Archive for Church Branding
Rick Warren Book Cover Design Contest
Posted by: | CommentsMy good friend Michael Buckingham wrote an interesting post and open letter to Rick Warren about his latest book design contest for designers. By the responses in comments, I would say that Michael has hit a nerve! I dig his passion and can see a valid point being a designer myself, but I also see the other side of the coin and the opportunity for design recognition.
If you wanna read the article, visit Church Marketing Sucks, but please remember that as Christians we should strive to be Christ-like in our actions and responses.
Will You Twitter Your Church or Ministry?
Posted by: | CommentsTwitter is an awesome tool!
It allows us to communicate in a way that is totally different from traditional websites, blogs, and e-mails. You can tie in Twitter with your FaceBook account, send voice mesages to Twitter using your phone, TwitPic your photos, and even synch it with your Google iCalendar. The applications are many and you should consider using it for your church or ministry.
Anthony Coppedge (whom I’d love to meet and have missed at a few conferences) launched a website called Twitter for Churches (www.twitterforchurches.com) and offers a PDF book called “The Reason Your Church MUST Twitter” for only $5.00! Having read Anthony’s posts in the past, I think this is going to be a great read and recommend checking out his new website.
Twitter could help your ministry to communicate more efficiently or carry on conversations with people in your community. Don’t miss the boat.
Branding Your Church
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People have asked me if they really should brand their church or if it’s really necessary for a church to use the same methods that Starbucks or Harley Davidson does. My response is that if you have any interaction with a live person they will form some type of opinion about you or your church, so yes, branding your church is necessary.
The reality is that a consumer or visitor is going to make an assumption about your church that may or may not be totally correct. This is why their experience with you must be great and your connection points (website, receptionist, brochure, servant evangelism) must be right on. Please note that I am not saying to be perfect or flawless but whatever connection they might make with your church first (and even second or third) it should be great enough to leave the right impression.
If you are promoting the friendliest church in town and your receptionist gets hateful answering the phone, you have just made a huge disconnection! If your website communicates a youthful and emerging worship and it’s an oldschool, traditional service – you have just dropped the ball. In the past, mistakes could easily be overlooked by visitors but in our finicky culture of today, it’s more difficult to unscrew our screw ups.
My advice is to invest in branding your church. This doesn’t necessarily mean a logo or a website, and it doesn’t even mean spending any money. Just make sure that you do your best to communicate a positive and accurate impression through all possible entry/connection points into your church and if a person does connects the dots, it forms the right picture.
This is what real branding is all about!
Has church become too commercialized?
Posted by: | CommentsThere has been a growing trend in the church market. There are more books, websites, and programs for church leaders and their teams than ever before. Church growth, Gen X services, post modernism, authentic communities, emerging movements, worship experiences, and planting missional churches have all been the buzzwords over the last decade and has led to many of the fore mentioned products. It seems that Christianity is a big business. You can even bling out your dog now in the latest JC apparel.
I recently asked a pastor about how the Exponential Conference went last week and before he replied the word jumped into my head – commercialized. He said the conference was more about speakers promoting their books and agendas than church planting. I won’t go into my personal experience with the National New Church Conference but I can totally see my friend’s point of view.
Christianity has become too commercialized in some aspects and I think we need to get a reign on it.
It appears in some circles that selling books, CD’s, sermon series, speaking gigs, metrosexual identities, and being the top blogger is the “in thing”. This has really been observed in the church planting world and evident by the groupies who continually blog about stalking their idol at conferences or who market their personal blog more than their church…all the while wearing long sleeve black shirts with big collars unbuttoned to their chest with faded jeans, Doc Martens, and a soul patch or frosted hair to match.
You know what I would like to hear more about and see?
Jesus Christ, biblical inerrancy, small guys in the trenches, life transformation, spiritual discipline, serving and washing feet, becoming the least, humility, toned down church marketing and advertising, and the realization that people NOT in church or our faith see what’s happening but many Christians don’t.
Please know that I have personally struggled with these issues myself and I thank Jesus every day that I see in a new perspective. I’m jacked up too, but friends, we have to start looking at Christianity in America through a new lenses or we will reap what we have sown.
