Write a complete weekly church email. Subject line, preview text, and body. Warm, scannable, mobile-friendly. Paste in announcements and events, get back a ready-to-send email.
Turn your announcements into an email people actually open.
Requires: pastor-foundation skill
Paste in whatever you have. It does not need to be clean. Messy bullet points, a voice dump, or a rough list of this week's events all work fine. I will organize it.
Required:
Optional but useful:
Before writing a word, I sort what you gave me into a logical structure:
The goal is a clear priority order before any drafting begins. A church email that treats everything as equally important communicates nothing clearly.
Every weekly email has six components. Here is exactly how each one works:
Examples of good subject lines:
Examples of weak subject lines (never use these):
Example pairing:
Examples:
This is the body of the email. Each announcement item follows a consistent structure: one clear sentence describing the thing, one to two sentences with relevant details, and one clear CTA.
Rules for main content:
Vocabulary rules for announcement copy:
A scannable bullet list of the week's action items with links. This is for the reader who skimmed the body and wants to know what to click.
Format:
This week:
- [Register for Family Camp] → [link]
- [Sign up to serve Sunday] → [link]
- [Watch last week's message] → [link]
- [Give online] → [link]
Keep it to 3 to 5 items. If there is no link for an action, leave it off this list.
These apply to the full email, not just individual sections.
Paragraph length: 1 to 3 sentences per paragraph. If it runs longer, break it.
Bold usage: Bold dates, times, locations, and deadlines. Do not bold random phrases for emphasis. Bold should mean: "this is information you need to act."
Line breaks: Generous. Assume the reader is on a phone between other tasks. White space is not wasted space.
Total word count: 200 to 400 words. Shorter is better. A 180-word email that covers everything beats a 420-word email that meanders.
Never bury the lead. The most important thing goes first. This is not a mystery novel.
Things that make church emails get ignored, deleted, or unsubscribed from:
Here is what a finished email looks like before personalization:
Subject A: [Specific, compelling, under 50 chars]
Subject B: [Alternative angle, same length target]
Preview: [40-90 chars, complements Subject A]
---
[Personal greeting, 1-2 sentences]
[Lead item, 2-3 sentences, bold key details, CTA]
[Item 2, 1-2 sentences, CTA]
[Item 3, 1-2 sentences, CTA]
[Item 4, 1-2 sentences, CTA (optional)]
This week:
- [Action item 1] → [link]
- [Action item 2] → [link]
- [Action item 3] → [link]
[Closing sentence]
[Pastor name]
[Church name]
Short paragraphs and a strict priority order are not just stylistic preferences. They reflect how people actually read email: on a phone, in a gap between things, looking for a reason to keep scrolling or a reason to stop. An email that respects that reality gets read. An email that does not gets archived.
The subject line and preview text do the hardest work. If those two lines do not earn a click, everything else is invisible. That is why they get built first and given the most attention.
The "one most important thing" rule forces clarity that most pastors skip. Every item feels important to the person who submitted it. But your congregation is not you. They need you to decide what matters most and say it first.