Stationery Normally Includes Three Printed Pieces

1. Letterhead. This is your official church stationery, the 8.5-by-11 inch piece of paper with your church name, address, and phone number on it.
2. Envelopes. The envelopes should use the same paper, typestyles, colors, and general design as your letterhead. In other words, they are a matched set.
3. Business cards. The business cards should use the same paper as the letterhead and envelopes, but in a heavier stock. The design elements and typestyles should be consistent. All staffpersons should have their own business cards, with that person's name and title. All other elements of the business cards should be the same.

Stationery Should Make a Good First Impression

• Sometimes, the first contact people have with your church is through your stationery--first the envelope, then the letterhead inside. Make sure it leaves a good first impression.
• Poorly-designed or poorly-printed letterhead will communicate negative impressions of you and your church. So use an attractive design on quality paper, and take it to a commercial printer.
• Don't just print out letterhead straight from your computer with each letter. Sure, you can do it, it's convenient, it's cheap, and it makes you feel computer savvy. But the quality isn't good enough, in my opinion. You want to make a better impression than that.
• If you must print out letterhead from a desktop printer, don't use an inkjet. Use a color laser. You can get a good one for around $500 now. I use a Brother color printer that cost about that amount (though not for letterhead).

Information to Include on Letterhead
The church name and logo, preferably designed as a unit, are the dominant element on letterhead. Here are other things to include:

• Church address.
• Church phone number.
• Church fax number.
• Church slogan.
• Church logo.

Information to Include on Envelopes

• Church name and logo.
• Church address.
• Don't include: phone numbers and internet addresses.

What About Internet Info?
On letterhead, I suggest including only the church's domain name, not an email address. Save email addresses for business cards.

Too many churches keep changing website addresses and email addresses. They plug into free services that offer webhosting to churches, like ForMinistry.com, or use the hosting features that are part of their Internet Service Provider (ISP) account. But before long, they move on to something else...and anything that includes that information is obsolete.

If your church owns a domain name, then that address is transportable from one ISP to another. In that case, go ahead and put your website address onto letterhead. But if you're just tagging along with some hosting company or church web service, and your address is a long long long URL--just skip it. Otherwise, as soon as you change addresses, your web address will be obsolete. And so will your stationery.

Same thing with email. Putting a pastor's personal email address on expensive letterhead is an invitation to obsolescence, because when you change pastors, you also need to print new stationery. Some churches include the names and emails of all staff members on letterhead. That's dangerous. Make the letterhead only about the church. Save personal information for business cards.

If you have your own domain name, you may have a church email address at that domain. For example, if your church domain reallygreatbaptist.org, you might use an email like this: info@reallygreatbaptist.org. It would be safe to include that on letterhead, but I still suggest including only the domain name on letterhead.