Our website, newsletters, and social media presence are made all the better from your submissions. We have a few guidelines to help make your submission compatible with our newsletters and other publications, and to reduce editing time by diocesan staff. Should you need assistance with an event promotion, we encourage you to work with Bro. Andrew Morehead well in advance of your event.
Timing
General Deadline: Monday, by 3:00 PM Eastern the week of publication.
For stories of news, celebrations, or post-event summaries, we gladly accept submissions at any time as these items are not bound by time. For events or opportunities requiring promotional lead time, please be aware of the following considerations:
- Most events need at least a month’s lead time from the registration deadline for adequate promotion. We highly recommend three iterations of an event promotion in order to gather interest.
- For example, the 2025 St. Francis Fall Fun Festival at St. Swithin’s in Townsend is Sunday, September 28, but the deadline to sign-up is Monday, September 15. The diocesan News & Events newsletter will run August 7, 21, and September 4 prior to this event. Thus, a submission to the diocesan newsletter should be completed by Monday, August 4, by 3:00 PM Eastern.
- Should you need help with creating graphics, bulletin inserts, or other materials for your event, you should then be in touch a month prior to the submission deadline. Thus, the ideal time to begin working on the promotion of our example event would be the end of June or the beginning of July.
Copy and Graphics Content
Your news, announcements, or events should have at least approximately 50 words and at most 150-200 words. They should consider:
- The text portion of your submission should be either in a Word document (.doc or .docx format) or in the body of an email.
- Event promotions should include the date, time, location, registration deadline, and any ticket or registration links.
- Your graphics should be submitted in either .jpeg or .png format and attached to the email, not embedded in the Word document nor embedded in the email. Images embedded in Word documents and emails typically export at a lower resolution than you intended.
- A helpful rule of thumb is that photos of people being the church are more engaging than photos of a church building. Please send photo(s) to accompany stories and events including the names of the people pictured (if relevant), and the name of the photographer. Photos should be 1920×1080 (HD format).
- Please consider sending a link to your news or event that leads to your website.
- You may submit these items in an online shared folder with your copy and images in the same folder (Google Drive/Drop Box/OneDrive, etc.).
- Please do not submit PDFs unless it is the only document you have. PDFs make transferring the text difficult, requiring extra time for editing. Images from PDFs can be extracted, but not always in the format you intended, causing additional editing time to recreate your layout.
- Please also note that we reserve the right to not publish a story or event.
If you have questions, please contact Bro. Andrew Aelred at amorehead@dioet.org or 865-323-7211.
Our Email Publications
News & Events
News & Events is our regularly scheduled email publication with our largest readership. It is published on the first and third Thursday of the month. This publication features stories, celebrations, events, and offerings from the diocesan community up and down East Tennessee.
Leadership News
Leadership News is on an “as needed” basis as determined by the diocesan staff. It is not published regularly to keep email clutter down. This publication features communications and administrative news from the diocesan office aimed at parish leadership (communicators, secretaries, administrators, clergy, senior wardens, and others). Should you have news specific to leadership, please email Bro. Andrew Morehead, amorehead@dioet.org, with your information.
Clergy Celebrations
Clergy Celebrations is a monthly email newsletter published exclusively for East Tennessee clergy (specifically those practicing ministry within the diocesan that are canonically resident or non-canonically resident, and those outside of our diocese that are canonically resident). This newsletter features birthdays (day of the month only), ordination anniversaries for those currently serving as deacons and priests, transition updates, event news, and other features for clergy.
Clergy Celebrations is published on Wednesday of the last whole week of the preceding month of birthday and ordination anniversary dates (i.e. June 25th for July birthdays). Submissions and subscriptions should be delivered to Bro. Andrew Morehead, amorehead@dioet.org, by 3:00 PM the Monday before publication.
Other Periodicals
The diocesan house also publishes a monthly ETNyouth newsletter, a periodic Grace Point Camp & Retreat Center newsletter, and, when certain initiatives are active, a Becoming Beloved Community newsletter. Reconciling Thoughts has been paused while the bishop is on sabbatical and may undergo a revisioning in light of our mission and vision work as a diocese.
Our Other Publications
Diocesan Website
Our diocesan website is the hub of information for the diocese. From forms and polices to formation content and events, there’s a lot of information available on our website.
Job Postings – Our website features job posts from across the diocese. Parishes are encouraged to submit openings to Bro. Andrew for consideration on our website, newsletters, and social media.
News/Blog – Our website features a multi-channel blog page featuring news, book reviews, and messages from the bishop. Please consider submitting content for our news section of the website.
Events – Our website features event listings. These are traditionally reserved for diocesan or broadly appealing events.
Social Media
The Diocese of East Tennessee is active on a few social media channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn (for career opportunities), and BlueSky as well as Vimeo and YouTube for video content. Feel free to tag us or share content that we may share more broadly on your behalf.