Accidentally Sending the Wrong Message

A pastor scheduled a call with me last month to talk about a new congregation his church is planting next year. I can’t tell you the name right now, but it was a church who was running over 500 and was starting to struggle with shaping the culture and collective mission of that many people. If they didn’t get their branding and a visual identity in place before the plant, rebranding would have just gotten more expensive and difficult. They didn’t want to miss the opportunity but they lacked the confidence to rebrand with their internal team alone. Where do you start? To even begin a branding project, we needed to figure out the problem they were trying to solve. Did this church need to… REFRESH their existing brand? REPOSITION their identity under a new vision? or REACH OUT with their message? The church had just undergone a name church that was being announced later in the year. Their leaders were trying to cast a vision that was outward-focused and kingdom-minded. At first, this made me think it was a REACH OUT case, but the more I dug in, the more I realized what they actually needed was to REPOSITION. Why? Well, let’s look at their goals. The outward focus was a culture they wanted to create in their church body. While they ultimately wanted to reach out with their message (all churches should), they couldn’t do that effectively until they first grounded their church in a collective vision that included more than just their immediate membership. Their brand didn’t reflect the long term vision for the church, and it needed to visually align before both congregations could shift their focus to their region and community. Hopefully you can see how the REPOSITION approach was needed for this case. Instead of jumping in trying to scale up misaligned branding, we needed to build on their values and rework the brand identity from the ground up.

How do you describe and brand your church without scaring visitors away or pretending to be something you’re not? Pastors will try, and most of the time the result is something like “We’re a church for everyone.” Or in more words, “We’re a welcoming community of people who love God and want to see the gospel reach every nation.” That’s great - so is every other Protestant church! This is a mistake I see pastors making all the time with their distinctives - stop it! What church leaders are trying to communicate (most of the time) is something like “we won’t turn you away because you’re different,” or “we’re welcoming and not judgmental.” But being hospitable and welcoming are just general marks of a Christian community, not distinctives. It’s great that you can say those things about your church, but they’re not something your congregation will rally around. Those things don’t give people a sense of unique belonging or identity, because they describe every other church. When you say, “We’re a church for everyone,” what you’re actually saying is, “We don’t know who we are.” I can hear some of you thinking “But we’re just your average church. The only thing distinctive about us is our street address!” I’m not saying you should pretend to be something you’re not. And I’m also not saying that every church should be trying to put their own spin on the gospel. Here’s my point: God is uniquely using your church to reach a specific group of people who are, by definition, not “everyone.” Rather than blurring the edges of that calling to be more inclusive or not scare people away, lean into it! Be known for your distinct church identity!

Let’s Imagine a young couple building a house. They’ve worked with a builder and picked a colonial style for the exterior. It has the white columns and the wide porch with two rocking chairs. It has the tall windows and the warm wood trim. But suppose this couple is handy and has decided to finish off the interior on their own, with the help of YouTube University. They browse Pinterest for inspiration and find a style of rustic modern kitchen to set their hearts on (you know the kind I’m talking about - with the subway tile, white marble countertops, and stainless steel accents). Then, in their hunt for inspiration, they come across those industrial living spaces with exposed brick and black steel. They haven’t begun to feel overwhelmed yet, and so they save this style for their living room. One Pinterest board at a time, they add layers of paint colors, textures, and styles to the interior plans. Before they know it, the inside of the house looks like a Picasso: an uncomfortable collage of pieces that would otherwise be beautiful on their own. It’s easy to fall into this trap with any kind of design, and branding is no exception. Before someone starts piecing together visuals for their church, the smart thing to do is to consult a designer who specializes in brands and get a set of guidelines nailed down. We have names for styles because certain textures, colors, and shapes work together to create a particular curb appeal. Switch it up too often, and curb appeal turns into confusion.

If you’re a church that does sermon series graphics, then you might have struggled with how far to push the envelope in those visuals. Do you download the latest free template from Free Church Media or Ministry Designs dot com? Do you design them in-house? For us creatives, it’s enticing to explore and use new visuals every few months. But I want to encourage you to curb that impulse. Here’s why: Those unbranded templates and graphics can ultimately work against your brand. But wait, they’re not permanent - what’s so bad about them? Over time, these graphics become part of your brand, whether you like it or not. Using templates that are fun, fresh, and modern might feel like a good way to keep things interesting, but over time that variety adds up into noise. Over time, too much variety accumulates into noise. Instead of your sermon graphics reinforcing your brand, they can start to pollute it. They start to appear disjointed and random when you sample them as a whole. To protect your brand, you need a common thread woven throughout. This is why brand guidelines are so important. They provide a fixed scope for visual styles. Robust brand guidelines will tell you not only what that common thread is, but how it should be integrated in different contexts. If you’re worried about your sermon graphics polluting your brand rather than reinforcing it, check your brand guidelines to see if there’s a way to bring that free template into alignment. If you don’t have brand guidelines, consider having some created. It’s a great way to get the most out of your existing logo and can help you add variety to your church’s communications, without feeling random.

Your logo isn’t a brand, nor is the name of your church a brand. Your color palette, word mark, fonts, and church website aren’t your brand either. These things only serve to ASSOCIATE your church with the big idea that is your message. Make this association enough times with enough people, and NOW you have a brand. Think about it like this: Branding is the vehicle for your message. It’s the wrapper! The packaging won’t change the chemical make up of the burger, but it can still make the burger taste better, and turn a meal into an experience worth sharing. So, to answer the question how much branding does a church need, the answer is none. None? Right. If you don’t have that big idea clarified and nailed down, you can design the most beautiful identity system and logo in the world and not have a brand.

In the last post, I looked at how vocabulary contributes to a cohesive verbal identity, and can be useful for a church trying to elevate their communications. Today, we’re on to the second part of a verbal identity: tone of voice. Now with AI tools, tone of voice guidelines are even more incredibly useful. Just ask this pastor I worked with on a recent rebrand. He was writing content for a connect card they could use to gather information from visitors, and he was blown away by how helpful it was to have a brand tone of voice. “Bro, ChatGPT is crazy cool… I put in the tone description from our brand guidelines, and it gave me all kinds of good options!” Here’s the tone description he was talking about: “Our tone is bold yet humble—serious about truth, passionate about people, and always inviting others into something real. We speak with clarity, conviction, and warmth, aiming to reflect both the reverence of our faith and the relational heart of our church.” If you saw a social media post with exclamation points, emoji’s and emotional word choice, you would probably expect a passionate, informal, and loud worship service on Sunday morning. Now, what if you showed up to that church and found a conservative Presbyterian church with organ-led hymns and a serious vibe. Would you be confused? Inconsistent writing style can even leave visitors with a subtle feeling of being confused or tricked, rather than edified. In the end, looking the part is critically important, but your visuals are ultimately just the vehicle for what can only be communicated through written (or spoken) words.

In a church rebrand project, I tend to focus mainly on designing the congregation’s visual identity. However, there’s a key part of branding that doesn’t always get as much attention, which I’ve started including in the church brand guides I create. That piece is a verbal identity. A consistent writing style is crucial in church communications, and I’m breaking it down into its two fundamental parts today. If the content of your bulletin reads dramatically different from the content of your website, which reads different from your social media, then your overall message won’t land with the same impact. So, let’s look at the two key facets of a verbal identity: vocabulary and tone of voice. Brand Vocabulary The words you choose to use in official church creative work and communication should be a reflection of who you are speaking to, and how you want them to view you. Here’s an example of brand vocabulary guidelines: “In our church communications, we occasionally use words like ‘y’all’ and ‘fixin’ to identify with our main demographic of ranchers and homesteaders here in rural Oklahoma. These words should not be overused in a cliche way, but should be sprinkled in to add warmth and familiarity to our written copy.” In the next post, I’ll look at the other facet of a verbal identity: tone of voice.

A good friend of mine who used to be a youth pastor just opened up the first brick-and-mortar location for his fly fishing business. It got me thinking about how Jesus made his disciples to be fishers of men (Matthew 4), which, in those days, called to mind an image of casting nets. But what about using a lure? Is it appropriate to “bait” people toward the gospel by making our visuals flashier and our colors brighter in the name of more effective man-fishing? My conclusion is no. Well, usually no. Jesus’ model of evangelism and ministry was markedly NOT seeker-sensitive. If your goal with church branding is to baptize marketing trends and tactics, you’ll be surprised at how few people stick around and put down roots in your congregation. What you win them with is what you win them to. That’s why a brand based on vision and congregational identity can last for decades, while a brand based on cultural relevance and eye candy feels like a “bait and switch.” For my friend, tying flies started as a hobby on the side. He would source exotic materials and study the quirks of different fish species to create unique flies that looked more fine art than fishing gear. These things were beautiful. It’s not wrong to build beautiful buildings, design beautiful logos, or lean into an aesthetic. Those are good things, and they can help to attract people to a church. But those people should be there for what the brand represents, not the brand itself. A well-crafted and positioned brand is a beautiful, visual manifestation of your church’s identity and mission, not a flashy lure.

Let's say your brand’s hero color was a bright red. Your wayfinding signs should be red to be on-brand, right? Not so fast! Would you put a bright red couch in your living room? What about multiple bright red paintings throughout your home? Again, probably not. For environmental signage and way-finding, we have to think more like interior designers and accessibility experts than graphic designers. Earlier in the rebrand process, we had developed a brand color palette for this particular church with a dark charcoal color we called “Forge Black.” Using this darker, more neutral color as the main background was a good choice for three reasons: It wouldn’t clash with the paint, flooring, and other interior colors of the building. It wouldn’t show dirt as easily as a lighter color. It would allow for the most legibility and contrast for the text. As you can see, we did bring in the red hero color, but only in a very intentional, minimalist way. Even the logo on the signs was intentionally subdued and understated to make room for more important information, like “¿donde esta el baño?”

If you go read online, ask ChatGPT, or just generally do color-related research, you know how big of a topic color really is. If you’re like me, it can leave you feeling a little… lost? People have written books and given 2 hour lectures on color theory, color psychology, digital color management, and everything in between. Even just scratching the surface can feel completely overwhelming. You might be thinking, “It feels like I should be using these principles, but how do I actually put them into practice for my church?” Even after reading my work specifically about church brand colors, it might not be clear how to actually apply this knowledge to your specific needs. And at end of the day, color is just one piece of the puzzle. That’s where having a personal guide can be a total game changer. With someone to make objective recommendations and help you avoid common mistakes, not only will you save time, you’ll save the headache of having to rethink your branding decisions in a few years. Ideally you would want this person to be a proven expert who loves the capital “C” Church and has a strong track record of branding success stories. If you’re looking for that kind of guidance, I’ve spent countless hours meeting with church leaders and translating their gut feelings into concrete messaging and visuals. I know the struggles and hurdles pastors face when nailing down exactly how their church should look, speak, and feel. Book a strategy call with me and I’ll talk with you one-on-one about what your goals are, the context your church is in, and how you can make your branding fit without the DIY headaches. See you there!

Bonus 1: Use a color palette tool Creating, adjusting, saving and sharing color palettes isn’t actually all that easy. That’s where a color palette website can be invaluable. I mentioned this website up above called Coolors. When I first discovered it, I thought “where have you been all my life?!” Unlike most color websites out there, this one lets you do much more than browse and save color palettes. You can visualize your color palette in different contexts, do global adjustments to the whole palette at once, extract colors from an image, and even use a huge library of unique color names. They didn’t sponsor me, but I really like using it. Maybe you will too. Bonus 2: Ignore CMYK and Pantone …unless you’re working with a pro, that is. When I create a brand guide for a client, I include CMYK and Pantones as a nice addition, fully expecting that they will never be used. Almost all print shops and vendors these days have automatic conversion between color spaces that is usually reliable, accurate, and consistent. Even if you’re having screen printed t-shirts made or running off thousands of flyers, Pantone and CMYK values are only helpful in very specific situations. Long story short, HEX codes are probably all you need. P.S. This week I’m focusing on church brand color selection principles, which I’ve gathered the hard way from years of church rebrands. If you want the complete guide, I’ve collected all of the principles into a single post here.

Using tints and shades is a powerful way to get more mileage out of your visual identity without adding new base colors. What this means for color selection is that you don't have to worry about that exact palette working in every possible scenario. A tint is a lighter version of the same color. Shades are darker versions of the same color. Tint = Base color + white (lighter version) Shade = Base color + black (darker version) While you might not need them in everyday use (especially with a professionally designed color palette), there are situations where your standard set of base colors are going to clash or look too opinionated. For example, a limited color palette might handicap your web designer. Because websites are interactive and display lots of information in different formats, they often call for a suite of neutral colors, ranging from dark to light. You might also find that a particular color works well online and in print, but is too strong and vibrant for apparel. A tint or shade of that color might make for a more wearable and fashion-friendly t-shirt than the original swatch. If your palette feels incomplete or you’re looking for good supporting colors, consider using tints or shades of your core colors to round it out. P.S. This week I’m focusing on church brand color selection principles, which I’ve gathered the hard way from years of church rebrands. If you want the complete guide, I’ve collected all of the principles into a single post here.