Refresh vs Rebrand, Which is Right for Your Church?

I recently reconnected with a distant cousin who was just starting a new role as a Worship Pastor in Texas. He had been immediately tasked with redesigning the church bulletin and some other collateral - a classic “worship-leader-becomes-graphic-designer” scenario. But he found something totally unexpected. More on that in a minute. See, my cousin had started with an audit of the church bulletin. It was bad. I’m talking 1990s clip-art, 10 different fonts, and a migraine-inducing layout. Then he looked at the rest of the campus. Signage looked different in every hallway, and anything designed had that general “patched together” kind of vibe. The pastors all knew this stuff needed a redesign. The church had a logo people had grown to love and brand equity that was worth preserving. But without clear guidelines in place, things had slipped into visual inconsistency - badly. So, I asked them a simple question: “Have you thought about brand guidelines?” Their response? “No, but now we’re interested!” Until that moment, they had been focusing on the immediate problems that were painful, but they were treating the symptoms, not the disease. I explained to them how a brand refresh often benefits churches in their exact position. When you refresh your branding and put together brand guidelines, you’re not looking to reinvent the wheel or start from scratch. Instead, the goal is to bring clarity and consistency to what you already have. This is about making sure everything from bulletins to digital media feel like it belongs to the same church family. A brand audit and fresh set of guidelines can be perfect for maintaining the identity people recognize while elevating your overall quality and professionalism of communication. Neither my cousin nor I had expected this, but the church hired me on the spot, and we’re getting to work together to unify and future-proof their church branding. True story! If that’s something you’re thinking about for your brand, book a call with me and we can talk more about how to represent the work God is doing in the life of your church.

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.

Cracker Barrel’s catastrophic rebrand would have been hard to miss because of the public outrage and backlash it got (of course I picked the exactly WRONG time to take a break from writing this newsletter). But the reason their new logo caught so much viral hate has a direct application to church branding, so humor me while we explore it for a moment. Here’s my hot take: The new logo perfectly captured Cracker Barrel’s identity. Before you cancel me in the comments, let me convince you why this is the case. Think back to 6 months ago. If you had asked a thousand people what they thought about the Cracker Barrel logo, what response would you have gotten? Probably something along the lines of, “I mean… it’s fine I guess. Never really thought about it.” Most people would have been apathetic or ambivalent at best. Maybe a few design-conscious souls would have said “eh, there’s probably some room for improvement.” So, why did this particular rebrand trigger so much nationwide, seething outrage? Some news outlets blamed “conservatives who don’t like change” and others said it was about the people rebelling against modern minimalism and oversimplification. But consider an alternate timeline: Cracker Barrel hires design firm to help them update their existing brand Design firm looks at Cracker Barrel’s history, core customer base, and the values they were built on Design firm comes up with a cleaner and more modern take on the logo, keeping the country charm and home-grown heritage that it represents Cracker Barrel slowly rolls out the new brand, leading with context around the need to update and their unchanged values/identity In this scenario, I’d be surprised if anyone bats an eye. Maybe they notice that the billboards are easier to read, or that the menu design feels a bit more vibrant and fresh than it used to. No headlines! No mockery! Nothing! But here’s the thing: it wasn’t a new logo that upset people. Cracker Barrel’s customers felt betrayed by what the new logo represented. The new branding signaled a fundamental change in the identity of Cracker Barrel, from a quirky, homey spot for comfort food and checkers to a corporate sellout chain with politically correct messaging and token vegan options. In my opinion, the new (now cancelled) logo did TOO GOOD of a job representing what Cracker Barrel had become — a woke corporation like everyone else. This visual accuracy ended up being the downfall of the rebrand, to the detriment of the company’s stock prices and consumer confidence. Here’s the takeaway: Your church logo isn’t your brand. Your brand is the story, meaning, and gut feelings that people associate with you. Build your brand on the three pillars of a church brand: Christ, Congregation, and Community.

If you’re looking at getting new signs or updating your building, don’t miss this opportunity to update your branding as well! It’s one thing for a sign to look nice and be functional, but branding and design has the power to do much more than just help people find the nursery. Every bulletin, banner, and coffee cup is an opportunity to shape the culture of your church through intentional, vision-aligned branding that stands the test of time. If that’s your ultimate goal, then updating your signs without rebranding first would be a massive waste of time and money! Schedule a time to talk and I’ll walk you through what a brand refresh could look like, so you don’t have to re-do your signs AGAIN in a couple of years.

Let’s talk about First Baptist Aurora. This was a church that once thrived but found itself dwindling in numbers and energy. That is, until Pastor Robert stepped in with a vision to create a community where high school dropouts and doctors, recovering addicts and homeschool moms, could all worship side by side. He wanted people to feel like they truly belonged. The church started to grow again, but there was a problem: their visual identity didn’t match the new life happening inside the walls. So, I partnered up to help them rebrand. Two words shaped our entire process: historic and urban. We pulled colors from the church’s own brick, molding, and stained glass to create a palette that felt timeless yet fresh. The church’s beautiful stained glass windows inspired a modern logo and sparked a key design element: the arch. We used arches everywhere, from logos and icons to social media graphics, creating a look that felt unified and deeply tied to the building’s architecture and story. The result? A brand that bridges the old and the new. Today, First Baptist Aurora has not just a growing congregation but a clear sense of identity. Visitors connect more quickly, and the leadership has tools to keep building momentum. Here's the takeaway for pastors: A good rebrand isn’t just about looking pretty! It’s about helping people see what God is doing in your ministry are and inviting them to be a part of it. P.S. You can see the full case study here, including our in-depth process and more images/video.

I recently got on the phone to catch up with an old friend who I hadn’t talked to in 10 years. We’ll call him Dave. Dave had been a pastor of a large church back when I knew him, and since then he had also spent 5 years as the president of a large nonprofit ministry. Eventually the Lord had called him back into the pastorate and he faithfully obeyed. Despite being a sought-after preacher with decades of experience at larger churches, Dave followed the Holy Spirit’s leading and humbly accepted a role as the pastor of a small rural church in the deep south. And when I say small, I mean SMALL… The Dying Church Revives When he started, the church was on the verge of dying. Their small community had been hit hard by COVID and the congregation had been let down by previous leadership. Dave told me there were some Sundays that his wife and children accounted for more than half of the total attendees. So we’re talking about teens or single-digit attendance most Sundays. Through preaching the word and ministering with a multi-generational, discipleship-oriented model, God started a new work in this church. Over 4 long years, they slowly grew into a thriving congregation once more. Week after week, Dave would faithfully preach the Word, and the next week more would come. He started to see faces show up on Sunday morning that nobody in the congregation recognized. He didn’t know how they had found the church on the country backroad where it was located, but there they were nonetheless — hungry for the gospel. By 2025, the church had grown to 100-120 members. They experienced a season of weekly baptisms, people getting saved, lives being visibly transformed by the gospel. Praise God! So, Dave was familiar with my branding work, and he was curious what my branding process looks like for a church that size, and if I had any recommendations for them. Of course I shared my process with him, and I had reviewed the church’s website so I knew a bit about what branding they had done up to that point. I told him, “look I’m probably not in your church’s budget right now, but if you keep growing I would love to help you develop your brand and start reaching beyond your local community.” He was understanding of that and I started to mentally wrap up the conversation. The Problem But Dave suddenly stopped me and said, “Braden, there’s something else I need to ask you about…” I could hear the concern and uncertainty in his voice. Now keep in mind that I haven’t talked to Dave in 10 years, and we’ve had no other interactions that I’m aware of except through Facebook. So my mind is suddenly racing — What could he possibly want? “Yeah… um… ask away.” “I don’t mean to sound conceited, so please don’t hear it as that, but I’ve 30 years of all different kinds of ministry, preaching, and speaking experience…” It’s true — Dave was an exceptional communicator. He went on. “I feel stuck… I have so much I preaching leftover each week to share with more people than just my congregation” This church didn’t livestream or record his sermons due to their small size, and he had started to realize that this was handicapping his personal ministry. Without recent sermon recordings to share, Dave was missing opportunities to speak at conferences and partner with other churches to help with revivals. Because he was very pastorally-minded, he had all this content that was ready to publish under his own personal ministry, but no way to get it out there into the world.

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.

I want to share a quick story to illustrate the danger of cognitive blind spots. Every night, we bring our 7 goats, 20 chickens, and two dogs inside a perimeter of electric netting. I could do this routine blindfolded in my sleep. But this time something was different, and I almost missed it. To power the fence, we have a switch and an energizer mounted next to a hay bale, but what I almost didn’t notice was that the fence charger had disappeared. I flipped the switch on and turned toward the house when I heard a quiet “click” sound coming from the ground, under a pile of hay. The energizer had been knocked off its mount and was totally concealed under loose hay and straw. I was so used to my routine that I didn’t even notice when something critical was missing. Here’s the point: Something can be wrong or missing right under our noses, and we don’t notice because we aren’t looking for it. It’s why people bring in outside perspectives, and it’s how I’m able to help churches with their design and branding. If you’re not keeping tabs on everything all the time, or if you don’t know what to look for, you’ll probably miss something.