Church Bulletin Reaches 47 Pages After Every Ministry Declares Its Announcement Essential

GRAND RAPIDS, MI — October 30, 2026

Members of Covenant Hills Church were issued lumbar-support braces Sunday after the weekly bulletin expanded to 47 pages, following a unanimous agreement that every ministry announcement was too important to cut.

The crisis began when the youth group requested front-page placement for its car wash, only to learn that the women’s retreat, men’s breakfast, nursery volunteer shortage, and recreational pickleball league had already been classified as “essential churchwide communication.”

“We tried ranking announcements by urgency,” said communications director Beth Palmer. “But every ministry leader circled the word urgent on the submission form and added three exclamation points. The prayer shawl team marked theirs ‘time-sensitive’ because winter eventually happens.”

By Thursday, the bulletin included a two-page letter from the facilities committee, a full-color map to the fellowship hall, and an eight-part correction explaining that the fellowship hall had been renamed the Community Life Commons.

Ushers distributed the bulletins from reinforced carts. Several congregants initially mistook them for large-print study Bibles.

“I reached the giving instructions during the second worship song,” said member Paul Henson, turning a page with both hands. “My wife is still somewhere in the children’s ministry appendix.”

Pastor Nathan Cole attempted to shorten the document by replacing several notices with a QR code. The code linked to a 118-megabyte PDF containing all 47 pages, plus a new announcement explaining how to use the QR code.

A special committee was formed to define the word “essential.” Its nine-page preliminary report concluded that further discussion was essential.

Church leaders briefly considered returning to verbal announcements, but abandoned the idea after six ministry directors lined up beside the pulpit holding microphones and one brought a slideshow.

Printing costs now exceed the church’s monthly missions budget, though the finance team emphasized that this fact could not be included until next week’s bulletin due to the submission deadline.

At press time, Covenant Hills had renamed the publication First and Second Announcements and was preparing a companion volume containing only events that “really could not wait.”