Church letter

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Evangelical Church Letters

As a church newsletter , Gemeindebote or parish newsletter is called a booklet, which at regular intervals of a Christian is the information medium community. This form of publication is widespread in most Christian communities in German-speaking countries, both in Catholic, Protestant and other Christian communities. The congregation letter is regarded as the decisive print medium in the public relations work of the local church congregations.

Content and target audience

The introduction is usually a greeting or a spiritual impulse from the pastor or another leading person. Then reports or announcements from church work , groups and circles are published and schedules, event calendars , birthdays, births, baptisms, and deaths within the church are listed.

The target group of the community letter are closer as well as distant community members who are to be informed about community life and events, but - insofar as the community letter is distributed to all households - also interested non-members. The main target group has an impact on the thematic and content-related design of the community letter.

The archived collection of parish letters can also fulfill the function of a parish chronicle prescribed by church law.

Printing and distribution

There are different approaches to distributing the magazine. In most parishes, the parish letter is distributed by volunteers in the mailboxes of all households in the parish, in some only to the members. Usually, the congregation letter is also available in the church to take away and in other central locations such as local shops. In individual cases, it is also sent by post against a voluntary cost recovery contribution; this in particular to community members who live outside of Germany .

80% of the community letters appear in A5 format, some also in A4 or in intermediate sizes. Color editions are becoming more and more common, but fail in some parishes due to funding. In many communities this is denied by advertisements from mostly local companies or by donations.

Quarterly publication is common, in some municipalities it is also published every two months; rarely monthly or every six months. If the number of pieces is small, the booklet is produced using digital printing or copying machines; for larger print runs, it is often worthwhile to use higher quality offset printing . The publisher can be the pastor or parish council ; Responsible in terms of press law can also be the pastor or the chairman of the parish council. Planning, layout and technical design are mostly in the hands of an editorial team consisting mainly of volunteers. The layout is often no longer done with word processing programs, but with professional layout programs. The number of pages in the community letters is very diverse and ranges from simple leaflets to extensive brochures.

The Protestant magazine Gemeindebrief - magazine for public relations work serves many editors as a helpful template. An enclosed CD-ROM and the image and text database support the work in graphic terms. There is a parish letter service for Catholic parishes . With Congregational Letter TV there is also a television series with tips and information on how to get started with congregational letter design in the TV program of Bibel TV .

In recent years, parishes in neighboring parishes have often published community letters together. This made it possible in many places to achieve better quality and cost savings.

Related and alternative forms of publication

The question of the publication of a community letter depends on the selection of the intended content, the topicality, the frequency of publication and the intended target group. In addition to the classic magazine form, other forms of publication have emerged.

  • Dates and events are often announced as discontinuations , announcements or proclamandum in the service or in a central place in writing (e.g. notice board ).
  • In the case of publication intervals lasting several months, the communal letter is often supplemented by a weekly to a maximum of monthly leaflet, which contains notices of dates and events, the most important contact persons and addresses (for example of house groups), but sometimes also a short greeting
  • However, some municipalities are increasingly making such information available only on the Internet, sometimes with a registration area for internal information.
  • Many churches use the Internet as a supplementary information medium despite the printed congregation letter. A distinction is often made between information that is only of internal interest, which is usually only in the communal letter, and information that is intended to address an extended target group and is therefore also or exclusively distributed on the Internet. This also has data protection reasons.
  • Some parishes cooperate in terms of content with the neighboring parishes or issue joint parish letters. Short messages are often published in the regional church newspaper about special events .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A sleeping giant called Parish Letter (report from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover ), accessed on September 20, 2019.
  2. ↑ ERF Medien : Ten basic questions about the church letter , accessed on September 20, 2019.
  3. ↑ Ingmar Krüger: A piece of his own proclamation , revised version of an article from North Elbian Voices February 2001, accessed on September 20, 2019
  4. ↑ Handbook for the community office, Berlin 2009, pp. 18f., Accessed on September 19, 2019
  5. ↑ Hannoversche Landeskirche 2017: 78.7% to all households, 18.1% only to members, A sleeping giant called parish letter (report from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover ), accessed on September 20, 2019.
  6. ↑ ERF Medien : Ten basic questions about the church letter , accessed on September 20, 2019.
  7. ↑ Hannoversche Landeskirche 2017: 70.2% of the parish letters are co-financed by placing advertisements, 37.8% by donations, A sleeping giant called parish letter (report from the Evangelical Lutheran parish church of Hanover ), accessed on September 20, 2019.
  8. ↑ Hannoversche Landeskirche 2017: 68.6% quarterly, 12.8% bi-monthly, A sleeping giant called parish letter (report from the Evangelical Lutheran regional church of Hanover ), accessed on September 20, 2019.
  9. ↑ A sleeping giant called Parish Letter (report from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Hanover ), accessed on September 20, 2019.
  10. ↑ Hannoversche Landeskirche 2017: 45% InDesign, 21% Publisher, 11% Word; rarely Scribus or Quark-Express, a sleeping giant called community letter (report from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover ), accessed on September 20, 2019.