I just read a post by Ryan Imel over at Church Communications Pro about “Make Your Church Logo a Flexible Logo” and I think Ryan has some great ideas but I would disagree on some of his points.

First, branding is not a trend that we change like dirty underwear. The reason John Deere, Coke, Nike, BMW, and Harley Davidson are globally known brands is because of consistency. There is no doubt that these companies have adapted their logo and image over the long haul but the core of the brand has always been concrete. If they changed every time there was a culture shift then we may not know them as we do today. But then remember that a brand is not just a logo – it is the attitude, the style, the beliefs and emotional experience of the total package.

You should have a logo or brand identity developed that can stand the test of time. Trends come and go and you may look cool and hip today but be an ancient relic a year from now. I agree that your logo should be one that can easily be adapted to bean bags, t-shirts, a wall mural or sign, or even look great as a tattoo (and this is all more difficult than you think) but be careful of modifying it just to be creative. One of the biggest mistakes I see in branding, advertising, and marketing is that people always want to change things up in order to be creative, but if you are always changing your brand image it will be almost impossible for people to “see” you. You can become a chameleon and blend in with the environment – which is not what you want to do!

Your brand and your identity also needs to reflect who you really are. I love the weathered look and some of the cool effects you can do in Photoshop and Illustrator. I love that there are unlimited ways you can communicate your brand image to the people inside and outside your church. However, it would behoove you to make absolutely sure that it matches up to who you truly are. If you “tell” people through your branding and marketing efforts that you are a young, exciting, and emerging church and they walk in and see the Great Depression you are going to bear some bad fruit every time.

What I want to leave you with is that there is nothing wrong with being flexible and open to change with your logo (especially if it stinks) but to be wary of trends and changing just to be all things to all people with your brand. There are new rules and ideas of value, but there are also old ones we need to remember because they are proven and are a solid foundation to build upon.

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Tim Stevens over at Leading Smart wrote a great post about “These Top Church Lists Making Me Groan”. While I commented my thoughts on the topic I wanted to elaborate a little more on it and, in a way, post a personal confession to tie in the point.

Top Church Lists can be evil. They can cause division. They can cause pride, judgment, and pain. There really is no purpose other than our fleshly desires for having these lists.

I have talked with church planters who get down because they can’t be like one of the Top 10. Their focus becomes on what the world says is successful and not what God says is successful. I have seen creative church teams who have stressed “upping the ante” or raising the stakes with their creativity in order to top Granger or National Community Church in innovation (and I still think the Hooter’s Girls will make an appearance at a cutting-edge church because I know that some crazy team is going to test the limits). Some pastors beat themselves up because they can’t seem to be like “Super Church” who has 50,000 people and makes the cover of every Christian magazine.

One could say that it is our own fault for taking our own eyes off Jesus and losing true sight of what building the Kingdom really means. I would say this is true but if church leaders are saying that these comparisons and church lists aren’t important, then why on God’s green and blue earth do we need them? If we know that we should not compare ourselves by the world’s standards for what is successful, why do we have Christian publications and blogs that write as though we should or that encourages this behavior? Maybe it really is important…but to me these things will only set us up for failure when it comes to pride and focus.

I want to share a personal and painful confession: I long to be Number One! I want to be the guy who not only makes the list but dominates it.

I desire to be on the cover of Fast Company, Outreach Magazine, and Relevant. It eats me up because I know I am more talented than most people in my field. I despise it when a new guy who planted a fast growing church two years ago who mentioned “branding” as part of their success is now the brand guru who makes the Top 10 Lists and gets asked to speak at all the cool conferences on branding and church marketing – especially when I have been doing branding and church marketing way before it was a buzzword, and longer than some of you have been pastors. I am just being honest. I continually compare myself to other church branding or marketing firms. I look at the lists, the who’s who, the blogs who talk about who’s the stud and I beat myself up because I want to get through Seth Godin’s “Dip” and be the greatest. Some days I have considered selling my soul to be the brand celebrity.

God has become second because I want to be number one. I have lost my focus on being faithful with what He has given me and my focus on Him. It shouldn’t be that way but number 18 doesn’t get asked to speak, write, or get the sweet gigs like number one does. It isn’t cool to be 3,455,116 on Technorati. My pride and my selfish desires are keeping me from living a life of joy.

The great thing is that I am learning (and repenting) that God doesn’t care about Technorati or Google rankings and that my goal, my priority, and my focus is to make the Lord the Number One thing in ALL of my life. So I am trying to let go of the lists, blog rankings, and fleshly desires and just be content and faithful where God has me today. How about you? If you are struggling with what the world says is successful vs. what God sees as successful I am praying for you right now. Turn your eyes upon Jesus!

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Branding is important to us -even church branding!

I was amazed at how many views we had on this current post and I suspect that some people were really looking for the “Top 25 Church Brands of 2007″ or another list of innovative, killer churches. However, this really wasn’t my goal.

I wanted to learn what churches stood out in your mind and the one thing (position) they are known for – in your opinion. It really didn’t matter if they were the well known churches or the small churches in our community who have never made the cover of Outreach Magazine or Rev! The idea was to just see what “church brands” meant to you.

There is no right or wrong answer. Well actually there is. Read More→

I wanted to do an experiment by asking you who you thought were the biggest church brands or most recognized churches that you knew of and what is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of them.

I shared some of my thoughts and some of you did too. Monday Morning Insight picked up the post and asked their readers their thoughts as well…thanks Todd!

The point of this particular post is not to do a power ranking of the most influential church brands (though that is something I am working on) but to gain your view on how branding works in your mind and how it applies to our churches and what it might mean to your target audience or people you want to reach.

I’ll review briefly what branding means in our current day’s context.

• Branding is about the emotional connection and positioning in the mind of your consumer (or church members, congregations, and community). Yes, branding is still associated with a name, logo, color scheme, and other visual identifiers but it also correlates with a non-visual connection as well.

I’m including Wikipedia’s definition on positioning because I feel it’s important to include:

Positioning is something (perception) that happens in the minds of the target market. It is the aggregate perception the market has of a particular company, product or service in relation to their perceptions of the competitors in the same category. It will happen whether or not a company’s management is proactive, reactive or passive about the on-going process of evolving a position. But a company can positively influence the perceptions through enlightened strategic actions.

In marketing, positioning has come to mean the process by which marketers try to create an image or identity in the minds of their target market for its product, brand, or organization. It is the ‘relative competitive comparison’ their product occupies in a given market as perceived by the target market.

Now let’s think of my starting question again. Who are the most recognized church brands or churches you can think of today and what is the position or perception in your mind when you think of them?

Throw out a few more answers if you like and think about these definitions. I’ll wrap up a long topic in part three of this series.

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