Welcome to Hey Church. If you’ve just signed up, the best first step is to create an announcement — it’s the core of how everything else works. An announcement is simply a piece of church news you want your congregation to see: an upcoming event, a new class, a volunteer need, a schedule change. Once it’s in Hey Church, it can go out by email on the schedule you choose: weekly, every 2 weeks, or monthly. There is no daily option, and you can send later.
Here’s exactly how to create your first one.
Start From the Announcements Page
When you log in, you’ll land on your Announcements page — this is your home base. It shows your active and upcoming announcements in one place. To make a new one, click Create.
That opens a short, guided wizard. There are four quick steps, and a progress bar at the top shows where you are. You can move forward with Next and go Back anytime, so nothing is locked in until you finish.
Step 1: Give It a Title
First, you’ll be asked for the title of your announcement. Keep it short and specific — this is the headline your congregation sees first.
- Good: “Youth Group Fall Retreat,” “Baptism Sunday — Sign Up,” “New Members Class Starts Sept 8”
- Too vague: “Announcement,” “Important Update”
A clear title does a lot of work. If you want to go deeper on this, our guide on church email subject lines applies here too.
Step 2: Describe It
Next, add the details. This is where you answer the basics: what it is, when and where it’s happening, and what you’d like people to do. You don’t need to write anything fancy — just get the facts down. A few clear sentences is perfect.
One rule of thumb: keep each announcement focused on a single thing. If you have three separate events, make three announcements. That keeps your messages easy to scan and easy to act on.
Step 3: Set the Dates
This step is what makes Hey Church different from a normal email tool. You choose a start date and an end date, and that becomes the announcement’s promotion window:
- Start date — when Hey Church begins including this announcement in your emails. Leave it as today to start right away, or set a future date to line it up with a series or campaign.
- End date — the event date, or the last day you’d like to promote it. After this day, the announcement automatically stops going out.
This is the quiet superpower: you set the window once, and Hey Church makes sure the announcement shows up while it’s relevant and disappears when it’s over. No need to remember to stop promoting last month’s event.
Step 4: Add an Image or Link (Optional)
The final step is optional. You can add an image to make the announcement stand out, and a link to more information — an event page, a registration form, a map. Images are center-cropped to 16:9 (1200×675). JPEG, PNG, and WebP files up to 10MB are accepted. If you don’t need an image or a link, you can skip this step.
When you’re ready, click Create Announcement. That’s it — your first announcement is live and will appear on your Announcements page in the active or upcoming list.
What Happens Next
Creating an announcement doesn’t send anything on its own — it puts the content into Hey Church so it’s ready to go out. From here, two things matter:
- You need people to send it to. If you haven’t added your congregation yet, start with how to add contacts — or better yet, let members sign themselves up with a QR code.
- You decide how it gets sent. Manual, the default, resends your text as written. AI + Approval and Full AI rewrite the hook, details, and call to action. On AI + Approval, previews are generated for sends within about 48 hours, and you approve before it sends. If nobody approves in time, the email is held and admins are notified, and it never auto-sends. Full AI rewrites and sends on schedule. That’s covered in Manual, AI + Approval, and Full AI. A send goes to every contact who has consented to email. Hey Church does not send by group, segment, or tag. You can preview the email before it sends.
A Few Tips for Your First Announcement
- One idea per announcement. It keeps things clean and lets you promote different events on different timelines.
- Match the window to the event. Starting a week or two out and ending on the event date usually gets the best response.
- Write it once — reuse it. Hey Church handles the sending window. Manual repeats your wording. On AI + Approval or Full AI, the hook, details, and call to action can be refreshed so you don’t have to rewrite the same announcement every week.
The Free plan includes 250 contacts and 500 emails a month.