How to frame church announcements without normalising non-attendance

TL;DR

Check which behaviour your announcement makes sound normal. Present honest facts in a way that shows a group people can join, rather than making non-participation seem like the expected choice.

A Framing Mishap

Today I want to talk about something I heard a Pastor say that might have achieved the opposite of what he was hoping for.

This is essentially about how the way we frame things, can completely change how people respond to them.

The pastor was encouraging more people to come to the Saturday morning prayer meeting. He said something close to this.

“We’ve got around 350 members, yet only about 70 have been to Saturday morning prayer at least once this year.”

Everyone in the room understood what he meant.

Prayer is vital, more of us should be there.

But there’s a second message inside that sentence, and it’s the one that effects behaviour even more.

Two hundred and eighty people in this church don’t go to the prayer meeting.

Let me explain the problem...

How a warning can make unwanted behaviour seem normal

The Petrified Forest in Arizona had a theft problem.

Visitors kept pocketing pieces of petrified wood. So the park put up a sign explaining the scale of it.

"Fourteen tons a year are stolen, mostly a small piece at a time."

They wondered whether that sign was making things worse or helping.

They marked pieces of wood and tested two messages.

One sign highlighted the extent of the problem and how widespread it was, while requesting people to stop. The other sign, just asked people to stop, no context given.

With the first, 7.92% of the marked pieces disappeared.

With the second, 1.67% of the marked pieces disappeared.

Telling people that theft was common produced nearly five times as much theft.

And here’s the part I’d underline. They also tried no sign at all, which produced a theft rate of about 2.9%.

The honest description of the problem performed worse than saying nothing.

Descriptive and injunctive norms in church announcements

Psychologists split this in two.

A descriptive norm is what people actually do. “Most people here don’t come to prayer.”

An injunctive norm is what the group values. “Praying together is central to who we want to be.”

We reach for the first, because it feels honest and it feels urgent.

But when the current reality is the very thing you’re trying to change, describing it out loud just tells everybody that it's normal to not go to the prayer meeting.

Your announcement doesn’t only tell people what you’d like them to do. It also tells them what everyone else is doing.

Use honest facts to show a group people can join

Nothing here requires you to be dishonest. The numbers don’t change. Only which end you hold them by.

Instead of “only 70 out of 350 have come this year”:

“Seventy people from our church have already been to Saturday prayer this year. If you haven’t yet, come and join them.”

Same number. But now it’s a group somebody could join, rather than a group they’re already comfortably outside.

So, some practical applications.

Volunteers. Not “we’re desperate for people to serve”. Try “twelve people run our welcome team, and we’ve got room for two more”.

Sign-ups. If ten people have booked and you wanted fifty, don’t announce the number. “Ten people have booked already” is fine. “Only ten people have booked” tells everybody that not booking is what people like them do.

Giving. “Most people don’t give regularly” is one of the most self-defeating sentences a church can say.

Momentum, but only if it’s real. “More people are making Saturday prayer part of their rhythm” is powerful.

One important caution. None of this means never being candid about a problem. Church leaders sometimes have to say hard and honest things about where things really are.

The point is when your goal is to change what people do, think about which behaviour your sentence is making sound normal.

A frank conversation with your leadership team is a different thing from an announcement made to three hundred people on a Sunday morning.

Check which behaviour your next announcement makes sound normal

Take the next thing you’re going to announce, from the front or by email.

Find every sentence with a problem you're highlighting or an actions you're trying to encourage.

For each one, ask whether it makes the outcome you want sound normal, or unusual.

If it’s the second, think about how your can reword it.