What’s in Your Bulletin?

My last Sunday as pastor in Hilmar, California, I was asking people to get in the habit of taking their bulletins home with them so that they would be fully advised of all that was going on that week and into the future. The problem was that, in spite of updating the look of all our printed materials with a new IBM typewriter and offset printing equipment we had purchased used in San Francisco, people were leaving them at church and calling the office and parsonage all through the following week to inquire about what was going on and when. I was trying both to help our office secretary and prepare the way for a new pastoral family.

Not wanting, of course, to be abrasive, I simply said, “Please don’t leave your pew in the

bulletin!” Chuckles finally burst into wholesale laughter, to which I thought I responded

thoughtfully, “No, I mean take it home with you!”

Sometimes, no matter how you try, you just can’t recover—except, of course, by laughing at yourself. I have learned over years how important that is. The best storytellers I know are often the butt of their own jokes.