Maybe when you visit another house of worship, you pay special attention to the way its leaders put out information for visitors and members to pick up and take with them. How thats done varies widely.
The entry way typically has tables, racks and material holders to display what the church or temple has. What is put out are brochures, devotional guidebooks (often commercially or denominationally produced)or flyers that promote upcoming events or ongoing causes. Some of it is supplied by the denominational regional office. But having sat on regional committees striving to inform congregations, I can tell you that what goes to member churches is somewhat like sending things to a black hole. Whether handed out at meetings to be taken back and distributed to your congregation or sent through the mails, there is no certainty that ANYTHING will be put in front of people.
Ownership is the problem. Getting material into the hands of congregants through the maze is like the proverbial one sperm out of millions that gets to the egg to fertilize it. For materials intended for members, there are too many waste cans in between. Too often campus staff winnows what looks important and shuffles that stuff into staff and volunteers church office mailboxes where it may sit and sit, then may be too old when it is finally examined. Its an inexact process sorting mail and materials for the right committee chairman or volunteer.
Pastors may be well-intentioned to deliver what they are given for their churches at meetings, conferences or contacts of this or that program. But their minds are on other things, and manila envelopes and packets have a way of getting covered up on their desks or tucked away in the darkness of briefcases. Or they may give materials to administrative assistants with little or no instructions on who it should go to. Bottom line, again, is ownership. Get something promoted and distributed to many people must fall to those who champion it and care about it.
Churches and temples are inundated with mail most of it promoting security systems, seminars, traveling choirs, youth education resources and how pastors/spouses can get free trips to the Holy Land by hosting tour groups, as long as they care scare up the travelers.
Often numerous constituencies in a church prepare and print their full- or half-sheet flyers to be stuffed into the worship bulletin. But that stuff commonly spills out as they find a place to sit, turning people in contortionists to retrieve the slips of paper from under pews or chairs. Some churches ban such stuffing and required information be printed in the bulletin only.
Church pew racks may or may not contain promotional materials. If they do, they may well be battered brochures with childrens crayon marks. Some churches confine the racks to hymnals and Bibles, some kind of worship registration pad and cards for telling about prayer needs. Once in a while youll find some kind of foam lining the bottom of the racks to cushion the sound of heavy hymnals all being dropped simultaneously back into the racks on the back of the pews in front of them at the end of congregational singing.
Most churches urge worshipers to take their printed bulletins home with them, especially to heed the coming weeks campus schedule and to pray for people whose names are listed in them. But give folks a bin by the door to recycle them, and you are encouraging them to be tossed immediately.
Assaulted by so much information, worshipers are hard-pressed to methodically consider all the flyers, brochures and folders competing for their eyes. On Sunday mornings, people are more prone to turn to friends to visit in settings where materials are available.
In the end, perhaps, paper materials are just lest alluring in a computer age.
