In the last 2 years Cheryl and I have had the opportunity to visit nearly all of the BASIC groups. It’s been an awesome experience and something that we enjoy very much. As we’ve traveled I’ve noticed one aspect of meetings that could be improved at most of the schools we visit.
Many groups we visit have well prepared, well thought out meetings. However, even those groups still can have trouble in the area of announcements. The time for announcements can be tricky. The problem is for most groups when announcements become too much of a focus. If your group is very active (which I hope they are) you probably have anywhere from 5-10 announcements you could cover each week. I know that everyone feels like the event they are organizing is the most important and should be covered, but in the end if you cover this many announcements the chances of someone remembering the first few is not very good. A good rule of thumb is that announcements should never be longer than 5 minutes.
Look for ways to minimize how many items are being announced each week. If something isn’t coming up for at least 3 weeks it doesn’t need to be talked about this week. The only exception to this is big events like the BASIC Conference or a concert. Students will need enough notice to plan for events like that and should be encouraged regularly to come. This also goes back to narrowing your focus. Make sure that the things you are doing are worth your time according to what God has called you to focus on this year.
Another way to minimize your announcements is to pass around clipboards for people to sign up and get more information on the events that you don’t have time to announce. Events like Bible studies, small groups, and social gatherings would all be great for people to get information by signing up on a clipboard, but may not need to be announced every week. It takes far less time to say, “check out the clipboard for other announcements,” than it does to go through every announcement every week.
Also, look for ways to make announcements fun or mix things up. Benson Hines has a number of good ideas for this that you can find in this post and the follow up post. Either way, make sure that your announcements flow smoothly, so as not to take away from the other important aspects of your meetings!