Will Mancini

This second post in a church communications series, will make more sense if you read the first, The 3 Branding Strategies for Churches

It’s unbelievable how quickly churches fragment their message. It’s easy for staff and volunteers the create stuff that feels good to them but is either completely unnecessary (at best) or clutters communication (at worst). Every day in America some new church ministry or program is creating some new, cute little visual to stuff into an already overpacked worship bulletin.

So the question we address today is “How many ministry logos should your church really have?” Here are the seven guidelines I use.

#1 Don’t create a sub-ministry logo until you have a vision-based brand for the entire church.

This guideline goes back to our branded house strategy. A church is a very finite, limited group of people. The most important idea at anytime for attenders of the church is the ONE singular reason for the church’s existence. What is the story? What is the big idea? What is the mission of the church that we want to keep before everybody all of the time? This should not only be clear, but clearly represented visually through the church’s primary logo and brand attributes. One of my most popular posts will provide more info and illustration: Top Ten Church Logos for Telling Story Through Design

If your church creates a sub-ministry logo without the “house” logo in place, it’s like sizing your curtains before the house’s blueprint is determined. We don’t know the size of the windows yet!  It just doesn’t make sense. You can’t even make a lucky guess. Don’t distract yourself from the prior work to be done. Don’t waste your resources.

Could the sub-ministry logo feel urgent and exciting to the leader of the ministry? Of course!  And is it possible that the leader of the ministry could care less about the overall church logo.  Of course! (And that’s the problem.) Unintentionally you would be reinforcing what we call a “lower room” identity—a program-based connection—rather than a vision-based, “upper room” identity.

In the end, church leadership must decide whether or not they will connect their people to the biggest idea and deepest calling of the church.

#2 Don’t create a sub-ministry logo until you have clear visual representation of  your strategy. The strategy icon will “transcend” the use of program-based logos.

The idea here is to lead with a compelling picture of how your church accomplishes its mission before you lead with program-based logos. Why? Because in the the end, programs don’t attract people; people attract people. To make the assimilation process in your church simple, easy and obvious, you have to clear the clutter and communicate strategically. Fire a rifle shot, not a shotgun blast. Here is an example from Faithbridge UMC in Houston, TX. The three main things you do at Faithbridge are: 1) attend worship, 2) participate in a grow group, and 3) engage a serve team. This is centered around a bridging lifestyle— being a bridge of faith to people everyday.

#3 The two most important logos after the church’s primary logo are children’s ministry and student ministry. These logos are most important for three reasons: 1) Birth through 12th grade ministries directly affects 25-45% of the church population. 2) Parents are quickly evaluating the safety and quality of offerings to children, and 3) These ministries create an additional way-finding experience, even for guests.

#4 Don’t create sub-ministry or program-based logos with complete disregard to the church’s overall brand and logo. Unfortunately, this rule is violated all of the time. The church overflows with random, disconnected creativity. A passionate leader creates new visual tools without realizing the disconnect. It’s like every room in a house has a distinct interior decorator who could care less about what the other rooms in the house look like. Therefore people never experience the family dynamic of unified vision, but rather, a bunch of folks doing separate things under one roof. I will admit, that this principle speaks to a nuance that even most church communicators have not been trained to understand.

What’s the solution? In a nutshell every sub-ministry “look and feel” should have a “design rational” that connects it to the “house brand.”

To educate yourself on this design competency, observe the sub-branded products in stores like Starbucks or the Apple Store. Designers take great effort to bring fresh initiatives or products with a design that still “fits” artistically under the overall brand.  For example, look at the distinct-but-connected design of the different roasts from the Starbucks website. Note how these images related to one another and the Starbucks master brand. (Don’t forget to study this dynamic in retail and online environments every day— free education for church communicators.)Now let’s show an example of principle #3 and #4 for a church. When Sugar Creek Baptist Church asked us to design their brand, we alsodesigned a children’s ministry and student ministry logo. In this case the design rational for the sub ministries was based on the logo font itself (Univers Ultra Condensed) The ministries added their own creativity. The children’s ministry added a softer secondary color palette and the beach ball element. The student ministry added a simple, and but unexpected typeface for the unique name “LYF.” The strategy icon image is also shown. Note how the colors for the student ministry are from the same color palette as the strategy icon.

#5 A guideline for adding a creatively distinct sub-ministry logo after children and student ministries, is one new logo for every thousand people in worship attendance. So a church of 400 in worship should not create additional sub-ministry logos than children and students. A church of 2,000 in attendance could have two additional sub-ministry logos. For example they could have the base three (church logo, children’s logo, and student’s logo) and a logo for life groups (first additional) and a logo for mission ministry (second additional).

#6  Ministries that will inevitably want a logo too early in the development of the church’s growth should use simple and similar font-based solutions based on the church’s brand. This practice requires a design-based font selection. For example with the MET Church, all adult ministries were given two fonts from which to build a type-face solution identity— see the Worship Arts ministry below. This enables a broader selection of ministries to be communicated without clutter, distraction and disconnection.

#7 One seasonal campaign-based logo is acceptable at any time in addition to the guidelines above, based on the church’s vision proper (seasonal goal or milestone). A campaign is another great opportunity to sub-brand. Again, the key is to “think outside the box, inside the brand.” That is, do fresh things, but keep them connected and related in a meaningful way to the overall brand. Also, keep it limited to one highly visible initiative at a time.

Below you will see the creative design of the “Big Give” campaign at the MET. Here we used a dramatic contrast of color while keeping it in the same strong, masculine color palette (blue rather than red and black) to carry the playful name of the campaign. The consistency came in using a huge dot to define the look, zooming in on the basic design element of a circle. The combination is creatively unique but totally consistent at the same time— and that’s what a sub-brand is all about.

On a side note, I am proud of the Auxano Design team who are true thought-leaders in helping churches navigate communications with unprecedented clarity and excellent. Without them it would be impossible to show you these examples.

I read these thoughts from Tim Keller that were posted on Facebook by my friend Matt Ballard. I thought they might help as thousands of pastors prepare to preach today. May the gospel shine bright this morning in the wake of this horrific tragedy.

As a minister, of course, I’ve spent countless hours with people who are struggling and wrestling with the biggest question – the WHY question in the face of relentless tragedies and injustices. And like all ministers or any spiritual guides of any sort, I scramble to try to say something to respond and I always come away feeling inadequate and that’s not going to be any different today. But we can’t shrink from the task of responding to that question. Because the very best way to honor the memories of the ones we’ve lost and love is to live confident, productive lives. And the only way to do that is to actually be able to face that question. We have to have the strength to face a world filled with constant devastation and loss. So where do we get that strength? How do we deal with that question? I would like to propose that, though we won’t get all of what we need, we may get some of what we need 3 ways: by recognizing the problem for what it is, and then by grasping both an empowering hint from the past and an empowering hope from the future.

First, we have to recognize that the problem of tragedy, injustice and suffering is a problem for everyone no matter what their beliefs are. Now, if you believe in God and for the first time experience or see horrendous evil, you rightly believe that that is a problem for your belief in God, and you’re right – and you say, “How could a good and powerful God allow something like this to happen?”

But it’s a mistake (though a very understandable mistake) to think that if you abandon your belief in God it somehow is going to make the problem easier to handle. Dr Martin Luther King, Jr., in his Letter from Birmingham Jail says that if there was no higher divine Law, there would be no way to tell if a particular human law was unjust or not. So think. If there is no God or higher divine Law and the material universe is all there is, then violence is perfectly natural—the strong eating the weak! And yet somehow, we still feel this isn’t the way things ought to be. Why not? Now I’m not going to get philosophical at a time like this. I’m just trying to make the point that the problem of injustice and suffering is a problem for belief in God but it is also a problem for disbelief in God—for any set of beliefs. So abandoning belief in God does not really help in the face of it. OK, then what will?

Second, I believe we need to grasp an empowering hint from the past. Now at this point, I’d like to freely acknowledge that every faith – and we are an interfaith gathering today – every faith has great resources for dealing with suffering and injustice in the world. But as a Christian minister I know my own faith’s resources the best, so let me simply share with you what I’ve got. When people ask the big question, “Why would God allow this or that to happen?” There are almost always two answers. The one answer is: Don’t question God! He has reasons beyond your finite little mind. And therefore, just accept everything. Don’t question. The other answer is: I don’t know what God’s up to – I have no idea at all about why these things are happening. There’s no way to make any sense of it at all. Now I’d like to respectfully suggest the first of these answers is too hard and the second is too weak. The second is too weak because, though of course we don’t have the full answer, we do have an idea, an incredibly powerful idea.

One of the great themes of the Hebrew Scriptures is that God identifies with the suffering. There are all these great texts that say things like this: If you oppress the poor, you oppress to me. I am a husband to the widow. I am father to the fatherless. I think the texts are saying God binds up his heart so closely with suffering people that he interprets any move against them as a move against him. This is powerful stuff! But Christianity says he goes even beyond that. Christians believe that in Jesus, God’s son, divinity became vulnerable to and involved in – suffering and death! He didn’t come as a general or emperor. He came as a carpenter. He was born in a manger, no room in the inn.

But it is on the Cross that we see the ultimate wonder. On the cross we sufferers finally see, to our shock that God now knows too what it is to lose a loved one in an unjust attack. And so you see what this means? John Stott puts it this way. John Stott wrote: “I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?” Do you see what this means? Yes, we don’t know the reason God allows evil and suffering to continue, but we know what the reason isn’t, what it can’t be. It can’t be that he doesn’t love us! It can’t be that he doesn’t care. God so loved us and hates suffering that he was willing to come down and get involved in it. And therefore the Cross is an incredibly empowering hint. Ok, it’s only a hint, but if you grasp it, it can transform you. It can give you strength.

And lastly, we have to grasp an empowering hope for the future. In both the Hebrew Scriptures and even more explicitly in the Christian Scriptures we have the promise of resurrection. In Daniel 12:2-3 we read: Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake….[They]… will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and…like the stars for ever and ever. And in John 11 we hear Jesus say: I am the resurrection and the life! Now this is what the claim is: That God is not preparing for us merely some ethereal, abstract spiritual existence that is just a kind of compensation for the life we lost. Resurrection means the restoration to us of the life we lost. New heavens and new earth means this body, this world! Our bodies, our homes, our loved ones—restored, returned, perfected and beautified! Given back to us!

In the year after 9-11 I was diagnosed with cancer, and I was treated successfully. But during that whole time I read about the future resurrection and that was my real medicine. In the last book of The Lord of the Rings, Sam Gamgee wakes up, thinking everything is lost and discovering instead that all his friends were around him, he cries out: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead! Is everything sad going to come untrue?”

The answer is YES. And the answer of the Bible is YES. If the resurrection is true, then the answer is yes. Everything sad is going TO COME UNTRUE.

Oh, I know many of you are saying, “I wish I could believe that.” And guess what? This idea is so potent that you can go forward with that. To even want the resurrection, to love the idea of the resurrection, long for the promise of the resurrection even though you are unsure of it, is strengthening. I John 3:2-3. Beloved, now we are children of God and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope purify themselves as he is pure.” Even to have a hope in this is purifying.

Listen to how Dostoevsky puts it in Brothers Karamazov: “I believe like a child that suffering will be healed and made up for, that all the humiliating absurdity of human contradictions will vanish like a pitiful mirage, like the despicable fabrication of the impotent and infinitely small Euclidean mind of man, that in the world’s finale, at the moment of eternal harmony, something so precious will come to pass that it will suffice for all hearts, for the comforting of all resentments, of the atonement of all the crimes of humanity, of all the blood that they’ve shed; and it will make it not only possible to forgive but to justify what has happened.”

That is strong and that last sentence is particularly strong…but if the resurrection is true, it’s absolutely right. Amen.

Tim Keller

Right now I am listening to Leadership Network’s (LN) The NINES conference. One of the most common leadership axiom’s through the conference is the important of “Why” before “How,” especially on the topic of “How to Gracefully Kill a Church Program.”

Four years ago, I worked with LN leaders to articulate their Vision Frame. One side of the frame is the organization’s deepest “Whys” or values. Here is where they landed. One of the first new initiatives that grew out of this work was The NINES.

What are the top 4-6 guiding values for you?

It was great to be in Vegas this week with Vince Antonucci at the Vault Conference. Vince planted a church there a few ago right on the strip, called Verve.

Here are downloads I promised to workshop attenders:

KINGDOM CONCEPT

• PASSION: Apostolic Esprit Questions

• PEOPLE: Collective Potential Questions

• PLACE: Local Predicament Questions

• Kingdom Concept Worksheet

• Kingdom Concept Diamond Summary

VISION FRAME

• Vision Frame Overview

• Articulating Vision Spider Diagram

• Graphic Visual Summary Link

I believe the small group experience with Will Mancini will prove to be one of the single most significant chapters in the life of The 360 Church. After devouring the book (Church Unique) three times, the co::Lab process allow us to take the words from the page and have dialogue and real-time assessment.

My encouragement to other pastors and leaders is simply this: Do it! Actually, do it now! Through the co::Lab process, we have defined who God has uniquely made our local church to be and equal to this, we have learned how to articulate the vision so that it lives, literally, in every nook and cranny of our ministry.

Steve McCoy, pastor of The 36O Church in Sarasota, Florida

I am really looking forward to leading the next vision small group that begins on September 13.  There is some general information you can click thru to at the end of this post, but I wanted to share a more personal note first.

We refer to the virtual vision small group as the Virtual co::Lab. It is an adaptation of the on-site Vision co:Labs that we do in certain cities across the US. The “co::Lab” idea represents a continuous and collaborative (hence the double colon) laboratory to focus on your vision.

We initially adapted this to help those who were in distant cities. But after two years, and a great response from leaders, it is a method we will continue to celebrate and use. While we have several consultants on our team at Auxano, it is my joy to lead this group personally. I limit the group to eight participants at a time in order to form a collaborative learning community and allow for focused coaching during the process. If you are interested please let me know as this group fills up quickly.

WHO ATTENDS THE GROUP

• Church Planters
• Network Leaders
• Senior pastors
• Staff pastors
• Denominational coaches and consultants
• Church consultants from different specialty areas

GROUP PURPOSE

• Take your ministry through a formal vision process in sync with the group
• Drip concepts of vision and strategy into ongoing, daily leadership
• Equip yourself as a coach or consultant on vision
• See this as continuing education as you go deeper with the book Church Unique

FORMAT OF THE GROUP

We will meet 2x per month as a group.

• The first monthly meeting is a 2-hour webinar. You will see me on video and walk through content, tools and training all in a chat enabled format.
• The second monthly meeting is a 90-minute conference call. This part is optional and designed for a Q&A roundtable and troubleshooting.

I will meet with you, one-on-one, for a one-hour coaching call. We typically do these at the end of the process but you can schedule yours whenever you want.

DATES

The monthly co::Lab webinars are the only component we have calendared in advance. The calls are 2:00 – 4:00 central time (this allows good timing for all time zones) on Thursday afternoons on the follow dates:

• September 13
• October 18
• November 15
• December 13
• January 31
• March 14

TOOLS YOU GET

• One copy of Church Unique
• One copy of the Vision Deck ($80 retail value)
• A set of process tools we use for onsite vision work
• A notebook for a set of handouts and worksheets for each session

INVESTMENT

The coaching fee for the entire co::Lab is $1,800.

NEXT STEPS

• If you are interested, you can print and fax or e-mail back the signature and billing page from this coaching agreement form: CU_Virtual_2012_fall_
• Here is a link with more info on the Church Unique Vision co::Lab

Thanks and I look forward to getting to know you!

The co::Lab group experience  was a game-changer for our church plant. The whole process was like a prolonged look in the mirror to really see who God had made us to be and then a nudge to put every bit of creativity, planning, and effort into strategically living out that call. We now have great unity about how we fulfill our mission and what it looks like to succeed! Thankfully, WordServe Church will never be the same because of our co::Lab experience!

Nolan Donald, pastor of  WordServe Church in Katy, TX