Creating these kinds of cards is much harder than it looks. It's easy to make something simple and boring, of course, but to make something original and attractive takes some thinking. I'm surprised more churches don't do this kind of advertizing, it's not very expensive. Printing 5,000 of these only costs about $100. Distribution (by hand, not through the post office) costs another $200 or so. And I know from experience that it does actually bring in a few extra people every year that we do it. The challenge, for me, is finding the time to create something like this two or three times a year.
It's been gratifying to get so much positive feedback about the new church website. I've been making an effort to continue to add content through the "blog" functionality. At some point I will need to hand that responsibility on to others, but for now I want to build up some content and a style before I leave it.
One of the hardest and most important tasks on a site like this is not just the copy (written words), but the images. Many of the images on the new site are several years old. Getting new ones is difficult because I'm usually not in a position to do much photography when I'm leading services (obviously) or attending events. I know that St. John's, West Toronto, used to have a designated photographer every Sunday, which meant that they always had tons of fresh images on the bulletin boards. Putting pictures of people and events from the community's life on bulletin boards in the church itself has a wonderful way of extending that spirit of fellowship throughout the week when far fewer will be gathered.
I might institute a similar practice someday--but at the moment I have other fish-to-fry, including the development work to bring three major proposals to table (two related to Messiah and another that I've been asked to shepherd as a PEMG rep.). So I'm going to be a busy boy in the next few weeks!
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