Cognitive Blind Spots

It’s no secret that people remember images better than words. Studies show we can remember 65% of visual information after 3 days, compared to just 10% of written/spoken info. That’s a 6x increase in retention! But why does it matter for churches? Good question. Something I’ve learned is that a brand isn’t just a logo, colors, or fonts. A church brand is an opportunity to tell the story of what God has done and is doing in that local ministry. Said another way: your brand is the visual aid for people to easily remember what their church stands for, and the story God is telling there. This ties in closely to the examples we have in the Bible of when the Lord commanded that a monument be built to signify his mercy and might. In Joshua 4:1–10, God tells the Israelites to take twelve stones from the Jordan River and set them up as a memorial. This visual monument served as a lasting symbol to help future generations remember how the Lord miraculously stopped the river’s flow, allowing His people to cross on dry ground. These stones were set up intentionally as a tangible visual aid to reinforce the Israelites’ generational memory and faith. To add even more layers, God also instructs that twelve stones be used. Why twelve? To symbolize the twelve tribes who crossed over the Jordan that day. In the same way, designing an intentional brand identity with symbolism and permanence is the most powerful way to help your people remember their God-given identity as a body and look to Christ, week in and week out.

Strip everything away, give your church a generic name, and make the logo a cross. Go black and white with your color scheme. Congrats - you have a timeless brand! I’m being a little bit sarcastic, but there’s an element of truth here. Over-simplification is usually the fastest, easiest way to a truly “timeless” look. However, it’s not the only way. And for churches, it’s almost never the best way. The history of the world is timeless by definition, but definitely not simple. God’s creative and recreative work is anything but minimalistic. The way God works is simple but deep, focused but rich with meaning. So too is the story being woven together in your ministry, whether it’s 200 years old or a brand new church plant. What is God’s perspective of your church? If you want a timeless brand identity, this is the question you have to answer. Once you start narrowing it down, your logo colors and fonts become clear and easy choices. Rather than trying to become timeless by using Helvetica and no colors in your brand guidelines, you should be looking for ways to incorporate the truth of who God says you are as a congregation. Does it take more work and intentionality? Absolutely. Is it hard? Anything worth doing is.

I’m an extreme sports fan, and those who know me know that I would never pass up a chance to try one. Of course, I’m no Red Bull athlete, so it usually looks like me attempting the low-stakes version of whatever the true pros are doing. One of those sports I’ve casually enjoyed since high school is rock climbing, and believe it or not, there’s a nice analogy to branding here. In bouldering (climbing lower with no ropes above a crash mat), a route or particular climb is called a boulder problem. A beginner climber like me can climb any V1 boulder problem with ease and most V2s with moderate difficulty. Some V3 problems are too challenging at my skill level, while others are doable after a few attempts. (Don’t be too impressed - the scale goes up to V17). There was this one V3 problem giving me trouble on my last visit. I kept falling over and over, until I eventually felt so fatigued and frustrated that I gave up. Why am I sharing this story? I think it’s appropriate that they’re called “problems,” because they have a solution that takes more than brute force and raw strength to solve. They take strategy. All around me were more experienced climbers who could have showed me the trick to get past my sticking point. With their expert advice, I could have probably reached my goal with only a couple of tries. Even better, I probably could have learned tips from them for other problems too. Here’s the thing: If you want the fastest way to your goal, don’t be afraid to seek guidance from someone who’s done it before.

Every day around mid-morning, I take a bathroom break and that’s when I write these posts - gross I know, but it’s the perfect amount of time and I have no distractions (now you won’t be able to get that image out of your mind, so you’re welcome). Context aside, when I’m motivated and inspired it’s easy, but today I had some serious creative block of the “stare vacantly at a blank page and start the same sentence five times over” variety. I have a hunch this doesn’t just happen to creatives. Most of my readers are church leaders, I’ll wager that you probably experience that wall too. If so, maybe you can benefit from the two strategies I use to overcome creative block. 1. Short term strategy Exercise is my immediate strategy for overcoming it in the short term. I’ll go home after work, grab my dumbbells, and start lifting. Something about an intense workout stimulates my creativity and writing energy. However, that only works on that day, and if I can’t get a workout in, I’m in trouble. 2. Long term strategy My long term strategy to overcome creative block is to write daily. I used to think I didn’t have time for something recreational like writing, much less every day. But I realized that as long as I put it on the other side of something I enjoy more (chess puzzles), I could force myself to take 5-15 minutes and crank out a thought. Writing became a habit I was cultivating. Something you practice with regularity and discipline becomes easier and easier, and those creative block moments get fewer and farther between. Even when it takes a bit longer to get rolling, the groove is greased and the engine is still warm from yesterday. If there’s something you know you should be doing (maybe writing, maybe calling to check in on members, maybe something else) make it a small part of your daily routine and see how much you start feeling empowered when those “block” moments hit.

“All our digital and print stuff looks inconsistent, but I don’t know where to start fixing it.” “Our logo is good, but the rest of our branding is a mess!” Sound familiar? I’ve had more and more churches lately tell me this story. If that’s you, then the odds are you don’t need a full rebrand. Normally, I see rebrands working for churches who are in a pivotal moment - one that’s going to shape the identity of their congregation for a long time. Think about your church brand like a house. When you go for a full rebrand, it’s like you’re tearing that house down to the foundation and starting over from scratch. Sometimes this is the right call, especially when there are serious structural problems or the house doesn’t serve your needs. You’re changing a big part of the structure and framing out something new. Conversely, brand refreshes are for those who have a solid foundation and structure, but need a renovation. This is the chance for a church to fix leaks, re-do the kitchen, and get a new paint job. Sometimes all brand refresh calls for is just a set of brand guidelines with a few Canva templates. Other times it’s an intentional tweaking of the logo, and a redesign of everything else. The main idea behind the refresh is bringing that rogue branding into alignment. When you consider a refresh vs a rebrand, ask yourself, do we need a rebuild, or just a minor renovation?

A well-defined problem is the foundation of strategy. In other words, the clearer the problem, the easier it is to find a solution. Maybe you know your church needs brand work, or maybe you’ve done some already. But what problem is that work actually solving? I’m not talking about “our problem is that we have an old logo.” I’m talking about the “why” behind that, and the “why” behind that “why”, and probably even the “why” behind that. If you don’t know what your problem is at the outset, you’ll struggle to choose a strategy for solving it, and worse, you’ll not be sure how to measure success. One way is to identify the types of problem your brand is facing, and I want to share the three most common with you here. Most churches are trying to either… REFRESH their existing brand REPOSITION their brand under a new vision or REACH OUT with their message It would be great to have all of these at once, but my experience has been that you can really only do one of these at a time. So at your church, are you facing a refresh, reposition, or reach out problem? Figuring out which one you’re solving for is pretty easy, and I’ll break it down in a future post with a real-world church brand example.

Last weekend I decided to finally clean the garage. It was dirtier than I thought - filthy, actually. That’s why I was amazed when I finished the whole project in under 3 hours. When it comes to your church branding and design, there are probably some things that you’ve thought about cleaning up but have been wary of starting. What if it takes longer than you thought it would? What if it’s going to cost you money to fix? It can be easy to ignore these minor issues until they turn into bigger ones. The problem is that we often underestimate how bad things really are. If you looked into it, you might find that your website actually doesn’t work on certain browsers, or that there are 7 different versions of your logo floating around. This spring-summer season is a great time to clean up those divergent designs and maybe even do a light branding refresh. Tending your brand means addressing problems before they accumulate for too long, or it will quickly get out of control.

Last weekend, I went hiking in the Ouachita National Forest with a friend from church. It was my first time on that particular trail, but thankfully he had hiked this trail multiple times and knew it like the back of his hand, or so I thought. I started to get nervous when he stopped in his tracks and said, “I’ve never seen this bridge before.” He crossed the bridge and ventured on a little further. “I don’t remember passing through this open area.” We figured we had missed a fork in the trail, so we crossed back over the bridge and backtracked for a mile or two. No sign of a turnoff or any other indicators of another trail. We were forced to go back to the bridge again. At this point, we had hiked nearly 3.5 miles of detour, with nothing to show for it. What would have helped us avoid that unexpected pain? A guide who had brought others along that trail dozens of times. A map of the entire trail, with a “You Are Here” indicator. The reason I’m sharing this story is: My friend thought he remembered the trail, but there were critical things he had missed the first few times. Whether you’re hiking a secluded trail or rebranding, it’s smart to get expert insights and a proven roadmap before you waste time on detours and roadblocks. Thankfully, after exploring a bit more, we realized we were on the right path after all. We ended up having a great trip.