How many of you put your congregation council's minutes in the newsletter? Many of you do.

How many of your readers read the minutes? Probably not as many as you'd like.

How many of your readers would be upset if they weren't in there? Somewhere in between the last two answers.

Congregation members like to stay informed about what decisions are being made in their church, but minutes aren't exactly the page-turning material of the latest bestseller. Besides that, they often take up a page or more of precious newsletter space.

Your newsletter is not the official record of council minutes. In fact, it's often hard to get current, official minutes in the newsletter anyway, depending on when your council meets and approves minutes. With that in mind, try turning your next council meeting minutes into a hot news story.

Try titling it like a story in the newspaper, focusing on the biggest decision first and perhaps a secondary decision after that. Example: Council votes to order new hymnals, plans a cemetery clean-up day

Then summarize what happened at the meeting in the inverted pyramid style of writing - most important information at the top (big stuff) and least important at the bottom (little stuff). This will allow your readers to still learn what you want them to and let their short attention spans take over and move them on to the next story without missing the latest major action of the council.

Finally, remember what makes a story newsworthy:

• does it affect a lot of people?
• does it affect noteworthy people?
• is it unusual?

What time they adjourned and who was present are examples of things that are not particularly noteworthy (unless a special guest was there!).