Notices
Spike
Ecclesiantics & MW Host, Admin Emeritus
When is the best place for the notices to be read out? I’ve experienced them at various places in the service. At our place, we used to them immediately before the opening hymn before the choir and altar party processed in. This is probably the least disruptive place, but the problem is that latecomers miss them.
When our current vicar came, he started reading them immediately before the sermon, which I’ve never come across before and it felt a bit weird, but after a while he changed it again and we now have the notices before the final blessing.
Other places I’ve encountered them have been immediately after the first hymn, before the intercessions and before the Peace.
So where do you have yours? Where is the most/least disruptive?
When our current vicar came, he started reading them immediately before the sermon, which I’ve never come across before and it felt a bit weird, but after a while he changed it again and we now have the notices before the final blessing.
Other places I’ve encountered them have been immediately after the first hymn, before the intercessions and before the Peace.
So where do you have yours? Where is the most/least disruptive?
Comments
.....
Sermon.
Prayers.
Hymn (during which young people return from Junior Church).
Notices.
Junior Church report back.
Short prayer.
Hymn.
Benediction.
Works for us!
If there is a newsletter, what is the point of notices unless something has been left out of it?
My local parish church has them just after The Peace, and before the Prayers. One of the churchwardens usually fulfils this task, as there is no *regular* priest at the moment.
There is, I think, a case for emphasising/reminding one or two points from the newsletter.
All too true about people leaving the pew-sheet (with notices) behind, even after being politely exhorted to take it away with them! Apart from announcements regarding future events, it always includes a number of subjects for prayer...
Indeed not. I found it interrupted the flow of the service, if notices were given out halfway through, and have decided that the position some of you are referring to - shortly before the end of the service, however you arrange that - is by far the best place.
As long as the notice slot doesn't go on too long, or become yet another homily...
Post communion hymn
Prayers after communion
Sunday School report back on activities including a prayer by them
Banns and notices
Blessing and Dismissal
Final Hymn
* Our reliance on visiting clerics does throw up problems - some either choose to ignore the OS or, in one case, refuse point-blank to do notices, insisting we should have a pew sheet ...
The notices are given once the choir have processed in, before the first hymn. We have few latecomers.
We have "wee words" and "blessed thoughts" instead.
I rather like what I understand is a common term in Scotland for notices - Intimations - but which my unruly mind persists in reading as Intimidations...
I seem to remember in the old Series 3 service (anyone remember that?) there was a rubric for bans of marriage and notices to be read at just before the intercessions.
It may well have been just before the intercessions - back in the day, printed pew-sheets were unknown.
Here, they’re generally called “announcements.”
In my experience, announcements are either joined with a welcome up front, before the start of the service proper, or they happen before the offering, where they can be framed as life of the community.
@Baptist Trainfan, at the risk of starting a tangent in this thread that was born from a tangent, might I ask what “Junior Church report back” means?
I think people take the newsletter if there is an item they find relevant to them. One or two pints is OK, But rattling off an instantly forgettable list of events is tiresome to listen to.
At first I didn't like this, but it does mean that the adults and young people have a much greater connection than they'd otherwise have. We don't do this on Communion Sundays; the young folk return as normal but we then go into our Communion Liturgy with no "feedback". (Baptists often have Communion as the final part of the service).
We also have a weekly email of news - we don’t have pew sheets.
The problem comes when people don't pay attention. In one church I served, we were going to have an outdoor market one Saturday. We were a town centre church and members often used the forecourt for shoppers' parking; no problem. So we made sure to mention, by an article in the monthly church magazine, by at least two weeks' entries in the pew sheets, and by verbal announcements, that no parking would be available that day (and, of course, that we'd be holding the Fair). Yet, on the day, three separate people turned up in their cars, were miffed that they couldn't park, and said, "What's going on? We knew nothing about it".
In churches in the US, pew sheets generally take the form of what’s called a “bulletin.” It has what’s needed to follow the service, sometimes pretty much the entire service including readings, as well as announcements. This is typical of the kind of bulletin I see in Presbyterian churches. (Though the music/text of hymns are probably added just to the online version. And almost always there is a cover with a standard design—a drawing of the church or a logo or something—or with artwork related to the day; I suspect that’s simply missing from the online version.) And the type of bulletin typical in Catholic parishes in these parts can be seen here.
'Brethren, be sober, be vigilant'
Must have been thirsty!
We are having building work done and are currently having two services, one in a different church building and at an earlier time. The building is lovely, the service short, the congregation small. However, I have stopped going to it partly because the notices given (if any) were a shortened version and it felt very much that I was missing out on important family news and updates.
Post-Communion prayer & Blessing
What the Sunday School's been up to (when they're in session)
Notices
"Go in peace ..."
Closing hymn
Post-Communion prayers
Notices
Closing hymn
Blessing
"Go in peace ..."
Just before the final hymn seems sensible.
You assume that people read the newsletter.
Our announcements are brief, and mostly call attention to deadlines for signing up for things, or are short encouragements to attend activity X, with "for more details, see the emailed newsletter or talk to person Y".
We've experimented with them being in a few different places, and after the peace is what works best for us. Our parish are wanderers and huggers, so there's an ambling-about-the-church interlude there anyway, so adding in brief notices isn't a disruptive break.
Just before the blessing/dismissal works best in practice at our place: we've been standing for the post communion prayer so it helps to keep the notices short. Asking the congregation to sit down is cue for something serious.
Conversely, I have zero chance of remembering anything announced verbally unless it's also in the newsletter and for good measure on the website as well.
Honestly I don’t know if I'd have been able to function as an independent adult pre-internet.
It certainly works at my local parish church, where The Peace takes far too long for my comfort zone! - but that's just me...
I my Anglican days (many years ago) notices at Matins and Evensong were given after the Third Collect.
When the morning service changed to Parish Communion I think the notices were given before the sermon.
Come to think of it, there's a natural (and much-needed!) break after the Third Colic, especially at Matins...
Just before the sermon at Parish Communion would seem to spoil the flow of the Ministry of the Word, coming just after the Gospel.
This was 1662 Prayer Book - Creed before sermon, with the notices specified in the rubrics to precede the sermon.
Yes, quite right. I'd forgotten about the BCP!
Yes, that's true in these Latter Days, although perhaps I should explain that The Church Of My Youth only ever had the full BCP Communion Service at 8am on Sundays - when we did introduce a *main service* Communion, it was Series 3...
I often assisted at the 8am service, but I can't recall if the Vicar gave out any notices in the place indicated by the rubrics. He probably did, as he always conducted the service in a most reverent and seemly manner.
Which where/how we do Morning Prayer is immediately before the final hymn...
Indeed so.