In An Abundance of Creative Counselors, Chaos?

Many of us - perhaps all of us - have “that” libertarian uncle. Mine lives in a tiny off grid house he built himself in the woods. Sometimes I think he might be smarter than all of us. Last week was a rare occasion I got to see this uncle, and he told me something I had never heard in my life about how trees grow. Not all trees, but many species we have here in North America, grow very slowly during the first phase of their life - just a few inches per year. Then later in life, the tree will shoot up at a rate of two feet or more per year. That’s only half of the story though. What you don’t see during those early years is the root system spreading far, deep, and wide. Only after establishing its root system and being presented with the right conditions will the tree begin to grow rapidly. Tending your brand is a lot like this. Building a brand is slow work, that takes steady effort over months and years. There are very few obvious indicators of progress in the early stages, and it can feel like you’re not getting anywhere. This is when most people turn to a quick, copy-and-paste logo redesign or a new initiative to get people excited. My encouragement to you is to keep up the intentional branding, invest the time and money, and wait patiently to see it bear fruit in due season.

Whether you’re beginning to pastor at a new church, or graduating to a leadership role with more authority, you can expect a laundry list of things to take care of. Progress is slow-moving and happens in tiny increments, one battle at a time. Planning can turn into a battle itself, with unknowns and budget pressures building up as the weeks on the calendar roll along by. There are things you know you need to do, but you don’t have a clear path yet, so they linger in the back of your mind, popping up to the surface every so often to cause some anxiety before getting pushed back down by more immediate concerns. A rebrand is one of those things for a lot of pastors, which causes lurking, accumulating stress even a year out. Because I’ve walked through many a church rebrand, I offer consultations with pastors who are seeing a church rebrand on the horizon but aren’t quite ready to pull the trigger. It helps them feel prepared and ready so they can focus on other things until the moment is right. If that sounds like you, I’d be happy to chat - even if you’re still a ways out and aren’t ready to make a decision. Talking to a seasoned expert and solidifying a basic strategy can make all that anxiety go away. In fact, for many church leaders, the stress gets replaced by excitement. The big rebrand or new website goes from being a fog of uncertainty to being a light at the end of the tunnel. If you want that kind of clarity, you can book a consultation straight from my calendar, and we’ll build a plan for getting you to a stress-free, successful rebrand that lasts for decades.

Years ago when I first started freelancing, I was clueless about project management. If you asked me then how I made sure a project got done before the deadline, I would have said “Deadline? I didn’t think to ask!” Around the time I started running brand identity projects for churches, I realized my laissez faire approach wasn’t doing me any favors. So, I started working on systems and processes that would help creative projects run smoother and finish faster. At this point I’ve spent hundreds of hours on those systems and processes, and it’s been worth every second. Creating those project systems and processes, I didn’t have to start from scratch. I borrowed the best tricks from the organizations I’ve worked for, whose project management teams were coordinating 200+ projects per year and spending millions of dollars printing and publishing content. During my 8 years as a designer and art director, I’ve developed a razor sharp sense for creative project timelines and logistics. So, here’s my advice: Get someone with creative project experience on retainer (I offer one that’s geared especially for churches), or invest in a project management tool like Notion or ClickUp. Help your church creative projects look like a well-oiled machine, rather than an oil spill.

Let’s face it, keeping church creative projects on track is hard. Any of these sound familiar…? Event materials aren’t ready by the time registration opens. Sending another late Easter billboard design to the billboard company. Putting projects on next year’s budget because you know it won’t get done this year. It’s easy to get desensitized to delays, unmet deadlines… these problems just become a part of life. But the place they lead to is deadly for church leaders. That place is uncertainty. How can you set 1 year, 2 year, and 5 year goals if you don’t know how long each goal will take? Now, I’m not saying that you can absolute certainty about how long every new website change or signage update will take.. lots of factors contribute. But, most pastors don’t even have a ballpark idea of how long something like that should take. Imagine the difference it would make to be able to know when all your big creative projects will wrap up, even if you’re off by a couple of weeks every now and then. Rather than juggling deadlines and spec sheets with vendors and feeling out of your depth taking to volunteer designers, you could be spending quality time with your family, studying your sermon prep for Sunday, or reflecting on longer term goals. I’ll write more about creative project management for churches in the future, so stay tuned if you’re interested in that!

I recently helped a church rebrand where part of the new identity was the dreaded 👻name change 👻. The church was looking to plant a new congregation in a nearby community in the coming year, and they needed a name that could be shared between them, which was ultimately decided to be “Christ Redeemer.” Starting from scratch with the visual brand, I had nothing to draw on that would be familiar to their congregation. At many points in the project it was a toss up whether the pure excitement or raw terror would win out. Would the elders like the new design? Would seeing the logo concepts make them rethink everything? Would it fall on me if the congregation didn’t like the new name? These were the questions racing through my mind on the Sunday that the church’s leaders presented their new direction to the church as a whole. The next day I got a text from the worship pastor: “We showed the logo teaser and it was received very well. Some people were even teary-eyed.” “That’s great!” I thought. I kept reading. “But… a question came in via email that I’d like your help responding to.” Oh boy… Here was the question: “Hoping to learn about the decision regarding having the c in Christ lower case. I would like to understand this.” This was something we anticipated. For context, here’s the new logo they presented: {{ comp.video({ src:"/img/christ-redeemer-logo-presentation.mp4" }) }} Ultimately, here is the response we landed on: Thank you so much for engaging thoughtfully with the new logo. I love that you’re paying attention to these details—it shows real care for how we represent Christ and our church. You asked about the choice to use lowercase in the wordmark. That decision was intentional. The phrase “Christ Redeemer” is incredibly powerful—it’s really the gospel in two words. When we explored placing it in all caps, the effect was visually overwhelming, almost like the design was shouting. That led us to reflect on the paradox of Jesus himself: he had all power, and yet he did not come in power the way the world expected. Instead, he came in humility, laying down his life for us. We wanted the wordmark to hold that tension: strong yet humble, bold yet quiet. Lowercasing "christ redeemer" became a subtle way of embodying that paradox. As followers of Jesus, we’re called to the same kind of paradoxical life—living is dying, losing is gaining. If you’re interested, here’s a short article that explains some of the design thinking behind lowercase wordmarks in general: Why Some Logos Work Better in Lowercase. We found it helpful as part of our own process. It’s also worth noting: this is specifically a wordmark design choice. Whenever the church’s name appears in documents, online profiles, or other written settings, it will still be written as Christ Redeemer. Of course, the most important thing is not typography, but that our lives together point people to Jesus. The logo is just one small way we hope to embody that spirit. My hope is that every time we see it, it quietly reminds us that true greatness is found in humility, and true power in servanthood. Thanks again for raising the question—I’m grateful for your heart and your care for how we bear Christ’s name. Grace and peace, Hopefully this helps reframe changes and new chapters as an opportunity for pastoral care, rather than a bullet to be dodged! Be strong and courageous. In another post, I’ll outline the specific strategy we used to craft this letter, with explanations of why each section is there.

God’s narrative of redemption told through history has a clear central point: Christ. Throughout scripture we have hundreds of stories, genealogies, songs, and laws that seemingly have nothing to do with the man, Jesus of Nazareth. Still, we know that each one ultimately points to him. Lest someone accuse us of imagining layers of meaning that aren’t there, the Bible itself calls Christ the cornerstone of God’s redemptive plans for his people. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. — Ephesians 2:19-22 Christ is the cornerstone of the church. So how does this relate to church branding? Just like the ultimate and universally profound story God is telling in history, he is telling a nested story in your local congregation. Our job with branding and communications is to shine a light on how that micro-story plays a part in God’s macro-story. Making Christ the cornerstone of your communications means finding a memorable, own-able way to highlight God’s local work in your congregation to his global plans and purposes. Done right, every syllable and visual in your brand points back to the cross of Christ and the good news of the gospel. This means everything from your website headline to your logo should tell the same story, grounding your church in God’s archetypal story of redemption through Jesus. That’s why the first (and most critical) “C” of a kingdom-first brand is Christ.

In 2021, my wife and I moved back to our home town of Bartlesville, Oklahoma and joined the church we now call home - Hope Presbyterian Church. The church had hired a Ukrainian designer on Fiverr and got a fantastic logo design (it even won an award). But there was a problem… All they had was that logo. Their whole “brand” was limited to a gold color and a couple of webp’s. While the logo was aesthetically pleasing, it wasn’t enough to help their people “get” the mission. Each billboard, banner, and invitation card was inconsistent and time-consuming, even for the creative associate pastor. The more they tried to make their branding work in the real world, the more things got messy and out of alignment. Members with design experience were called on over and over again to come in and help “fix” designs, which always ended up being a band-aid for the real issue. What my home church went through is the result of a logo design without a true brand. They needed an easy-to-use branding toolkit with theological depth - one that would represent more than just the name of their church. A kingdom-first brand would have given their congregation ownership of the vision their leaders were casting, and would have attracted more visitors who resonated with the message they preached. And that’s why I stopped designing logos, and started developing kingdom-first brands instead.

As I’ve continued to go deeper into the branding and design industry, I’ve encountered something that is probably not just a hang-up for me, but for a lot of pastors and churches. If you do any research on marketing and branding, you’ll very quickly find lots of resources that are very focused on businesses. For example: “Speak to your ideal customer.” “Drive revenue with these marketing tips” “Create a story that makes customers keep coming back” The customer-centric, profit-driven approach can absolutely work for businesses, but for me, I’ve never felt like it applied well to the church. On one hand, you’re leading a congregation of believers who need to feel united around your vision. They need clarity, language, and visual cues that reinforce who you are as a church and where you’re going. When done well, branding can give your people something to rally around—a shared identity that goes deeper than a logo and helps every member see their role in the mission. But unlike a business, you’re not just trying to “sell” something to a customer. You’re also extending an open invitation to your community. These people are skeptics, seekers, and those who may not understand what your church is really about. For them, branding becomes a bridge. It’s the first impression that points them to Jesus Christ and communicates: This is a place for you. It signals your heart, your values, and the kind of welcome they can expect before they ever set foot inside. Where most churches struggle is trying to speak to both groups at the same time without a clear strategy. The result is confusion, inconsistency, and branding that unintentionally speaks more to insiders than outsiders… or vice versa. The approach I’ve developed in response to this problem is to make Christ the cornerstone of your brand. This seems obvious, but it’s truly countercultural when you compare it to how most agencies and designers work. I believe that a kingdom-first, vision-driven brand matters. It helps you communicate so your congregation is aligned and your community is invited, without compromise on either front.