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I’m taking a vacation this week, so I’ll have a collection of favorite posts about one topic that hits most college ministries… the Large Group Meeting! Whether you have a classic “sing-n-speak” or some twist on the all-come gathering, I hope you’ll find these useful.

I had the chance to give announcements at one of our church’s worship services recently, and it was a neat chance to be reminded about the excellence and intentionality of our staff members who direct those services.

A few days before my moment on stage, they sent out a “briefing” that shared their vision for that time. What I especially appreciated was the theme running throughout. I might summarize that theme as: Spend some time preparing, because what you’re doing really matters.

For those weekly 3 minutes, it would be easy for someone to “wing it,” to just prepare quick bullets, or otherwise to treat “announcement time” as simply as it seems.

But it’s not simple. It’s worth the 30 minutes (or more) a person could spend preparing for this impactful moment. If what we’re announcing matters… and if the (new and old) visitors sitting in the audience matter… then those 3 minutes are worth 30 minutes of prep. Right?

(The blog post they pointed me to in their materials was powerful. Read this.)

I do realize that what happens in a big worship service at church is different than what happens in a campus ministry’s weekly Large Group Meeting. But even there, announcements often they have a lot of importance, as do many of the other “basic” or “simple” elements of ministry gatherings.

So the principle can be extrapolated to your ministry and to many elements within it. And it’s our job to make sure our fellow staff and our student leaders understand the need to spend 30 minutes to prep for 3, when it’s called for.