We live in a face-paced culture. That means that as communicators, we need to visual communication (newsletters, websites, bulletins, posters, etc.) need to make effective use of their space. Don't use more words than necessary, design the project in such a way that it makes people want to look at it, etc.

One tool to getting a message across quickly is effective images. This does not mean "more is better." Overloading on the clipart will distract a reader and might give them the impression of little real content. On the other hand, a graph showing the congregation's expenses verses giving may be more effective than the numbers. Rule of thumb: use what enhances your message!

To make the space you use for pictures effective, also make sure that your readers can see the pictures. Make sure photos are cropped (if needed) and made large enough that people can see the people in them (or any other subject matter). If you're using a lower quality copier for your newsletter, you might want to leave photos out entirely as some machines don't copy them well. Also make sure that the photos are high resolution (300 dpi is a good standard) to eliminate the pixilated look (when it gets grainy and you can see the little squares). Once in the publication, don't shrink or enlarge the images. Shrinking them will take up more memory than you need (the storage required for the image is the same as if it were larger, shrink it before you put it in the publication). Enlarging it reduces the resolution and distorts them.

Looking for more on working with your photos? Take a look at the handout from Pat Kelley's, (St. Olaf College), session at the August 10 Communicators' workshop.

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!).

As communicators, we have a lot of power to influence the terms people use to think and talk about their church. As such, we need to be careful about the words we choose. The ELCA has published extensive style guidelines (and also references the Chicago Manual of Style (for resource production) and the Associated Press Style Guide (news based)) to aid us in determining proper usage. I would recommend skimming and bookmarking and/or printing the whole ELCA Publishing Standards Manual, but here are a few quick tips that we should all know when picking our words:

• When referring to your council, use "Congregation Council" not "church" or "congregational." The Church Council is the churchwide ELCA council.
• Speaking of which, try to refer to your congregation as a congregation, not a church. The ELCA or the whole Christian community can be referred to as a church, but as members of a larger church, each congregation is not a "church" in and of itself.
• When using a title, it is capitalized when preceding a name, lowercase when following. Ex. "Bishop Harold Usgaard..." or "Harold Usgaard, bishop of the Southeastern Minnesota Synod" (same with "pastor"). Note that the bishop of the ELCA is "presiding bishop."
• Always be careful to use inclusive language (ex. avoid referring to God in exclusively male terms) and use "politically correct" language (avoid the term "minority" when referring to racial groups, "young adult" is the best term for adolescents, anyone over 18 is a "man" or "woman," avoid "elderly" or "senior citizen" when possible and do not use them to refer to an individual, etc.).
• Never say "Last Sunday we worshped 324 people." Instead say, "Last Sunday 324 people were present for worship."
• The proper name for the women's organization is Women of the ELCA, not WELCA or W/ELCA.
• Don't refer to the ELCA as the "national" church. The ELCA includes the Caribbean, so it's not just the United States. Use "churchwide."

Finally, though this is not specifically part of the ELCA style guidelines, I would like to encourage you to be careful not to use language that suggests the ELCA as "other." Chicago is the ELCA, I am the ELCA, you are the ELCA, and your congregation members are the ELCA.

Does anyone else have any questions about usage or have any other errors that you've seen? Comment away!

For a few weeks, you may have noticed my "theme" of web design software (with the Lutherans Online one thrown in just for fun). I took a break last week, but we'll finish off talking about some of the main web design software by mentioning FrontPage.

FrontPage is a Microsoft program, so it may take the least amount of time to learn for people used to using Microsoft programs. The downside is it's meant to be "user-friendly" which means that it is, if you're doing what it wants you to do. It's a little harder to spread your designing wings with this program than some others.

Some helpful tools that I've found while using FrontPage are in the "View" menu. You can view things like which pages you have linked to on a give page or what other pages are linked to the one you're on. You can also get helpful reports like what pages are not linked to at all (meaning you can probably delete them). If you have a large site, these can be particularly helpful.

If you have questions about using FrontPage, ask away (add your comment and other readers, check back to see if you can answer anyone's questions). This is the program I'm most familiar with, so you can also ask me at butler@semnsynod.org, 507-280-9457 or 800-426-6376 (MN only).