Okay, now that you’re putting the finishing touches on your Valentine’s Day media (or just starting to think about it), we’d like to issue a solemn warning. Don’t let your church media fail on Valentine’s Day. Church media is really important, and the importance is heightened right around February 14. Here are the top six ways that your Valentine’s Day church media could be headed for failure.

Overloading your bulletin with Valentine’s Day clipart. Designing a bulletin is like handling a bomb. It’s very powerful if used effectively, but it can also blow up in your face. Church bulletins are notorious for being epic design failures, and when Valentine’s Day arrives it just gets worse. The problem comes when the bulletin designer feels the need to stuff every conceivable nook and cranny of the bulletin with Valentine’s Day clipart. Not good. Valentine’s clipart is fine. It has its place. In fact, Sharefaith has a decent collection of Valentine’s clipart. The rule of thumb for Valentine’s Day bulletin design is this: use clipart very sparingly, if ever.
Forgetting to rehearse. Assembling all the media for Valentine’s Day can be a busy event. You’re adjusting PowerPoint slides up to the last second. Too often, this means that you leave no time to rehearse your slideshow. Big mistake. Unrehearsed slide shows spell disaster. Chances are, you’re going to fumble a transition, forget that you deleted the last stanza of the worship lyrics, or make some other egregious error. The “I didn’t rehearse the slideshow” error will leave you cringing and sweating for the entire service.
Misspelling the song lyrics—or anything, for that matter. Graphic designers are notorious misspellers. Some of us have a natural predisposition to misplel evrythign. That’s okay as long as you do something about it. There are three ways to remedy your penchant for typos: 1) Spell check. 2) Proofread. 3) Proofread again. When preparing Valentine’s Day media, you may have to add some new worship songs to the queue. Is every word spelled correctly?
Using too much pink and red. Pink is a great color…in moderation. With Valentine’s Day media comes the overwhelming desire to splash pink and red everywhere. Pink worship backgrounds! Pink fonts! Pink clipart! Pink bulletin covers! Pink PowerPoints! Hey, let’s see if we can wrap the pulpit in pink crepe paper! Like I said, pink is fine in moderation. Red is only mildly safer. Just be careful. In case you’re interested, we have some low-red and low-pink Valentine’s Day designs: Real Love church graphics collection, Love Laid Down PowerPoint, Love Will Conquer church graphics set. Oh, and Pastor, don’t do the pink shirt thing.
Going overboard with hearts. Valentine’s Day is heart day. Like pink overload, though, hearts can become old. Splashing hearts on every possible media outlet becomes cliche. Can you have effective church valentine media without using hearts? Sure. Or you can use hearts purposefully, not profligately. For some great Valentine’s Day designs sans hearts, check these out:
Using secular love songs for your worship. Please don’t load up your worship time with secular love songs. It’s not just tacky; using secular love songs in a church worship setting actually creeps into the realm of irreverence and banality. The Bible is all about love. There are good Christian songs that are full of love. If your people have spent anytime trolling radio stations, walking through the mall, or shopping for a Valentine’s Day card, they’ve already heard the secular love songs. Use Christian songs.