Church newsletter: a template to copy, 20 ideas and what email services cost

A church newsletter tells the congregation what is coming, reminds them of what was taught, and asks for their prayers and their help. Below are a template for a weekly email, a filled-in sample, a layout for a monthly printed letter, and twenty ideas for what to put in either one. Copy what fits and change the names, dates and rooms to your own.

A weekly email template

Send it on the same day each week, from the same name, with the parts in the same order, so a reader knows where to look.

A sample to copy

This sample is for a made-up church and goes out on Tuesday, November 3. It is the template above filled in, shown the way a member sees it in an inbox.

Grace Baptist Church Grace Baptist this week, with the church dinner on Sunday

A word from Pastor Dan. On Sunday we read Philippians 2:3, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves.” This week, look for one person in our church to serve before you are asked. I am praying for you as you do.

This Sunday. Sunday, November 8, at 10:30. Pastor Dan preaches Philippians 2:5-11, and we take the Lord’s Supper after the sermon.

This week

• Wednesday, November 4, Bible study at 6:30 in the fellowship hall
• Saturday, November 7, work day from 8:00 to noon, with lunch
• Sunday, November 8, church dinner after the service. Bring a side dish.

Prayer. Tom Reyes has surgery on Thursday, November 5, and asked us to pray. The Carter family brought their new daughter home last week.

One need. The nursery needs two helpers for the 10:30 service on the first and third Sundays. Tell Mary Ellis at the nursery desk.

Grace Baptist Church, 100 Main Street, Springfield. Office 555-0100. Unsubscribe.

For more wording, see our announcement examples.

A monthly printed newsletter

One sheet of paper folded in half makes four pages, which is enough for a month.

Mail it to members who do not use email, and leave copies at the doors.

Page 2 is the calendar, and the dates that move each year are the ones people get wrong. Pick a year and see Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Easter, Pentecost and the first Sunday of Advent for your churchwide calendar.

Free tool you can try here

See the church year dates

Pick a year and the dates that move each year appear. The real tool prints the whole year and gives you a file for your calendar.

This free tool is made by Hamilton Holdings LLC, the company behind Covenant OS, and published on Church Posting.

Year 2026 2027 2028

Church name

Cedar Hill Baptist Church · 2027

Use it free

The tool is free and opens with the year and church name you chose.

Twenty ideas for what to put in it

One editor and one deadline

1. Name one editor, and have everyone send items to that person by the same day each week.
2. Ask the pastor for his paragraph a day before the newsletter goes out.
3. Have a second person check every name, date, time and room before it is sent.
4. Run an item for three weeks at most, and then take it out.

What email services cost

Each figure below was read on the company’s own pricing page on October 13, 2026. A contact, or a subscriber, is one email address on the church’s list.

Mailchimp’s and MailerLite’s free plans both stop at 250 addresses, so a list of 300 needs a paid plan at either company. At one email a week, that list sends about 1,300 emails a month.

Planning Center People, a free membership database, also sends email to any list of people in it and keeps a record of those messages for up to three months. Constant Contact’s pricing page refused our request on October 13, so it is not in the table.

Two rules for church email

The CAN-SPAM Act is the federal law on commercial email. The Federal Trade Commission’s guide to it says the law “covers all commercial messages,” which it defines as email whose primary purpose is to advertise or promote a commercial product or service. Whether your newsletter counts is a question for a lawyer, so follow the agency’s rules in every email. Its guide says, “Your message must include your valid physical postal address,” and it requires a way to opt out that the sender honors “within 10 business days.”

Google’s rules for anyone who sends email to Gmail accounts say, “Set up SPF or DKIM email authentication for your sending domains.” SPF and DKIM are records published at the church’s domain, which is its web address. Google says SPF “prevents spammers from sending unauthorized messages that appear to be from your domain,” and that mail from a sender missing from the record is “more likely to be marked as spam.” Ask your email service for the steps, and have whoever manages the church’s website add the records. Google also says, “Don’t impersonate Gmail From: headers,” and warns that mail which does “might impact your email delivery.” A newsletter sent through an email service does not come from Gmail, so we advise putting an address at the church’s own domain in its From line.

What to leave out

Share a health need, a birth or a death only after the family agrees, and say only what they agreed to share. Leave out children’s last names, home addresses, and anything from counseling or church discipline.