Guidelines for leading welcome and notices

Preparation

• If you cannot fulfil your duty please indicate via Planning Center Services.
• Check during the week which notices will be presented (Planning Center Services, Service, Order, Welcome and notices, Details).
• The dress code for those who serve up front is smart casual. Men wear a collared, buttoned, long-sleeved, plain shirt with no pattern. Dress pants or chinos. No tie. No jacket while on stage.
• Ask God in prayer to use you as you serve Him, and His people.

Before the service

• Please arrive no later than 9:00am for the 9:30am service.
• Inform the worship leader that you are present when you arrive.
• Please attend the pre-service run-through in the meeting room.
• Straight after the pre-service run-through is a prayer meeting at the same location.
• Be seated 5 minutes before the service.
• Be seated in such a way as to minimise distraction when you come up.
• Anticipate coming up just before you’re called.
• Come up to stage about 2 meters to the left or right of the pulpit to avoid the stage monitors.
• The welcome and notices normally occurs at exactly 9:30am, before the time of greeting.

When you come up

• Do not tamper with the podium.
• You will speak into the podium mic.
• Do not test the mic by blowing into it.
• Do not put your hands into your pockets.

The welcome

• Greet members in particular.
• Greet visitors in particular. Assume they are there. Tell visitors where the bathrooms are, the mother’s room is, and if there is Sunday school.

The notices

• The call to action for every notice is to go to the next step on the website or contact the church office.
• Either announce the financial talk, or announce the time for greeting.
• Walk back to your seat.

How do the welcome and notices feel?

• Welcomingly warm.
• Friendlily Informal.
• Brief.
• Some humour may help the notices to feel welcoming and informal. But this is not a stand-up comedy routine.

Appendix 1 Philosophy of notice inclusion

• If anyone asks for a notice to be included refer them to Mark.
• We only promote events on a Sunday, during the notices, if it affects 75% or more of the membership.
• We very seldom will give notice of a matter raised on a Sunday morning.

Appendix 2 Advertise a book from the library

• From time to time, when there are no other notices, advertise a book from the library.
• Find a book of good quality that you can personally recommend, or an author you can personally recommend.
• Give the title, the name, and in one sentence, why the book is worth reading.
• Point out that members can borrow books from the library for two weeks at a time.

More from this series

The elements of worship

Guidelines for serving