monthly subscriptions but they also have CD’s available for purchase. You can usually get their Scripture clip art in NIV or KJV, just look at the details for each item if that is a concern to you. Make sure you check out their Overstocks.

Communication Resources

1. Be Accurate.
Use correct dates and times, names, etc.

2. Proofread and Re-proofread.
Then proofread again. Have your newsletter read by 2 or 3 other individuals besides yourself before printing.

3. Make your Newsletter Positive.
Don’t use this as a venting place or “correction” place for problems within your Women’s Ministry or church. Keep your newsletter as an uplifting source for your ladies.

From: www.juliabettencourt.com web site. July 2009

This article may not be written by an Apostolic author, but it contains many excellent principles and concepts that can be adapted to most churches. As the old saying goes, “Eat the meat. Throw away the bones.”