Many church newsletters are long, dense, and try to cover everything at once — which is exactly why they go unread. The newsletters people actually open tend to be short, scannable, and led with the single most important thing first.
Structure matters more than content volume. A newsletter with three clearly separated sections — this week, coming up, and a personal note or story — gets read far more completely than a wall of undifferentiated announcements.
Include one genuine, human story per issue — a testimony, a volunteer spotlight, a specific answered prayer. These sections consistently get more engagement than announcement-only content, because they give a reason to actually open the email rather than just scan a subject line.
Finally, keep a consistent schedule and stick to it. A newsletter that comes out reliably every Thursday builds a habit of opening it; one that arrives unpredictably trains people to ignore it until they need something specific.